REPORT ON THE DIGITAL MEDIA PROJECT.
Introduction
The following is the report of the digital media project supported Raising Global Voices outreach program. The project was implemented by REPACTED Kenya community based youth organization based in Nakuru Kenya.
The project brought together a total of twenty seven community members with very little knowledge in digital media. The organization mobilized young people from the community to be introduced to the digital world. Among the twenty seven ten are young ladies form different background.
The fast step was to introduce the community members to the digital world by taking them through five day training on digital media and the growing world of internet which has reduced the world into a global village. At first we could not afford internet connection because of the cost of the internet connection, but with the competition in the mobile phone business in the country quite affordable modem are the market the only challenge is how to maintain the monthly fee for internet connection.
The organization purchased one computer, one digital camera, one video camera, and one modem from Zain Kenya. Apart from the equipments the organization also conducted trainings on how to use the digital camera and photography, the organization of did training on bogging and basic computer skills training to the members of the community.
The members of the organization who are theatre practitioners in the community also enjoy the project because they are using the equipments to capture photos during the community theatre outreaches. They have also done enough community theatre outreach videos the only challenge is how to blog the videos because it takes very log to upload a video clip here due to the slow internet connection.
The project is on the right truck and very faithful to the project objectives and goal and also the organization goals and objectives.
Challenges
- The equipments are very few hence using them as a group is little challenging, one computer with about 17 trained bloggers and more community members are getting attracted to the centre.
- Blogging idea is still a new phenomenon to almost all the community members and some group members and with the limited access to the computer because of the growing number of the interested community members is a little challenging.
- Lack of proper skills in handling some computer programs and soft wears from the community members, one is trained today tomorrow all is gone you have to start again.
- Some members of the community are physical challenged hence marking it to the centre requires some special program for them.
- Though we got a train in video blogging, video blogging is still a big challenge not because of lack of skills because of the speed in the internet.
If the above issues can be adequately addressed individually then we will able to increase the number of the Nakuru blogger sphere, and effectively improve internet communication within the community. For the physical challenged we need to move to them because they are located in one place, so by creating a digital media village in the community could improve the blogging spirit among the community members.
We also need about six computers so as to satisfy all the new bloggers before the spirit of blogging goes down. If we buy one more video camera, and a digital camera we will be able to handle the big number of the new bloggers.
We will also organize more clinics on blogging around the community to sensitize the community on importance of digital media.
For the internet connection we a serious challenge because the modem takes one computer at a time we are working on how to network the modem to serve more than two computers, but the service provider Zain say that it can not take more than two computers. We are also paying 50 USD per month, maintaining the cost may force the community to pay some small money the only problem is that we recruited from the slums where life is below 1 dollar a day.
All in all we are moving on well and the bloggers are more than willing do more in the Nakuru blogger sphere, and bring out the power of blog compared to the main stream media. Following the time line we are behind but progressing with the right pace and not just doing the citizen media for the sake of doing it. We want the best for the community and the culture to sustain itself.
