PROJECT TITLE:  Bringing Malagasy Forumists to the world of Citizen Journalism

 

YOUR NAME:   FOKO

 

TITLE:  Co-founder

 

YOUR ORGANIZATION (optional): FOKO Madagascar

 

WEB SITE: http://www.foko-madagascar.org

 

ADDRESS: IVP2D Ankadifotsy Befelatanana Antananarivo Madagascar

 

PHONE/SKYPE/GTALK: 

 

E-MAIL: info@foko-madagascar.org

 

Why are you seeking Rising Voices funding? How will your project benefit the community you are targeting? (100 words)

FOKO Madagascar is seeking funding to bring forumists of an existing Internet group (http://forum.serasera.org) based in Antananarivo, Madagascar, to the world of blogs and podcasting.

Although the Internet group is based in Madagascar, there are many more such groups all over the world : Europe mainly France and Italy. There forums count more than 400 members. We want to bring these Madagascar based and very active forumists to the world of blogging. They are used to the Internet and have been meeting for years in Antananarivo doing social work with Miray soa, an ngo active in environmental issues , like planting trees. You can see FOKO Madagascar founder, Harinjaka, planting trees with them as reported on his blog here (http://harinjaka.com/weblog/2007/11/14/rehefa-antitra-aho-mihoty-kaki/) Through the stories and pictures they will post online they will bring visibility of their community, of Malagasy language and Malagasy culture (few speakers but those who do are passionate about it, see our very active Malagasy Lingua project http://mg.globalvoicesonline.org). This project will give them a voice and a digital imprint in the world. They will also be able to use their creativity in podcasts and vlogs, something they are not able to do right now do to limits in Malagasy connectivity (costs and non availability of high speed connection). Also it is a way for the world to have a glimpse of Malagasy ideas, work and perspective on the world. It will bring the forumists outside of the Malagasy forums, out to the world. Malagasy bloggers are overwhelmingly diasporic. Additionally, there is a growing concern in Madagascar that the  Main Stream  Media  outlets  are not as free  to express  their  views  as they were a few years ago.  Therefore,  promoting citizen journalism at this time is essential to ensure that a balanced perspective  is available  to the global community.

 

 

What kinds of news, stories, information and other content will your project provide? Describe your vision for the content. (250 words)

We will encourage them to record their daily life : especially the struggles that are so common in everyday life in Madagascar for the average person. we want them to tell their take on political life, cultural life and social life in Madagascar. We want them to record their views on world culture and politics in general, such as maybe their opinions on American policies and politics.

They will take pictures of their surroundings as an expression of their world views.

Another part of the project is for the forumists to include their children : We want their children to document stories of their elders in the community. In a strong oral culture like Madagascar, blogging and podcasting is a very good means of keeping stories of the previous generations alive, which would otherwise gradually disappear.  People are not used to listen to younger people in Madagascar, although they represent 75% of the population, because the elders are most respected. We are strongly convinced that blogging is a way for them to gain perspective and open up to the world, or give them an inspiration for the future. In order to encourage more Malagasy youngsters to share their stories and integrate blogging in the development of their curricalae, Foko, in collaboration with the Lions Club International (http://www.lionsclubs.org/EN/index.shtml) in Antananarivo,  has also established contacts with a few middle high schools to explore the possibilities of setting up  internet centers within a few selected school facilities.  Alternatively, a few of the blog sessions with  the forumists would include middle school students.   

 

Who will generate the content? Who is the target audience? How, and how often, will it be distributed? What language(s) will it be available in? (300 words)

Forumists themselves will generate the content, with technical help from Foko Madagascar. Twice a month, we will have sessions with a group of forumists. They are actually very internet savvy but for lack of connectivity (costly, slow and subject to electricity outage) they are not blogging and think the Internet is reduced to chat forums. We want them to blog and record and take pictures so as to participate in the global conversation. Also most of the forums are held in Malagasy, we want to expand outside of the Malagasy forum world and reach out worldwide.  During the session we will help the forumists enter their stories and their photographs online. The stories will then be featured on FOKO Madagascar website and gather comments from all around the world, and also from Malagasy internet users. The forumists will read the comments and answer them at the following blogging session.

Target audience will be Malagasy diaspora around the world, bloggists interested in Malagasy daily life, Malagasy internet readers. Content will be mostly in Malagasy and French from the forumists with translations into English from the Foko Madagascar team for the best posts.

 

What kinds of participation and interaction do you expect from the readers/listeners/viewers of your content? How will you encourage participation? (75 words)

We expect our readers and listeners to give feedback to the forumists and encourage them to share their stories, possibly by voting on the best post every month. The best poster of each month will receive a small prize (free internet connection).

The Malagasy blogosphere is small and tight knit but very active (see our numbers in the Lingua project of Global Voices online). This project will be very positively viewed and most bloggers will actively support it by posting comments and encouraging the forumists. Indeed blogging is seen by the Malagasy diaspora as a way to raise awareness and keep in touch and interact with the motherland.

