Author Archive

FBC #Fianarantsoa : Allons de l’avant

Monday, February 15th, 2010

Chers amis,

Nous essayons de donner un autre image du journalisme citoyen en puisant là où personne n’en a encore fait.
Il s’agit des groupes vulnérables à Fianarantsoa comme les jeunes défavorisés, les travailleurs de sexes, les homosexuels. Qui beaucoup d’entre eux sont regroupés dans des associations.
L’objectif étant de favoriser la liberté d’expression d’un autre angle, des témoignages sur leurs identités sexuelles et sexualités
Ainsi, on a organisé un atelier pendant 03h00 successives avec ces groupes comme d’habitude ouverture d’un compte email, ouverture de blog.
Cet atelier a été précédé d’une séance théorique samedi dernier.
Voici quelque blogs en ligne seulement mais les contenus suivront au moment venu:

liantsoa.wordpress.com

vololonirina.wordpress.com

vonona.wordpress.com

Ce groupe avance très lentement mais nous espérons avoir un bon résultat mais à long terme.

A bientôt

Jaona

Voici les précédents blogs déjà ouverts de la région :

committed to educate young people about reproduction health.

Make sure to keep updated on the latest news from Fianarantsoa by keeping a close eye on these freshly trained bloggers:
http://joyeusesgirl.wordpress.com
http://stkmuzlove.wordpress.com
http://optifriend.wordpress.com
http://ragnandria.wordpress.com
http://Dzulee.wordpress.com
http://redfiregroup.wordpress.com
http://isambilo.wordpress.com
http://tolotralemurclub.wordpress.com

De Fianarantsoa à Monterrey, l’activisme de FOKO dans les TIC représenté par Jaona

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

Suite à son voyage à Monterrey au Mexique invité pour le sommet des TIC en Éducation organisé par l’UN-GAID, Jaona nous partage son expérience  (lisez aussi l’excellent article de Rising Voices sur notre activiste national) :

Qui es-tu Jaona?

Je m’appelle Jaona RAKOTOARISOA, 25 ans, masculin, célibataire. J’habite à Fianarantsoa

Quelles sont les objectifs de Foko Fianarantsoa? et comment vas-tu les réaliser?
Fianarantsoa suit les grandes lignes de la communauté Foko, surtout dans la promotion media citoyen. L’objectif principal étant de donner à la population active, surtout les jeunes, l’occasion de s’ouvrir aux merveilles de la nouvelle technologie, via l’internet et la photographie et de les adapter dans leurs vies quotidiennes. Aussi, de marquer la liberté d’expression à travers le journalisme citoyen, de diffuser des informations thématiques. A ce propos, nous sommes depuis quelques temps en contact avec plusieurs organisations de jeunes, qui sont prêts à s’intégrer dans la communauté du media citoyen. Ces jeunes sont issus de plusieurs secteurs comme quelques associations de jeunes à l’université d’Andrainjato qui représente plusieurs régions de Madagascar, des associations de jeunes, scouts, on a fait un contact récemment avec un club d’anglais et le club Vintsy œuvrant dans l’environnement. L’objectif spécifique 1 est donc de former un ou deux représentant de jeunes de chaque association qui mettent à jour le blog de leurs associations respectives. L’objectif spécifique 2 est de former des simples citoyens qui sont passionnés par le blogging. Diffuser sur un même blog tous les articles postés à jour.
Enfin, nous pensons organiser un grand évènement sur le TIC vers le mois de Décembre, avec le mouvement scoutisme local. On aura l’occasion de former et d’informer davantage plus de jeunes.
Comment y parvenir ? Nous planifions actuellement quelques actions concrètes
-    Négociation auprès d’un cyber au centre ville, qui nous offre un prix abordable lors des ateliers à partir de 18h00
-    Identification de deux ou trois personnes qui seront formées premièrement et qui commenceront à mettre à jour régulièrement leurs blogs.
-    Organisation d’un atelier au moins 01 fois par mois.
-    Organisation d’une  trimestrielle de tous les blogueurs de Fianarantsoa
Résume-nous en quelques lignes le rapport que tu as soumis à la GAID si tu le veux bien.
En général, les soumissions ont été basées sur le journalisme citoyen à Madagascar, ou le citoyenneté en ligne par les blogueurs Malagasy. On a expliqué comment a évolué le blogging, quels en sont les impacts ? surtout durant les crises que traversent le pays. Aussi, on marqué la motivation personnelle, comment peut-on apporté un changement positif dans sa communauté, dans son village sans qu’on s’attende pas toujours des récompenses au retour ?
Une perspective sur l’avenir de la nouvelle technologie à Madagascar, avec l’arrivée des fibres optiques, …. Une perspective sur l’impact du nouveau média aux populations Malagasy.

