Due to unemployment, maximum number of youths of the bordering district Jessore of Bangladesh is very vulnerable to drug abuse and drug smuggling. Through this project, we shall provide training on Digital Photography & Social Networking (through existing network, e.g. Facebook) among those youth who has recovered from drug abuse & getting Lifeskill training, seeking job. This project will help these youth to be innovative & find out a job (as photographer or Digital marketing), enabling them to eradicate their extreme poverty and keep them away from vulnerability of drug abuse.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Jessore
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
We are implementing a project on Prevention of Drug Abuse & Life skill training (e.g. Art, Drama, and Story Telling & Social Networking) among vulnerable youths. By implementing this project, we have found that it necessary to provide some innovative training among the said youth so that they can be innovative & keep themselves away from drug abuse in their future life and able to get a job in creative digital media.
As these youths are vulnerable to drug abuse & the Internet connection yet to be developed due to very rural area they don’t have interest in online arena. But now these target groups are becoming familiar with computer & internet through our life skill training. Many of these youth are showing interest to be skilled on Digital designing & intent to take it as a profession
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
The youth forum of WARD, named, Progressive Youth Forum (www.facebook.com/wardyouth) will implement this project. The team leader of Progressive Youth Forum, Ms. Jayasree Dhar, (Facebook ID: Jayasree Dhar) 20 years old college student will organize the project activities along with Volunteers (college student) of this forum. Mr. Tanmay Dhar (facebook ID:Tanmay Dhar), 30 years old TV producer will design & prepare the training tool kit. Mr. Monirul Islam (Facebook ID: Monirul Islam), 31 old journalist (District Correspondent) will provide the training. They are working as volunteer at Progressive Youth Forum. By our existing project, we have developed a youth network in our locality. This youth network will also take part of this project.
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
The vision of the training on Digital Photography is to motivate the young community to keep away themselves from drug abuse and make them innovative. Digital photo story book will be prepare, which will tell the story of a victim of drug abuse and also suggest other youths how they can stay away from the drug abuse. On the other hand, the social networking will help the youth community members be more creative & will get a scope to share their knowledge regarding drug abuse with other community members around the world. The youths will prepare the story & the editorial board of Progressive Youth Forum will be responsible to edit the content & upload these at social networking sites.
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.
Our organization, Work And Rural Development (WARD) has a youth forum, named, Progressive Youth Forum, consisting more than 50 school & college students. Since 2012, we are implementing project on prevention of Illicit Drug Abuse among youths funded by UNODC. (https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/prevention/youth-initiative/dapc-2012.html). We have the experience to implement such project on Life Skill training, i.e. Art, Drama. We will contribute our past experience to implement this project. We have developed a youth network at our locality (Keshabpur, Jessore). This youth network will also work with us to make this project success. The training program will be organized by the Youth forum, WARD will be responsible for the maintaining & evaluation of the project activity.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
This training will be given among 20 youths who has been recovered from drug abuse and also have interest of Photography. These youths are getting training on life skill through our existing project (UNODC Grant). They also intend to take photography as a profession. As they are marginalized and living with extreme poverty, they do not have the scope to pursue any professional course.
These 20 youths will be directly benefited from this project & more than 200 youths (will count by Facebook page likes & comments) will be indirectly benefited through social networking.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
Our youth forum, which consist professional photo journalist, Reporter, Teachers and others who are working as volunteers, will implement the training program. These Photo Journalists will devote their skill and knowledge to train the target group. These volunteers are already providing training on life skill development on our existing project (UNODC Grant). Our existing social network will also be used on this project. The training on photography will be given through digital format, using digital SLR Camera and will use photo studio software (i.e. Adobe photoshop) to edit & retouching the photographs and online photo shearing and organizer (i.e Picasa, Flickr)to shearing the photograph through online. This online photo shearing will encourage the beneficiary and also make them confident
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
WARD has a 2000 Sq. Feet training centre which have: 30 Computer (OS: Windows 7), ADSL Broadband connection (1Mbps) with every PC through LAN, 02 Laser Printer, 10 Digital SLR Camera with accessories (i.e Tripod, lights, reflector etc), 10 drawing Tablets. This training centre along with these accessories will be used to provide the training.
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?
We are working this target youth community since 2012 to implement the project, titled, Reducing use of illicit drugs (demand drug) through youth networks. By implementing this project, we found 20 innovative youths who are enthusiastic about photography. This youths has been recovered from Drug abuse, very intend to revert back to the main stream. So, We have plan to implement this project to this target youths.
WARD is working since 1994 with various International & National Donor agency, to implement developmental project. On the other hand, WARD has sufficient resources and i.e. a youth forum, named, Progressive Youth Group, a youth network and more than 50 young professionals who are working as volunteers and also have adequate Infrastructure.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
We may face challenges from the parents of these youths. As this training will create unconventional job opportunity, the parents are aware regarding such job opportunity as they are living in a very rural area and they are not conscious regarding internet. On the other, due to conservativeness, we may face challenge from religious leader. By conducting intensive awareness program among parents & religious leader we may overcome the challenges.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
Project Implementation Body (PIB) will be in core responsibility for project M&E. Project results/outcomes will be measured based on the indicators in the result framework. PIB will arrange monthly activities, three monthly outcome monitoring and an impact evaluation. The impact will be evaluated by numbers of participants in Training, Number of participants in taking part at social networking (e.g. Number of page likes, comments, Sharing etc) using facebook admin panel data.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
If our project selected, the start date will be 01 June 2014 & project end date will be 30 November 2014. (Total 6 Months)
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
1) Internet Access (@ $25/month*6Month) = $150
2) Travel cost for Photography (@ $10/day *150 Days) = $1500
3) Refreshment for Trainee (@ $5/day* 150 Days)= $ 750
We are requesting only the program running cost. WARD will incurred the Training room Rent & Office maintenance & Stationary supplies costs.
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
We do expect support from Rising Voice on others experiences/stories on digital photography so that we can encourage our youth community on digital Photography.
Contact name
Syed Akmal Ali
Organization
Work And Rural Development (WARD)