At the end of the year, all forumists who participated in the blogging sessions will receive a blook containing their stories and photographs as a gift. The blook will also be available for purchase and all proceeds will be used for the next blogging sessions. Blooks have already been offered to Malagasy translators of Global Voices Online as a way to keep them motivated. There is no such thing more motivating as seeing your words in print !

 

What is your knowledge of your target community? Why are you the best individual/organization to lead this project? Do you have prior experience in citizen media outreach? (100 words)

The internet forumists group we are targeting is one we have been conduction blogging training sessions with.

we are a non profit organization funded by four bloggers who have so far conducted blogging workshops in Antananarivo, to help active Malagasy internet users who so far have restricted themselves to forums, and bona fide traditional journalists to start writing blogs.

We are also organizing the first ever Best of Malagasy Blogs contest, a self funded venture, molded on the Deutsche Welle BOBs, the judges of which are nine Malagasy bloggers from all over the world. In March 2008, this Best of Malagasy blogs contest will recognize the best blog created during the blogging training sessions and the winner will win a digital camera as a prize.

 

 

Describe what technologies and tools your project will use to produce the content What kinds of technical skills and expertise do you bring to the project? What are your technical needs? (100 words)

We will use existing blogging platforms (wordpress.com), a malagasy blogging platform (www.blaogy.com) and digital cameras to take the pictures.

We are seasoned bloggers, we have been consistently blogging since 2004.

We have negociated with the biggest cybercafe of Antananarivo (the same which hosted our previous blogging workshops) to host the blogging sessions.

 

How will you measure and evaluate your project's impact – on your main participants? other contributors? on the larger community? How many participants do you expect to be involved in your project? How will you seek and sustain their involvement? (200 words)

We will measure the impact by bloggers' numbers of posts each month, the number of comments and hits on the website.

We expect 10 forumists/sessions, and one session every month.

As we explained earlier, we will initially seek their involvement with the carrot of the monthly prize, and consistently show them and share with them the comments that their posts have elicited. Depending on the means of FOKO Madagascar, we want all forumists that participated to get a stipend for free internet connectivity, something we are in negotiation with a cybercafe, and more blogging goodies if FOKO finances permit.

 

 

What challenges do you expect to face, and how do you plan to overcome them? (200 words)

We expect the forumists not to understand the importance of blogging and the importance of their own stories being told initially, after all we did not fully comprehend the impact of blogging until we realized we were being read ! But we plan to overcome this initial non understanding by using the carrot of the monthly prize, it is very enticing to get the free internet connection because it is so difficult to get connected in Madagascar. Once the forumists see how many comments they receive and how people pay attention to their words and their lives, we expect their interest to sustain and pick up.

We do not really expect technology issues to be difficult to deal with because these are educated young people who are used to the internet and met on the forums, they just need to have some help getting connection and time to blog.

 

 

How do you plan to sustain your project's content after the Rising Voices funding has ended? Detail specific plans. How do you plan to raise revenue to continue your efforts in the future? (300 words)

Winning the Rising Voices contest will raise this project's visibility, which is already visible as we have bona fide journalists enrolled amongst our forumists. We plan on getting additional connectivity time from the cybercafes. The funding needed will be connection costs and electricity costs, and the monthly prizes, as well as funding for the yearly Best of Blogs prizes.

The yearly blook will also be available for purchase and all proceeds will be used for the blogging sessions of the next school year. The projected increased visibility of the project will encourage  current (Lions Club International) and future partnerships with  organizations interested in citizen journalism and social entrepreneuship. The local internet provider has already understood the benefit of the project ( social capital and increased visibility for the company) and offered connection fees at a discount price temporarily. 

 

What resources and support can Rising Voices provide to your project to ensure its success? (200 words)

Rising Voices can support us with DVDs, CDs or blog tutorials.

Rising Voices can support us also by rising our profile, so we have more readers and more commenters from around the world.

Rising Voices can support us by acknowledging that the stories from these forumists are worth reading and commenting on.

 

What online tools and software programs do you plan on using? What experience do you have with these tools? (200 words)

We are planning to use wordpress.com for blogging and make use of open source software. We are very experienced with wordpress.com as we have been  using it for more than 4 years now.

Two of us are professionals in the world of IT and web design.

 

 

Detail a specific budget of up to $5,000 for two years of operating costs. Applicants are encouraged to submit budgets for less than the maximum $5,000 as smaller grants allow us to fund more projects. Hosting fees and curriculum resources will be provided by Rising Voices and therefore need not be included as budget expenses. Potential costs might include hardware, internet access, workshop costs, translation, travel, and coordinator expenses.

 

10 digital cameras (at $100 each)  $1000.00

Internet access (at $100/session) $1200.00

Flickr Account $28*2=56

Monthly prize (for 24 months)  $480.00

Coordinator stipend (for 24 months)  $1200.00

total for two years  $2936

Initial cost  $1,000.00 (cost of digital cameras)

Grand total   $ 3936

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