Que t’a rapporté ton voyage?
A part le Forum sur les TIC et Innovations sur l’Education, l’évènement a été joint avec le World Summit Award, www.wsis-award.org, qui a récompensé les meilleurs innovateurs en matière des TICs. Des gens qui réalisent des projets fabuleux et étonnants.
Ce voyage m’a permis de renforcer mes convictions à donner plus, à m’engager dans le développement de mon pays. Aussi, d’accroître mes capacités à mobiliser mes concitoyens pour apporter un positif dans leurs vies.
On a pu développer des contacts en vue de continuer à travailler et d’ouvrir dans une nouvelle diversité. On a pu voir ce que font les autres pays et d’acquérir des bonnes pratiques.

Quelle est la perception de la jeunesse malgache par les intervenants de l’ONU en TIC présents.

A ma grande surprise, les gens sont étonnés de voir un Malgache présent.
1. On a présenté des tenues originaires de Madagascar, qui ont intéressé presque toutes les participants au Forum, et que les gens vous approchent et demandent d’où vous venez, que c’est très bien la tenue traditionnelle. Encore une fois, on a diffuser une bonne image du pays.
2. Les participants s’étonnent aussi sur l’activisme des jeunes en matière de TIC, ils en disent que nous pourrons apporter plus si on nous donne l’occasion de s’exprimer de valoriser nos compétences
3. Nous avons une grande opportunité car on a été sélectionné parmi des centaines de soumissions au niveau mondial et nous sommes parmi les 05 représentants de la Francophonie.

gaid


Tu étais parmi les 5 bloggers africains francophones, peux-tu parler de ce groupe?

Les 05 représentants de la Francophonie sont venus de plusieurs domaines tels que l’éducation (Burundi), la sensibilisation sur les  TICs (Djibouti) , le télémedicine (Mali), une informaticienne (Burkina Faso) et un blogueur (Madagascar) . On a pu partager nos expériences qui sont très variées et donner nos points de vue sur l’avenir du TIC.
Les représentants ont pu discuter avec un haut responsable de la Nations Unies sur le thème : « Comment peut l’ONU peut aider vos pays en matière du TIC et des affaires économiques et sociales ? » On attend beaucoup de cette rencontre .

gaid

Malgré les problèmes logistiques as-tu encore la motivation de poursuivre et concrétiser le projet Foko Fianarantsoa et surtout après cette extraordinaire expérience?

Ben oui, la route ne fait que commencer, le TIC est pour moi une passion, une vie. On est prêt à relancer nos actions. En général c’est la connexion qui en est le problème, mais on trouvera toujours des solutions (il faut attendre plus de 10 ou plus pour ouvrir facebook par exemple)

Un mot à la communauté Foko?
Je suis bien ravi de rejoindre une communauté telle que Foko, ou je puisse m’épanouir et de donner les meilleurs de moi mêmes. Aussi, les perspectives de Foko correspond avec mes ambitions.
J’encourage donc tous les membres à donner les meilleurs, car un jour, on récoltera ce qu’on a semé !

Grand salut à toute la communauté !!!!!!

Merci à toi Jaona

Crowd sourcing information during the crisis in Madagascar

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

The Malagasy blogging community is coming together with professional journalists and people curious about new media  to discuss how citizen media can contribute to a more complete coverage of the crisis in Madagascar.

We will exchange ideas, lesson learned and shortcomings of digital media to inform and warn during crisis or events ( such as elections etc…).
The format of a barcamp will be utilized but panelists will present their experiences and expertise beforehand to pose the bases of the conversation:

The projected order of presentation is as follow:

1) Former journalist of L’Express Madagascar Alain Andriamiadravola will open the un-conference with a short welcoming kabary

2) Lova will present a call for increased collaboration between journalists and bloggers, especially in times of rapidly unfolding  events.

3) Cyber Observer and pakysse will discuss his personal experience of on site reporting and photo shooting during the protests.

4)   Thierry Andriamirado will present the role of social network in distributing information ( twitter, facebook, friendfeed)

5) Christie Turner ( of radioactive) and Rafiq (Foko)  will present community radio intiation and management.

