Creating microcontent + distributing it using mobile voice messaging,community radio + social media. Working with adolescent + college age girls from the marginalized Muslim communities of Ahmedabad city. Project scales up two proven models of community engagement – Community workshops- To encourage target group to reflect upon their position within the community+create content in the form of posters, comics, micro-audio, micro-video. Mobile Voice Messaging: Creating, sending & receiving feedback through micro-audio delivered on a voice messaging platform.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
Adolescent + college age women from the Muslim communities of Ahmedabad in Jamalpur,Vattva + Rakhial. The community has witnessed horrific acts of communal violence in the city in two decades. Young women here are traditionally not encouraged to pursue higher studies & face severe restrictions around social interactions, including technology ownership and use. In our many interactions with this community they have expressed the need to remain informed about career, courses and other opportunities, express opinions and get other legal/counseling support when required. Many do have access to radio & simple mobile phones. Working closely with the community over many years pushed us to select microcontent on community radio and mobile messaging as dominant forms of engagement here.
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
Roshan Nair, Bhaumik Shah – Awaaz.De Infosystems- http://awaaz.de
Debarun Dutta, Jayita Naha- Drishti Community Media http://drishtimedia.org
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
Posters+comic strips on social issues as part of reflection workshop
Micro audio (short plays, radio documentaries, community mobile audio advertising jingles)
Micro-video (mobile-ready short films, online shorts)
Issues covered:
Gender + identity, Religion + culture, Sexual Harassment
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.
Drishti has worked with the target communities over nine years, perfecting the radio+workshop model through free workshops. Drishti have established relations with more than 20 colleges and CBOs to reach out to the target group. In 2013 Awaaz.De deployed + user tested mobile voice technology in two of the target communities as a pro-bono project. Both organizations are located in the target community.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
100 primary participants (attending workshops)
10,000 secondary participants(through content+ mobile engagement)
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
4 components:
Mobile audio platform:
User places ‘Missed call’->server calls back->Content plays, invites user to record response or audio submission->online moderator selects best content +uploads->users can listen, ‘like’ or share content with other phones using just a numeric keypad.
Awaaz.De has completed 100+ similar voice tech deployments in the social sector, over 300k users
Digital narrowcasting: Summary of micro audio + video content shared through tablets, phones and SD cards, content also captured through above devices. Drishti has over 10 years of broad/narrowcasting experience in target community
Community+Online Radio+social media: Summary programming of Narrowcasting mobile audio + narrowcasting content along with long form documentaries summarizing experiences
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
Drishti has a training room which can accommodate 15-20 participants with necessary equipment support like white board, soft board, projector. It also has a acousticallty treated studio with two editing console rooms and a recording room with 6 dynamic and 2 condenser mics. Additionally it has 12 computers which can be used for this purpose. Intenet connection with 8 Mbps speed and ADSL modems
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?
Drishti has been the only organization which engages more than 3000 young people from different religious and economic background in the city using media and arts. A credibility of using media and arts for voicing human rights issues has been established which is proven through our over 20 partnerships in colleges and community groups. The use of creative forms to dialogue, debate has drawn the two communities, young and old, male and female closer. A base of over 100 regular volunteers ensures that the activities are implemented and owned by the young people.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
In the implementation of such projects, we take care to enter the community sensitively. However, with content being broadcast more publicly, there is a risk of increased scrutiny from community elders. The goal of our content is to start meaningful longterm conversations with the community, and by offering all members a chance to participate, we hope to harness this scrutiny into further strengthening community relationships.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
Primary: Metrics tracked: Number of participants, classroom participation, number of mobile users (audience of narrowcasting+mobile platform tracked digitally), no of target group callers who have voiced human rights issues. No of young callers who have been benefitted from information received through the platform.
Wider community: mobile+narrowcasting-participation factor (minutes of produced digital content vs. minutes of community sourced content in response),
Global: Engagement through web+social media
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
July-Sep 2014-Establishing relationships with community spaces and training of trainers, volunteer trainers; engagement of community to gather participants, begin testing of voice platform and content formats
Oct-Dec 2014-Initial round of workshops with participants??
Oct-Dec 2014-Monthly community release of materials – Month 1 posters + comic displays Month 2-Audio + narrowcasting with town hall-style discussion Month 3-Release of microvideo
Oct 2014-Mobile Platform number released, formal launch of Nazariya Mobile
Dec2014-Feb 2015- Audio+Video documentary creation
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
Workshops:
Trainer stipend+ Training overhead (materials+equipment use)
4 Workshops (general) @ INR 9500 each
20 Community/college meetings/displays @INR3000 each
Total: USD 1650
Mobile Audio platform –
Cost of airtime INR 45,000 USD 740
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
Connections to participants of similar projects to build community confidence
Online forum for content with potential to influence community opinion
Contact name
Roshan Nair
Organization
Awaaz.De Infosystems
