Al-Hoathi is a trainee in EWAMT

On 24 December, 2009 we trained 9 ladies. The trainer this time was Fathi al-Dhafri, he is a blogger, and a big fond of new media. This is his blog Change

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Fathi said that “training girls is tiring because they are asking a lot, and want to learn everything at the same time“. This is true because of the social pressure on women; they are trying to prove themselves through getting a higher education and gaining new skills. For example, the rate of success among girls in the secondary education is higher than among boys  http://www.yemenews.net/news_details.php?sid=2018.

On Thursday 7 January, 2010 we trained 7 ladies, and it was the first time to train a lady her surname is al_Hoathi. She told us that her surname caused her a lot of troubles. A lot of people asked her if she know Abdulmalek al-Hoathi, the leader of the rebellion group in Sada'a who are fighting the Yemeni and Saudi governments. In spite of this lady is not from Sad’a and has no relatives from that rebellion group, but she is still suffering from that surname.

Anyway, the training goes well, and the work shop was coordinated by Sadiq al_Samawi and Basheer al_Samawi, although they are very busy  these days. Moreover, a journalist from 14 October Newspaper heard about EWAMT project, and he came to All Girls Association where we implement the training. We talked together about the project, and he published about the project in the  14 October newspaper

In Brief, until now we have trained 92 ladies, and we will keep on.

Candles

We started the eighth workshop last on Thursday 12th of November 2009 with 12 trainees, but as usual we could not finish it because the Internet connection was very slow. So, we finish it on the 19th of November 2009 with only 9 trainees. It was really depressing when you face such obstacles in Twentieth First century. However, we have believed that our efforts are going to be fruitful, and EWAMT project is like a candle with other candles, which are lighting up the darkness in Yemen.

At the end of the workshop, we discussed some topics such as freedom of speech, sexual harassment in Yemen. Talking about freedom of speech in Yemen leads you to sensitive position with the government, so we were talking about it with fear of the existence of spies.

Finally, with bride we can say that until now we have trained 76 women activists, and we will keep going on.

To view the photos of this workshop click this link

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yemenewamtproject/?saved=1

Like a Magic

On Thursday 15 October, 2009 we hold a workshop on blogging and social networking for ten activists. These activists were really talkative and full of energy. It is like a magic, every time you train new women activists, you got some energy from them.

Before we started the workshop, there were a discussion between Basheer, who was coordinating of this workshop, and some other trainees about the reasons of focusing on women development.

After this discussion we started the workshop with a fear of electricity or Internet connection cutting. However, this time everything went very well.

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This workshop was for one day from 8:30 am until 3:30 p.m. It was a long day full of fun and learning. In this Workshop we have added to the curricula how to prevent the right click in the blog, and how to blog through email. These new tips in blogger were really exciting for the trainees.

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After the lunch we continued the session and started to talk about facebook, and the person who talked and explained how to use face book was Sadiq al-Samawi. He  likes facebook very much, and knows a lot about it.

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Getting Through Challenges

Yemen is suffering from alot of problems recently, and the mostimages1 critical problem is the lack of development. The people is suffering from electricity cutting, which is the most important thing in development of any country in the world.

Lacking of electricity is not the only dilemma, also the internet connection that sometimes is cutting too. Our government is busy in outbreaking war in the north of Yemen and arresting protesters in the south of the country more than development of the country.

We cannot say that the EWAMT project has not been affected by the cutting of electricity and Internet connection. However we have tried to get through all these challenges. For example, we have planned in 19-20 August, 2009 to set a workshop for 9 trainees. In the first day the electricity was cutted, so we started the workshop late. In the next day the Internet connection was cutted too for a long time, so we delayed the rest of workshop to the next Thursday 27 August, 2009.

We always having these problems, but they are getting worse and worse in Yemen.

However, we are keep saying that we will make it, and we are sure that after dark there is dawn.

World Youth Day and EWAMT

in 12 Auguest, 2009 all youth in all over the world are celebrating in the day of the world youth.

Here in yemen, many youth NGOs had made events. One of these NGOs was Youth of Leadership for Development Foundation that made an event on  Thursday 14 Auguest 2009.

Of course Hand in Hand Initiative had participated in this event and we had a corner to show our products and projects. EWAMT project was one of our projects, also we talked to the guests about it.