6)Lalah and Tahina will explain the details of Foko-Ushahidi and how they manage the site.

7) Tsiry will explain that conservation effort must go on despite the crisis and showcase Zebu Nation project. 

8) Patie will elaborate on her photoworkshop with kids with Unicef

9) Claire Ulrich will present the current state of online censorship worldwide.  

We expect powerful testimonies from many other bloggers ( Randy, Jentilisa, Avylavitra, saveoursmile and Thierry)  and an engaged conversation with journalists on the ethics of news reporting. 

Ivotel is offering the conference room free of charge and Moov.mg is generously providing free high speed wifi . In turn, they hope to see a valiant online discussion about connectivity in Madagascar and a debate free of political propaganda.
Let’s honor the request.

moov

Foko was invited to give a blog workshop for IST students

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

FBC during a workshop at IST

Last Saturday, Foko crew was in action again teaching blog and new media to IST students. The IST (fr) is a renowned private institute located in Ampasampito (not far away from downtown) that proposes several fields of studies to its students.

Stéphane was contacted by the one of the first responsables of the event and she asked him if Foko could hold a workshop in their cybercafé prior to their official graduation ceremony. In an ordinary day, students should pay to have Internet access but for this time it was for free. Then, we, as zealous volunteers, arrived there at 7:30am (I was a bit late in fact) ready with brochures and handouts about blogs, twitter and … Foko of course :) .

The first group arrived an hour and a half later after we spent our time brainstorming how we were going to manage it and sticking Foko posters in some strategic (lol) spots of the block. I stood next to the main door to invite people to get in because they were a bit shy at the begining “Is it here … the workshop on blogs?”. And because of this shyness we had to send Pati and Ariniaina to make them aware that it is warmer and more interesting inside :D

The workshop went well in a good ambiance and the connection speed didn’t spoil it too much. We noticed that few of them were more curious than the others and that led Andry to jump on the basic uses of Twitter (yes, they wanted more and more) after being through with Wordpress.

What surprised me during the workshop was these ladies, I guess they are teachers, whom Ariniaina and Affick took good care of. And according to what I overheard, they had a lot of questions. The room was not wide enough for the students and somehow made (some of) them go away before the end of the workshop. But the good thing is they asked for another workshop.

I’m waiting for the list of the new IST bloggers to put it here but meanwhile you can have a look at the photos taken during the workshop.

[Update] Here is the list of the IST bloggers

http://fichristel.wordpress.com
http://njaranga.wordpress.com
http://quiidam.wordpress.com
http://ramelolive.wordpress.com
http://sorohitra.wordpress.com

The Soul of the #NewMachine Human Rights Conference Recap from a Madagascar Viewpoint

Monday, May 11th, 2009

On May 4-5 2009, the Human Rights Center at University of California Berkeley organized the Soul of the New Machine Conference on Human Rights, technology and new media to share best practices and develop new strategies for incorporating technology to address human rights abuses. A few partners and friends were part of the panel of presenters, among them Ken Banks of FrontlineSMS, Erik Hersman of Ushahidi and David Sasaki, director of Global Voices Outreach program, Rising Voices.

I will go into further details later on how these three organisations have been of tremedous help in documenting the multiple acts of violence during the Madagascar crisis but for more info now, here is an interview by Solana Larsen of Tahina, one of the manager of the foko-ushahidi platform in Antananarivo, Mg.

A New York Hub for the conference was also organized by Cristina Moon and she graciously invited Foko to present their work at the brooklyn location.

As you know, Foko primary mission is to document the everyday lives of Malagasy citizens and local agents of environmental change, not record potential human rights violations by their government. Yet, the ongoing crisis decided otherwise for the time being. The hub was a great opportunity to meet and learn first hand from Human Rights activists present at the event.

The presentation went over the background of the crisis, the known human rights violations that were documented since January 09, the use of new media by tools by the dynamic new media users’ community in Madagascar (both related and non-related to Foko) and the obstacles for more extensive reporting of current events. We also posit that among all the past and current human rights violations in Madagascar ( military repression, limited freedom of speech, arrest etc..) the most glaring offense in our views is the 400,000 people (mostly children) currently at risk of hunger in the South because the political deadlock prevents an effective response.

The fact that Foko is present in 5 different regions of Madagascar is important but still insufficient to provide comprehensive reports from all the regions of a nation twice the size of Great-Britain.

