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Swamped but still alive

Posted in social media, YETAM, youth media on October 28, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Wah, even more than a month this time. I’m absolutely swamped with work these days. The 3rd World Congress preparations are taking soooo much time up — way more than I anticipated. But hopefully things will be on track for the actual Congress in November. There are lots of difficulties as we still are trying to get everything funded. Hope we succeed…. I went to Brasilia last month for a 2-day meeting with the other cooperating partners and we got a lot done, but there are so many details related to putting on a conference for 3000 people and 300 kids. The commission I’m participating on is more related to child participation and child protection during the Congress and that is a huge undertaking. I think it will go well though.

The other big thing – the Kenya workshop for December – is also going really well. I went up to Maine this weekend to meet with some of the speakers/presenters from the different organizations that are going to be there and it was great. They were all up there attending a big conference called PopTech. (Which I couldn’t afford! But they were on a fellowship). The guys are all super nice and really knowledgeable, so I think the workshop is going to be great. We’re working out the agenda right now, trying to make sure that we are making it fun and informal, interactive, and also the most relevant possible for the situations that people are working in within Africa. So, how can we use social media and new technology in places where there is no electricity or no broadband? We need to be sure that we’re not talking the whole week about stuff that can’t happen. And that is the challenge we’re posing ourselves — what social media and new technology is relevant and useful to achieve greater impact in our existing work. I’m really excited for it.

One of the other things that I got finished was the proposal for the 6th World Summit on Media for Children. I have to wait for internal approval, and then we can submit it to the 6WSMC to see if we will partner on the child participation/child protection/social media & youth outreach aspects. That would be a really interesting partnership that we’re really well suited for, so I hope it goes through. It took me forever to write the proposal with everything else going on.

The YETAM trainings are all complete, and I got the Rwanda videos on the external hard drive last week and we have a great intern names Ayla working with us to upload them and subtitle them on dotsub.com. The other things we’re working on for YETAM are getting the dummy website going with AK our web company in Dakar, and then working on a curriculum for Africa and then one for ‘western’ or ‘the north’. We’re also looking at the follow up with the different groups and partners in the 3 countries. Julie resigned to spend more time with her son Noe, and her last day is on Friday, so I’m inheriting her workload! ahhhh. Once the Rio Congress and the Kenya meeting are over, I will then just focus on YETAM and a couple other things, but not so many big projects at the same time. If we are successful with the funding for the next year, then very soon we’ll get going to plan next year with Ghana, Cameroon, Mozambique and Kenya.

OK well more later when there is something more interesting with photos and videos — like maybe from the Brazil Congress!?

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YETAM: 2nd Day of Rwanda Training

Posted in Rwanda, social media, YETAM, tagged , , on August 15, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Today’s a holiday in Rwanda so I slept in late and have some time to catch up on other work. Slept well last night but encountered my first nighly mosquito…. annoying how they buzz in your ear. And I stopped taking the malaria pills…. but I figure one mosquito won’t hurt. I’ll see what Gatsibo is like though….

Last night we stopped by the bank to cash the check to cover our expense for the next 3 weeks and waited in line, I kid you not, for 2 whole hours. There must have been 100 people in line ahead of us, the place was wall to wall. I realized how nice debit cards and ATMs are…. we take them for granted, but imagine if you had to manage your life in cash, pay all bills in cash, and wait in line for an hour or so every time to do it. Wow. I feel so lucky with my online banking.

We’re going to hit the town tonight (I finally changed some money too!) and then tomorrow Joseph, his girlfriend and other friend Tony are going to take me around Kigali. We’ll see the downtown and also visit the Genocide Memorial. I wonder how that will feel. The Kigali that I’m seeing is so calm and orderly, so nice, that I can’t imagine that less than 15 years ago there was bloody mass genocide happening right here. It think the memorial will be pretty overpowering.

Well, related to work, I got some great great news from different colleagues today — our Netherlands office is interested in funding the Social Change through Social Media workshop in Kenya in December; the German office wants to put the virtual visits on their website and may have possibilities of funding future work in that area; and the Japanese office is making a Japanese virtual visit this month and will post all our other VVs plus the Japanese one on their website. Very exciting!

At 2 I have to be on a conference call related to Plan’s participation in the 3rd World Congress on Child Sexual Exploitation. Hoping my phone works well enough to make the connection. I’m participating on the Child and Adolescent Participation Commission (CAPC) with people from UNICEF, ECPAT and Save the Children in different countries. There is a lot of stuff to work out still regarding children’s participation in the conference and very little time since it’s happening at the end of November…. Within Plan there is a broad task force from all the different regions who are feeding into the process in different countries and regions, and the linking in to Plan’s global process via the lead coordinator for it in our Swedish office. Then I’m trying to be the link between the CAPC and the Plan task force. It’s a bit confusing at times with so much information and so many things happening at once and such a short time frame.

