Pa Fokus is an online magazine dedicated to you, bridging experiences from urban to rural context through promoting media tools such and story telling. Another project paralleled with Pa Fokus is “Fol Shpejt” which in a sort of way develops everything the magazine develops in an online form through a more physically and direct experience with others and socializing. These two projects help the community in Albania, to gather up and keep updated about several feeds and activities that each of the cities and rural places are up to, also helps to promote an active citizenship.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Tirana
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
The population which we are targeting are specifically divided in two by two in each category:
First Category:
Are academics and teachers,
and those who are following a university degree or high schools
Second Category:
Are the previous categories but from different contexts, so in this case either from rural background or urban background.
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
So far our team is compound by six members:
Marin(me) as Graphic Designer/ General coordinator and Spokesman for both projects “Pa Fokus” & “Fol Shpejt”
Alketa: Editor in Chief Pa Fokus Magazine
Bruno: Responsible for Webdesign/ marketing strategy
Sindi: General secretary and project manager for “Fol Shpejt”
Kedis: Media responsible and photographer
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
Categories which are currently set and indexed in the magazines monthly issues.
Cultural Background:
– An index of Activities which people around different cities can participate or know about them.
Compass
– Different analyzes on different perspective of an issue and bringing different conceptualization of an issue from different background(rural to urban)
– The importance of Open Source in bridging experience around the country. Way how this movement is shaping the face on which the information is been delivered.
Fesh – Fesh
– A distance debating articles about issues on which most youngster(about women and other around the country(Awareness raisin)) dont have a voice and are excluded from having a say in the traditional media.
– Audio experience, or personal blog post
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.
The continuing of the Online Magazine called Pa Fokus.
– Include in its main (monthly, weekly, daily)activity news about urban or rural characteristics of life, trends, discussions, debates and cultural activities.
*The web site(updated information about the categories)
*Podcast (already translated letters and audiobooks, and lectures from the parallel activity called “Fol Shpejt”, poems, stories)
*Organizing a camp in merit of a work toward an open access of information aiming knowledge and self-accomplishing.
Overall Objective: Developing a strategy how to promote youngsters in the field technology and open access.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
40 participants,
Divided by west, east, south and north zones, mostly in areas that have shown a possibility to approach and implement this kind of activities(such as Fol Shpejt) and have direct and contentious ADSL or WiFi connection to read and participate in the online community of “Fol Shpejt” lectures and read the magazine Pa Fokus (practically mentors from Lezha, Shkodra, Lushnja, Durres and Vlora).
These cities are also the key points to everyone's talk due to their ability to offer geographical facilities and have a certain cultural and historical background.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
Marin Nikolli: Strong command in Dreamweaver, Muse, Indesign, Illustrator, Language of Programing: Titanium, Html5, Css, Assana(Project management tool).
Basic knowledge in: Photoshop.
Know how to: Publish and build online platforms for publishing, audio books, create a common environment for videos teaching and different tutorials, coordination.
Works mostly with Joomag(online publishing services for mostly creating interactive magazines), Dreamweaver for creating online content and a common environment of sharing information and downloading different content under the license of common creative, Google Drive, for online storage for the web and the online apps.
Alketa: Great Editor, grand plan builder, very devoted, a great sense of orientation and knowing what is to do.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
Faculty of Economics Tirana Conference Rooms(which we are currently having the activities of “Fol Shpejt”)
Youn-En(Youth and Environment) Offices that we share with another organization used mostly for workshops and trainings.
Online facilities such as chrome, mozilla, opera, etc.
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?
So far we have delivered several stories, about different causes regarding women's right, children right, we have tried to create a common environment for individuals suffering from disabilities by offering them audio books or audio letters of most important people in history, and movie summary translated by our staff; informal education, bridging Albanians around diaspora through opinions and writings and lectures in both projects Pa Fokus(magazine) and Fol Shpejt(activity).
So far we have a large network of individuals coming from different background and wanting to talk about the need of Open Source and Open Access to the education. Also we have our
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
There are two main challenges:
– One is the distribution of the information which will help the gathering of the materials which then will be presented through the two medias a) magazine Pa Fokus b)Fol Shpej.
this through would be possible or overcome by training mentors who will be the voice of each region.
– So that brings us to the second challenge which is that of finding committed educators. In order to overcome this challenge. For this we gone try to screen individuals that are from those cities and to train them to be their city representatives.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
First the magazine has two main measures of success:
– The help of google analytic and joomag to help and evaluate the reaching of the determined audience.
– The level of required attention to cover the activity of organization and individual that have a story to tell.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
Every month continuing and delivering the magazine to its reader through:
– Finding different stories that bridge experience from rural to urban context in Albania.
(Providing information about different possibilities in the urban context and vice versa in rural context – such as possibilities to attend to conferences, cultural activities, workshops, trainings, scholarships and not to forget to listen different experiences told through self recording. Promoting a strong self recording process in field such literature, audio blogs, and singing or chronicles.)
Every three month a preparatory workshop(mostly about how to impact on social media through a mass to later deliver a conference of Fol Shpejt (Speak To Speed), in the areas with cooperating host organization and government support, with lectures from both the rural context and those of urban one of selected city. These conferences are to be held in order to promote the capacity of each city on which these conference is held.
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
In Total:
Internet Access at the offices and environment which the Fol Shpejt will be delivered.
Workshop costs for the duration in which participants will participate.
Budget for the Operating Cost
2 day Training Workshop for 40 participants – 1,000 USD
inclusion: food, venue, honorarium for the trainors, workshop seminar
Travel expenses – 100 USD
Coordinator expenses – 100 USD
Fol Shpejt Activities in total(apart from those covered by the organizers) 1,600
Miscellaneous – 100 USD
Total of 2,500 USD
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
At the current moment the project is been self financed due to our devotion to open access and open source initiatives, such as is in this case the freedom to know what type of information to use in certain circumstances.
Nevertheless we have received(and continue to receive) several donation from third parties and other foundation that help us continue our mission, but mostly its our determination to have a better media that pushes us to fight for this.
Contact name
Marin Nikolli
Organization
MENV Group
