PROJECT TITLE:  Bringing New Dhaka Female Voices to Blogging

YOUR NAME:   Kazi Rafiq Islam and Kathryn Ward

TITLE:  Coordinator and Executive Director

YOUR ORGANIZATION: Nari Jibon Project

WEB SITE:__www.narijibon.com    narijibon.blogspot.com_____

 

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

 

We seek to introduce girls and women to English, Bangla, Photo and Video Blogging at the Nari Jibon Project, by incorporating blogging assignments into existing English, Computer, and Bangla classes.  By integrating blogging in classes and students’ everyday experiences, we can train up new bloggers. Students include young women, university students, re-entry housewives, and workers (garment, sex, domestic, office) and returning migrants, all with the common desire for more skills. This project would expand non-elite girls and women’s access to the internet and blogging. Students can train others in blogging, writing, researching, and generating audio-visual content with cameras, and video-making.

 

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

 

In the classes and Bangla and English blogs, we hope to encourage conversations and writings beyond the usual gendered litany of garment, disaster, poverty, and micro credit stories from Bangladesh. We can encourage students to write stories, conduct research, and work with visual images about their own lives, experiences, and issues, thereby making blogging an integral part of their practice and education. Students can also practice their interviewing, writing, and photography skills, and work on multimedia projects using pictures and video to enhance their written words as well as their education and work opportunities. Through class and student outreach we can incorporate more things like, pictures with captions and also details, videos, and autobiography of their neighborhoods as well as slum people, how they came to Dhaka and their history. We can take pictures of floating people at Bus terminals, railway station, launch ghat, etc and learn about their history. We can talk with people of different professions like, street beggars, Pitha nari (cake making women), nari (woman) shop keeper, their lives etc. We also can go to historical places like, Ahsan Monjil, Lalbag Fort etc. We can go to schools, colleges to talk with girls about their study opportunities, problems, thinking, about women’s development, how they would like to develop themselves etc. in turn, they can also come to Nari Jibon Project for more classes, access to low cost broadband internet, and make their voices and stories available for a larger audience.

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)

 

 

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 will have comment and trackback links for our compelling blog entries to encourage interaction with the bloggers. We hope that readers will learn about urban girls and women’s lives and respect women’s voices in blogs.  We will publicize the blogs via links to the blogging community and among our students and outreach audience, but also to encourage readers and students in the North and South to respond and start dialogues via the blog.

 

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 Nari Jibon Project has offered low cost Bangla, English, and computer classes to neighborhood women students since March 2005. Staff  have outreach experience to diverse women workers and students. We have one of the best computer labs in Dhaka and a women only cyber café for secure browsing via broadband internet. Staff and some students have generated content for the Nari Jibon webpage, ICT magazine, and more recently started an English Blog (http://narijibon.blogspot.com).   We hope that we can use the English (and new Bangla) blogs as virtual spaces for students and trainees to explore their voices.

 

 

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 have networked computer lab and cyber café (five computers each) to compose in Bangla/English. We will upgrade the computers with graphics cards and memory to more effectively work with Blog materials.  We will upgrade our few digital cameras with three new digital and two video cameras. Our blog team includes:  graphics teacher Animesh with  skills in computer and graphic design, the monthly ICT magazine, and amateur digital photography;  head computer teacher, Taslima has experience in  these areas ; and our English teacher, Bipa, works with computers and English, and editorial/translation skills.

 

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 maintain admission data from our students and participants on their background, experience, but will also track their progress, research, and postings on blogs. We will train 10 new bloggers each month as participants’ knowledge of blogging and related benefits increase. We will sustain their involvement by a few work-study practical positions and quarterly prizes given for best entries.  The experienced research staff of Nari Jibon (with assistance of KBWard and Katie Zaman)  will measure the impact through content analysis of their blogs, personal interviews with the bloggers and their families and focus groups, and the outcomes such as improved experiences in school, work, and empowerment within their households. These positive effects and word of mouth will sustain participation. Other measures of impact on the larger community will be tabulating numbers and locations of comments, trackbacks, links with other blogs, and interaction generated by the blog entries and readers. We also will share and show the results of field visits and blogs to the people interviewed and record their reactions and impacts on their lives. We will do outreach through our existing networks of schools, NGOs, neighborhood, and media contacts—digital and print.

 

 

The biggest challenge is reliable electricity amid frequent load shedding and we will purchase one backup battery for computer lab. Many Bangladeshi girls and women have limited education, especially English, and have received mostly rote teaching-learning.  We must develop their skills, confidence, and voices to craft their own entries in English and/or Bangla. Second, many students face family members who want immediate monetary results, free computers, and/or handouts. We have talked and worked with their families about such expectations.  Girls’ education gets less priority during family crises. Contrary to some sources, stipends have failed to encourage student attendance and results. Third, the Bangladeshi political situation is in transition with a military-backed caretaker government, which has threatened media sources and has arrested one blogger. We will keep blog posting relatively apolitical. Finally, security is a very big issue: getting to Nari Jibon offices and safe computing.  Many students travel together. Unmarried Bangladeshi females and males are not to mix, but the internet and mobile phones provide mixing opportunities. We will moderate the blogs for inappropriate content and educate students on safe computing and cyber relationships. We will provide safe transportation and male staff when female students are in the field.

 

 

 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)

 

The Nari Jibon Project is an ongoing training programme in Bangla, Tailoring, English, and Computers that averages around 40-70 students per day with funding from USA donors, but with the operation, teaching, and day to day operations carried out by Bangladeshi staff. At the request of the students, we have added computer classes in graphics, repair, ICT magazine, and photography. Now we are broadening their skills on blogging and the internet.  The Project has some spin-off businesses for income generation, practical experience of students, and sustainability: cyber cafe and related services, repair shop, emerging graphics and web authoring businesses, tailoring shop, and a research cell. The RV funding will help us intensify our blogging efforts and training through purchase of new camera and video equipment and upgrades to computers, but the funding for computers, broadband, staff, classes and blogs will continue.

 

 The costs of this Blogging project (including conveyance,  work study, computer connect fees) after subtracting the equipment and one time purchases are around $100 per month and/or 7000tk per month, which is sustainable with current staff and funding although we hope to expand enrollments as word of the project spreads. The nominal class fees of students and income from related businesses (Cyber café and related graphics and web) will also help sustain the project.  US dollars go a long way in Bangladesh and Nari Jibon project has the basic infrastructure, students, community connections, and research and teaching staff in place to effectively use these funds. The Project is affiliated with fundraisers and allies in the USA, who will be applying for other sources of funding via ICT grants-donations and providing occasional advice, and also from donors within Bangladesh.

 

 

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

 

We need one-time purchase of computer upgrades, backup battery, and cameras-video equipment. We request memory and graphics upgrades for our computer lab and cyber café  (ten computers) so that students can work more effectively with written and graphic blog materials. We need a back up battery for computer lab owing to frequent load shedding and students cannot use the computers. To supplement our few cameras, we will purchase additional digital cameras (3) and video equipment (2) and related storage media. Our monthly costs are as follows: to cover interview costs and travel of students and staff, we will need conveyance funds for 12 interviews per month. As an incentive, we will provide work study wages for five gifted students/staff and a small compensation for our interviewees’ time.  Every four months, we will conduct intensive training workshops for students and community participants. Every four months, we will also give prize money to four students for the best blog entries and video/photography. We also request funding for some of our monthly internet connection fees (overall fees are $200+ per month) and some project coordinator expenses.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Sasaki

outreach@globalvoicesonline.org