The Conference had a specific emphasis on data accuracy, fact-checking and the use of mobile reporting. Michael Ferola present at the NY hub, has been very kind to offer an analysis of the entire database collected on the foko ushahidi platform. We are evaluating a way to measure the quality of the data and present them in an effective manner.

The videos of the panel discussions at the conference will soon be available on fora.tv

However, here a few important reviews made at the conference:

1)On the panel “PDAs and Phones for Data Collections”, speakers discuss the potential of mobile reporting for providing additional information during humanitarian crises in developing countries. For more info, here is the notes from Erik’s talk at the conference and a post on Kiwanja website on how FrontlineSMS was used in the film “The Reckoning”.
No groundbreaking news here so I will take this opportunity to describe the collaboration with mobile technology experts and thank the people at FrontlineSMS and Ushahidi who worked with us overnight to get the platform ready for sms reports as soon as possible.

As Tahina explained, there were a few obstacles to overcome but FrontlineSMS developpers ( Alex Anderson, Carlos Genz and Ken Banks) provided timely technical support and sped up the release of a new version they were working on to take into account the urgent need for an SMS/computer interface for the Madagascar crisis. We cannot thank them enough for helping us establish the first project to collect SMS reports directly onto a computer via the intelliSMS software.
The Ushahidi team was also tremendous in setting up the platform quickly and showing us how to modify the interface to allow for the translation of key words, categories and timeline.

2) on the panel “Blogging Human Rights”, David Sasaki spoke about the internet tools used to shine a light on issues that media often ignored. He also explained the importance of giving people on site during the opportunity to tell their stories in their own words and stop using proxy as voices for the oppressed. He also emphasized the importance of translation in breaking the “echo chamber” and reaching new audiences about issues that most people are not familiar with. A case in point for this statement that is related to Madagascar is the online petition for Razily, a protester who was arrested on March 28th for flag theft and who has not been heard of since then. The petition has now reached moe than 500 signatures in a week thanks to media attention in different languages (ny marina momba ny Razily news2dago, Madagascar-Tribune, Ethan Zuckerman, Jillian York on Huffington Post and Madagaskar-Vision.de) For the ultimate comprehensive resource on translation and new media, read Chris Salzberg’s thesis on the lingua GV project. (PDF)

Finally, David also emphasized the importance of addressing the safety of citizen journalists

In short, the conference was a reminder that supporting the development of new media users and communities in developing countries is a worthwhile endeveaor, especially considering their added value when a crisis situation breaks out.

[Tananarive] The New Experiences We’ve Got From The Interviews We Had

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Interviews are not always easy, especially when you are on the phone speaking with a native speaker at thousands km away from where you are at 9:30pm or when you are in a hotel surrounded by wild crowds and gunshots. In fact, some international media got in touch with us – thanks to Foko and Lova, to know more about what’s going on here and to have interviews if possible.
Unfortunately, I can’t tell everything about all of them. What I’ll share here is the couple of times we met with Christina Corbett from BBC/IRIN.

Foko Interview with BBC

We met her first on Mar.5 for she planned on making report about the Malagasy blogosphere’s role during the ongoing unrest. We decided to meet next to Colbert Hotel Antaninarenina with 6 of the FBC bloggers, only 3 were able to make it though. A little while after we started a panicked crowd moved up towards where we were. All the shops around Antaninarenina immediately closed their doors. The 5 of us set up our mind, we had to find a safer place. We ended locked up in Colbert Hotel. It was the first time I went in and it was during an unusual circumstances. The interview went well even if Christina could record some gunshots mixed with our voices.
The second one (Mar.26) was far better. It was in a cyber café, still in Antaninarenina. Yes, we like this corner of the city. For this time she will do it for the BBC radio. So we (pakysse, andry and I) took turn to answer her questions in both Malagasy and English while enjoying our soda (we like it too). We found out it’s pretty close to movie shooting. “Cut, could we please turn down the sound of the TV because it passes Indian songs. We are supposed to be in Madagascar.” she said while laughing. Yes, details are much more important for an audio interview. We were done a hour and a half later. Christina said she would fly to London the next day but would email us the audio record. Looking forward to having it.

To sum up, these interviews are now among the many experiences we’ve had as part of the FBC and we are sure better ones are yet to come.

[note: some published interviews are available here , congrats Foko!]