The workshop with the partners yesterday went really well, but we still have a lot to do. It was supposed to be 3 days but due to the holiday was only 2, so there’s a missing 8 hours in there. We got to the point of mapping out who’s doing what, but only very generally. There were different ideas of what to do about that, but most people feel that it’s really important to have a precise schedule for at least the first week. Chrystel is busy today and tomorrow getting all the last supplies to take with us (stationery, first aid kit, computers, art supplies, etc.) so we agreed that I would take the draft agenda and try to put in into a grid with times/responsible people to share back with the partners. They all agreed to come in at 10 on Sunday, before we take off to Gatsibo, to finalize it. We also have to check through the equipment, make sure batteries are charged, see if anything is missing that we need, and make sure the computer software is all loaded and running.

On the home front…. Clare has decided to get her hair cut and she might do it while I’m gone (Gasp!!!). She’s donating it to locks of love to make wigs for cancer survivors. I hope she at least sends me a picture of the new style so I’ll know what to expect. She’s developing her sense of style and stuff since she’s almost 12.

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One week to go….

Posted in social media, youth on June 7, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Things are coming along really well for the project so far, with just a week before we leave for Senegal. All the equipment is here now except the carrying case for the laptop and a mouse. The laptop is kind of giant and heavy, but I got it with a wider screen for editing video and a bigger battery so it will last as long as possible. At least the cameras are tiny…. I’m not sure how much electricity is available where they’ll be working in Senegal. I’m not going there for the actual youth and community training in Senegal, it will be Julie the Project Director from the West African Regional office, so just hoping the equipment will work out for them.

The Senegal youth training will be the same week as the Rwanda training in July, so we’re each attending/supporting one country. Julie is on maternity leave right now after having her son Noe. She comes back to work on the 16th, the day that we start the plannning meetings in Dakar. She’s got some really cool ideas on linking the project with some other projects that they’ve done. They’ll work with a group of urban youth who have some training on film already and a rural group. They’re going to incorporate rap and theater into the arts portion of the project, using all these different art forms to analyze and speak out about the situations the youth are facing. Working with the urban and rural groups is a way also of working out differences between those two groups and helping them connect and understand each other.

In Rwanda I will be present for the training. I’m working with Amity there. She seems very cool and works like crazy. She’s found partners for every aspect of the project and they will all let the youth borrow equipment so the costs have gone way down. They are building the training together to make sure it’s as valid and sustainable for them to continue on with making arts and videos after the training with the least amount of support from Plan as possible. Given the history in Rwanda and the way radio was used in the past (there is an effort to democratize radio again) and the lack of access to internet, radio will be a big part of the project. There’s also a “community work day” called Umuganda where the communities get together and do just that. It coincides with the arts training in the community, so Amity’s organized someone to work with the youth and community to do a mural. I’m excited about being there for all that.

The first part of the training with the communities is always really cool, so wondering what it will be like in Rwanda. It was pretty striking in Togo (see below)

Alex is here and Clare didn’t get her room all the way cleaned, but oh well. He did give us that painting advice. We went to her dance recital last night and she was amazing. Then we went out to a place where they play live West African drums laid over house music. Great for dancing and getting in the spirit of things to come. We’ll go to New York on Sunday. I have a meeting with someone from the 6th World Summit on Media for Children to discuss how Plan is going to be involved in the 2010 Summit in Sweden.

Next week will be busy but good. I’m supposed to be on vacation but that’s probably not happening. I have to finish up a lot of things to get the Dominican Republic and El Salvador Virtual Visits posted. And we had a meeting on Thursday where Plan USA decided that we are going to move forward seriously on incorporating social media into our work. I’ll be on a team that is looking into it, and I’m really happy about that. First step is meeting with our office in Amsterdam (I’ll go there from Dakar on June 23) who’s working on a draft plan for it, and now the US office is pledging to be very involved. Will be exciting.

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Secondment

Posted in social media on June 3, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Right, so after all that I never explained what a ‘secondment’ is. It basically means that I’m on loan for a year to our West Africa Regional office to support the Youth Empowerment through Arts and Media project. It’s kind of like a sabbatical. After the year, I’ll come back to my existing position (working with the Youth Engagement and Action program at Plan in the US).

BTW — I’m not actually MOVING to Africa (though the emails about how much you’ll all miss me are very sweet, hehe)– I’m working from the US, mostly from home, but traveling a lot to support the different countries. Coming up this summer: 3 weeks in Senegal in June for project planning with the teams from the participating countries, 1 day in Amsterdam in June to work with our office there on project ideas and potential funding, 3 weeks in Rwanda in July and 3 in Mali in September to support arts and media training. Possibly Kenya in December for a week-long de-brief/planning workshop with the teams including 3 days of discussion on social media and the use of mobile phone technology in the project.

