This project is aimed at promoting the voices of disabled youth through online media. The project will train 20 youth between the age of 16-24 years on leadership skills and basic journalism skills. The youth will then take lead in writing their own stories to inspire, and advocate for their rights through social media. Their stories will be published on a blog that themselves will be in charge of updating. The stories will capture various issues at the community level that affects these disabled youth either directly or indirectly.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Kinoni-Masaka-Lwengo District
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
In Rural Uganda a child born with a disability is destined for a life of dependency. For the poor this burden can be extreme. Disabled children can be a social, financial, mental and physical burden to their families. Through lack of voice, knowledge and skills of the family, disabled youth do not get the opportunities they need. Few opportunities exist in work places for youth with disabilities. With the growing population size and the lack of jobs, very few get paid employment. They are often confined in their homes and are dependent on their family for life. The effects of these experiences result into low aspirations, frustration and disappointment in life. Most of them have no access to computers let alone internet. I want to advocate for their voice using the online communities.
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
Quraish Mukasa- http://www.facebook.com/mukasa.quraish
Anna Nasasira- http://www.facebook.com/annanasasira
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
I envision a society where everyone can enjoy their rights and contribute to their development and reach full potential. The participants will create peer reviewed articles sharing their fears, experiences, dreams and aspirations, challenges, uploading their photos. The content will be geared towards changing the notion that “disability is not inability” within the online community to highlight the importance of economic and social participation as well as social support for the well being of young people with disability.
The participants will produce and document inspirational on their real life touching stories using video films, photography, and documentary through testimonies using the skills gained in trainings to raise awareness to the public and the online community on the need.
What technologies and digital tools do you plan to use in the trainings?
Describe the connections that you or your organization have already established or plan to establish that will contribute to the success of the project.
Community Outreach Africa is working in partnership with Kagganda Persons with Disabilities (Youth), Kagganda Youth Association and Lwengo District Persons with Disabilities Union in Lwengo district. All the participants or beneficiaries will be identified and assessed, monitored with the help of these two associations and the Union. The district disability Union with the support of the associations and others will help in advocacy at both the local and national level on the issue of concern. With their support and assistance in advocacy this project will be a success.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
Project seeks to train 20 direct participants. These trainings will be aimed empowering them with life and ICT skills, this means they are going to own the project since they will be the implementers right away from the beginning. From experience, when people own the project, then you are rest assured of its sustainability. Since no one wishes to lose what he or she initiated. The project will seek for technical advice, support and involvement from leaders at all levels of administrations and collaborating with key stakeholders like parents of the disabled youth, local leaders, and community volunteers, technical and political personnel at various levels of administration right from the planning to the implementation to ensure that the community owns the project and its outcomes.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
We shall use; Cameras, Internet, Microblogs (Twitter), Blogs, Media Sharing (YouTube), video clips, face-to-face interaction, Social Networking, phone SMS
The participants will gain valuable advice, develop your knowledge and skills, improve on their communication skills, learn new perspectives, build a network, and advance their career. They will learn leadership skills to gain personal sense of satisfaction and connections will be made. They will learn new ideas and also polish on what they knew would solve their challenges. The technology is cost effective and can be adopted by all participants and the entire community.Our Partners have a strong voice, so we expect advocacy for the project to take place at the different levels of stakeholder’s administrations like parish, sub counties
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
Place is accessible for persons with disabilities with pathways that can help them access the room, the room is wide enough to accommodate the trainings, with chairs and tables. The room has electricity; we have only one desktop computer and 1 laptop, 1 camera, 1 USB modem with speed 42mbps, Dial-Up-10.0mbps speed
What is your current relationship with the community with whom you plan to work? What makes you the most appropriate individual or organization to implement this project?
Community outreach Africa has been working with communities for a period of 5years, implementing different sustainable programs that are aimed at improving lives of vulnerable ones through a holistic approach. We have made commitments and connections to the communities– for example, we place a high value on community perspectives, knowing the community resources, being known and trusted in the communities, being savvy about leveraging community resources, being committed to recognizing and we are always striving to understand community issues, and dynamics. There will be more engaged in mentoring of other youth recruited from their peers especially girls. The first trained will take lead for the continuation of their blog and recruiting of new participants.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
• Slow learning for the disabled youth; since we are aware of the disabilities of some of these youth, the training will take four months to make sure that all youth can benefit from the trainings and also training on the paces of the learners, providing them with printed training materials so that they can read and relate with work and practical at their pace
• Political environment; in this case all the political leadership from different levels of administration will be taken as stakeholders, therefore, personalized interests will be avoided in the project planning and implementation
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
The project outcomes will be measured and evaluated through reviewing of articles written and posted by disabled youth, interviews with peers, caregivers and prospective employers who will and spend most of the time with these peers, feedback reviews by readers of the blog, and regular progress meetings with the peer facilitator. The well being of these disabled youth will be what we wish to achieve at the end of it all. When disabled youth improve on self esteem, confidence, continue with studies and employers or business owners start looking for them, then we will have achieved our overall project goal.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
The project is expected to take 4 months beginning the first week of June 2014 where the youth facilitator with the help of the partners will select the youth who will participate in the program two from each of 10-villages in the 2 sub-counties. Some youth may be attending school during week days, training, mentorship and counseling will take place every Saturday and Sundays afternoon for 4 to 5 hours. They will be grouped into two groups; Group-1 for out of school/unemployed and Group-2 in school disabled youth. Training will be continuous for Group-1 during week days and Group-2 on weekends. They will learn to document stories and publish them as articles on the common blog which they will be supported to start by the facilitator and the coordinator. They will then update and maintain it with the support of the facilitator and coordinator. In holidays,training will be on week days. The first trained will take lead for the continuation of their blog and recruiting of new participants
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
Mobilise, Train& plan $180
Procure hardware– computer sets (3) Pcs $540
Procure 1 digital Camera $120
Develop IEC materials for training $240
Supervise, Monitor Evaluate, Report $200
Internet access fee $180
Allowances for facilitator and coordinator $288
Total (in$) $1,748
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
The Rising voices can help us publicize the “Raising Voices to Cope Project” blog by having a link on their website and sharing it in many other international forums that may serve as the future advocacy tool, networking and strategic partnerships for this voiceless group. Being a community based organization and though being established since 2009, we are still growing with lots of challenges alongside our operations, our capacity, technical and institutional strength is still weak. Therefore capacity building support, technical support and institutional strengthening would be suitable support.
Contact name
John Bosco Ssenyondo
Organization
Community Outreach Africa