Proposals from April 13, 2014
DR of Congo: Faces and Voices of the DRC
The project will shed light on the under-represented stories of the DR Congo, those of hope, peace and strength. The campaign will use various forms of interactive media to change the prevailing narrative on Congo from the “heart of darkness” to one of hope and promise for the future. The project will be implemented firstly, via workshops, in partnership with Panzi Foundation DRC in Eastern Congo. Then, the project organizers will work with local women to accumulate media that highlights their strength and the promise of hope in Congo, to be shared in the digital world.
Palestine: Speaking Eyes
Speaking Eyes aims to train a group of young adult’s living in a conflict zone area of both genders ages 14-17 on how to express and document the stories and concerns of themselves and their community through caricature, creative writing, and publish these writings, political, social and economical cartoons in a blog established, edited and updated by the youth themselves. Therefore, they will undergo a training on creative writing, illustrations and caricature, photography and social media utilization especially blogs.
Albania: Pa Fokus Magazine
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.
Kazakhstan: Searching for the 100 – Seeing Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan's multicultural & multinational citizenry is a legacy of Soviet social engineering activities. Yet, beyond the majority nationalities, i.e., the Kazakhs and Russians (76% of the population), many of these minorities have little public visibility. This project aims to begin documenting the lived experiences of some of these minority populations (e.g., Dungans, Uighurs, and Koreans). We will assemble collections of shared stories which will be both published & documented via video in order to produce a documentary about people's lives amidst social change in post-Soviet Kazakhstan.
Kenya: Voice for Change
It's a project that will call for youth participation through massive training on use of digital devices to bring change to the community. Members will be able to challenge the government as well as participate in public debates and decision making.
Nepal: Digital Literacy for Middle-aged Rural Women
Digital Literacy Training help to use computers, digital cameras, VOIP, text messaging, internet video calls, social media etc. to make a radical change on the ground in rural Nepal. We will be using this grant to cover the costs of the actual training rather than in the infrastructure to be able to reach out to over 1000 people in a year with a 2 week training, where during the training, the women participants are empowered by allowing them to take the laptop home and to ensure that they also practice from their homes in off-hours. We have seen a radical social change in their confidence.
Kyrgyzstan: Education for All
The project advocates for educational rights of youth with disabilities by the disabled youth themselves. In general, interests, rights and needs of youth and people with disabilities are advocated by disability organizations. Yet, there are very few self-advocates and youth with disabilities advocating for their own rights. By means of video-making, social media and blogging the youth with disabilities will raise awareness of the educational rights and existing barriers, and create empowerment stories to challenge community’s perception of people with disabilities.
Philippines: Project Wish – Workers’ Images, Safety and Health
The project is a practical workshop that will train 15 worker-reporters, particularly those who are part of labor unions, on how to effectively use social media platforms to promote their advocacy for safe and humane working conditions. This will enrich the basic training on citizen journalism and social media they have completed the past year. The project will also give them sustained guidance, continuous practice and increased capacity to establish their organization’s own social media projects for advancing their specific causes in the future.
India: Linking of Resources for Child Protection
Namakkal District is in the western part of Tamilnadu,India have a population of 1.72 million. Namakkal is known for its trucking, rig, power loom, poultry,sago and starch,educational industries. On the other hand, Namakkal District also ranks tops with the higher prevalence and incidents of HIV/AIDS,incidents of child rights violations-incidents of various forms of exploitation and abuses, high incidents of child marriages & high magnitude of child work force.While there are stand alone programs to address these, all of them are to be roped and to provide effective referrals and networking
South Africa: The Save Earth, Blog Earth Project
The project would introduce and encourage student participation on an environmental protection social networking platform called the Tunza eco-generation through: 1. Environmental outreaches to selected schools in Pretoria to educate students on protecting the environment and offer training on accessing the Tunza eco-generation platform. 2. Training of dedicated environmental bloggers for each school on reporting the environmental activities of their schools and communities weekly. Awards would be given to the best environmental bloggers over a number of months at a ceremony.