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We have noticed the young men were interested in this project, and wondered why they are excluded from joining this project. In this event we extended our contacts, also we knew that EWAMT project is popular among other NGOs and youth initiatives.

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We have distributed the EWAMT brochures, and made a video about Hand in Hand Initiative activities  including EWAMT project.

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Unfortunately, there were few women in this event, so you will notice through the pictures that most of the people who attended the event were men.

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In these event there were many Corners for NGOs and youth initiatives.

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Second EWAMT Workshop

I did not expect to have this large number of girls who want to have the knowledge of blogging and social networks, so we enforced to looking for a volunteer to be just responsible for receiving these emails and registration. After our success in the first workshop, we received many emails from NGOs candidates their workers to attend our series of workshops. In addition, the most surprising thing that some men called us racial because these workshops are just for female, and they cannot be enrolled in our series of workshops 🙂

In 3-4June, 2009 we hold our second workshop for 10 activists from various NGOs at Youth Economic Development Center. This time we had added energizing exercises to the workshop, and the trainer Basheer al-Samawy  made  some funny exercises to the trainees.

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After that I started the training in blogging. we had faced some problems such as, the electricity cutting however,  we had finished the implementing of our agenda at that day.

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We are not just teaching, also we are learning from the questions of the trainees. We added to the curricula a topic in how to add templates from other websites to the blog. In the next day, we finished the other techniques in blogging then we made discussion in which way we will use our blogs to serve our community. We gave them examples of Yemeni bloggers and showed them their blogs. Moreover, we talked about face book and YouTube, and they all made account in face book and joined the EWAMT group in facebook.The discussion was wonderful because it gave them some ideas about the topics they want to speak about through the blogs. Also, it gave us some ideas that we can apply it in the next workshops. During the break, Many trainees were eating and  blogging at the same time. I wanted to take pictures of them , but they refused that 🙁

As usual we had taken group pictures, and taken this lovely picture of one of the trainees.

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Be continued……

The First Step

On Thursday 20/05/09, we started our first training course in  blogging and social network. The team went to All Girls Association in order to prepare the training hall,  hang the banner, check the PCs and ofcourse we did not forget to prepare the break. 

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We recieved 14 activists to have the blogging training. We started at 9:00 am. Each trainer talked about her self.

In the First day of training we covered the following topics

1- Creation of blogs in blogger

2- Morals of blogging

3- How to fame the blog

4- Discussion about bloggin and how we can advocate our issues through blogging.

In the next day we covered the following topics:

1- Adding pictures and video from youtube to the blogs

2- Adding calendar to the blogs

3-Orientation about social network and the trainees made facebook accounts and joined the EWAMT Project group.

At the end of the last day, we took a group pictures, and said goodbye to each other; promissed to keep in touch through the blog or facebook.

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By the way, the break was deliciuos. Thank you Jamal for preparing the break.

First Training Course Launch

After long waiting for the training , now EWAMT team are making the necessary preparation for the course , which will be conducted in  20-21/5/2009. We are intending to train 20 female activists in this month. the first training course will aim 10 trainees. The second one will be conducted in 27-28/5/2009, and will train 10 trainees too.

At the first,we faced a problem of finding a hall, however, now I can say that we found hall in NGO called “All Girls Association” it is really good to find a hall in association  just for women because Yemen is conservative society, and females prefer to have the training in femininity environment.

Here are some press releases had been published in websites about the project.

http://www.almotamar.net/news/69745.htm

http://taiztoday.com/news/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1281

There are some English sites and newspapers in Yemen will publish the pressrelease, but I think we will wait for them to publish it!! 

 

Ignorance of Blogging

The idea of blogging started in Yemen since 2003, and the Yemeni Female Media Forum was the first NGO that held training in creating blogs. Afterwards, we noticed many NGOs were following this path of blog trainings. However, with all of these efforts   there is still ignorance of blogs and its role in the society.

I had made an interview with three young women who have some activities with NGOs and asked them what do they know about blogs? They said it is the first time for them to hear this term “blog”
Here below there is a link of the Video; it will be translated to English soon.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=73115293183#/video/video.php?v=1158734925821&oid=73115293183