And I know, I know. The last post was way too long. I promise the next ones will be short and sweet.

With photos! Here’s one of Clare. She’s busy cleaning her room this week so we can paint it before we leave. I’ve been promising for about a year. We’ll get some advice on that from Alex (my youngest brother, pro-painter turned tech guru) who’s coming to visit this weekend.

And videos! Once I figure out how to get them to load without errors. Is it me or is it blogspot? Only time will tell. I tried 3 times now to post one of Daniel playing capoeira in 3 different formats but it didn’t work. I used this really cool Flip camera that I’m testing out for the project. It’s the size of a Snickers bar, totally simple to use, and costs only $130.

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Wait… what?

Posted in social media, youth on June 1, 2008| 1 Comment »

June 1. 🙂

The official start of my secondment. And no one knows what a secondment is, and I haven’t figured out how to explain in a nutshell what I’m going to be doing. But 2 wise people (thank you DK and Lisa) have convinced me I should blog about it. Maybe someone will be interested, and if not, well, at least I have more space than a nutshell to try to explain.

The equipment for Senegal’s portion of the project is in my dining room. Amazing how small everything is. Mini cameras, mini tripods. Simple. Tiny instruction booklets with 6 pages instead of 30 like they used to be. I’m liking new media technology and today’s short attention span.

e-tickets for Clare and me are folded up and paperclipped to the inside of my trusty planner. Printed 2 pages per sheet and double sided so even they seem small and compact. Fitting.

My arm muscles are still aching from Thursday, reminding me that we’re leaving soon. Tetanus. Yellow Fever. Typhoid. Joke was on me – mine were outdated so the vaccine list expanded to include me as well as Clare.

We leave June 14, but work on this started a way long time ago. Finally it’s taking off.

I’m on secondment starting today. Wait, what’s a secondment? Basically I’m loaned out to Plan’s West and East Africa offices to help a new project get going building on work that’s been happening for the last few years. Wait, what’s Plan? Oh, well it’s a global development organization working in some 66 countries to support child centered community development.

You’ve never heard of it you say?! No worries, pretty much no one has. It’s been around since 1937 but in the US it’s a very well kept secret — unfortunately. It’s actually more known as a sponsorship organization, but the work on the ground in communities is what hooked me since I started working there in ’98 when I lived in El Salvador (and that could be a blog all of its own…).

The project: Youth Empowerment through Arts and Media (or “YETAM” which sounds like some kind of hybrid creature to me, a cross between a yak and some kind of herd animal from the Lion King). YETAM is funded by Nokia. It’s being implemented by Plan’s Africa offices in Senegal, Rwanda and Mali together with local partners and communities and youth. Five more African countries will participate in the next 2 years if the funding is approved. The first virtual visit was to Uganda (and it was quite a learning experience — the videos are difficult to load which really distracts from the experience, the training was too short, the media too heavy, the cameras too big, the process not well connected with community development processes…), the next 3 were to Togo, Dominican Republic and El Salvador, done though Plan USA and we kept learning. Now with this project we’re looking at doing more of them and improving on the idea from start to finish.

The challenge: Creating multimedia virtual community profiles in 3 countries in Africa. Making sure the process of media creation is valuable for the participating youth and communities — as in how does making media build critical skills and awareness? How does it involve and benefit local people and communities? How can it be a sustainable process? And then using that media in the right ways to engage people in other parts of the world who may not really care about what’s happening in those countries. Or who have a skewed view of the continent. How to support a direct conversation between youth in different parts of Africa. And how to bring that conversation also to youth in other parts of the world. And how to do it in places where media is not readily accessible yet is impacting in a multitude of ways. What does social media mean for Africa anyway? I hope we’ll find out and I think something interesting is going to happen in the process.

It’s going to be a journey on so many different levels.

Personal. The people and places you meet when traveling and working on innovative projects impact on you in ways you don’t comprehend for years to come.

Professional. It’s finally a chance to focus on an area I’ve been doing on the side for a long time. A way to pull together a bunch of stuff that’s been floating around. A way to learn and grow in an area I’m totally energized and fascinated by.

Familial. The never-ending dilemma of how to raise 2 children (11 and 16) as a single parent who travels constantly. At least Clare gets to go with me on the Senegal trip (on my dollar of course – which is why Daniel is staying home this time).

Organizational. Plan is going to have to find a way through new media and technology for people to talk directly to each other instead of us being an intermediary. That poses lots of challenges and means things have to change within Plan too. That will be interesting to watch and participate in. How does an organization move into new ways of doing things without alienating those who have been involved for years in the old way? How do we make things work for everyone?

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