It is worth getting to know each new blogger not just as a source of under-reported foreign news, but also as a neighbor and friend in our rapidly shrinking world. Get to know Carmen, a lover of poetry and literature, from the hillside working class neighborhood of La Loma in Medellín, Colombia. Discover the story of Suso - La Loma's local recyclables collector. Meet Cristina Quisbert who now blogs almost every day from the world's highest major city, El Alto, Bolivia.

Or head to Dhaka, Bangladesh where the Nari Jibon center is training young women like Sifat Binte Qaiyum and Ayesha Parveen how to document their personal and community stories with online media.

Just southwest of Bangladesh we find the Neighbourhood Diaries project taking place in Kolkata, India. Though the ten participants in the neighbourhood of Bow Bazaar have yet to start writing on their own blogs, project leader Sahar Romani has introduced us to each one. Take 16-year-old Surojit Mitra, for example:

Surojit is a student at Bow Bazaar Highschool. During his free time he loves to coreograph dances and listen to music. He is known for his laughter and his coreography in Sanlaap programmes. One thing that no one knows about him is that, once he failed an exam.

In a later post we learn that Surojit's favorite landmark of Bow Bazaar is the Punjabi Hotel. Here's his description:

As soon as you reach the Punjabi Hotel, what you hear first is the sound of conversations and the din of people who are going in. A light wind brings the smell of various food items to my nose. You can see shoe shops, the vegetables in the market being bought and sold. The touch of food items from the hotel and the fuchka. It is a very old hotel. Earlier it was renowned, everyone knew of it. Besides, the proprietor of the place was a friend of my mother’s.

Finally, make sure to head to the Think Build Change Salone in Freetown, Sierra Leone. After a vicious, decade-long civil war made Sierra Leone the least developed country in the world, a group of motivated young interns - such as Noah Dauda and Daniella Wilson - are documenting their efforts to rebuild the country. Make sure to check out Noah Dauda's photographs of microfinance traders and Emmanuel Joseph's experience producing a documentary in the eastern provinces of Kenema, Kailahun and Kono.

Looking Ahead

As you can see, in just six months, each project has made amazing progress in training new groups of bloggers in underrepresented communities. A sense of purpose and community has developed within each group.

In just a few days we'll announce the latest round of microgrant winners. Five new projects will join our current community of outreach trainers and the momentum and good will they've established. In the coming months we'll focus more on encouraging interaction between all 10 projects and highlighting the similarities the share.

We hope that you'll follow along.

The Think Build Change Salone (TBCS) initiative seeks to help rebuild post-civil war Sierra Leone by providing training to young people placed at paid internship positions with local non-profit organizations so that they may gain work experience and contribute to development projects.

The person behind this project, Vickie (AKA “Nasratha”) explains the challenges she faced and how she was able to overcome them:

“One of the biggest challenges I knew I would face with the internship program was the placement of interns with local organizations. Inexperienced students are primarily seen as a liability in any professional work environment but I also knew that offering to pay the student’s stipend would remove some of the anti-intern feeling.

…I never did get the list I wanted so I had to return to the internet in search of local NGOs. I made visits to several offices that had been closed for over two or three years and no one had bothered to put down the sign.”

Edward Komba Chaka (23) is a 2nd year pre-med student at the College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences (COMAHS). He was placed in a National HIV/AIDS Control Program (NACP) at Connaught Hospital, Freetown. He explains his work experiences in the post “HIV is a Virus, not a moral issue”. He shares some catchy slogans to prevent aids.

Noah Dauda (25) a third year student of Financial Services at the Institute of Public Administration and Management (IPAM) and Alhassan Conteh, 22, a first year student of DES Institute of Business & Management were paired up to research the implementation of micro-finance in Freetown. Noah shares the state of development and background of micro-lending programs in Sierra Leone:

“Sierra Leone has experienced a high rate of failure of developmental projects over years. These failures did not begin with the onset of civil war. It must be noted that, the near absence of development for many years, declining per capita incomes, increasing competition from a rising population for limited resources and poor governance have contributed greatly to the erosion of civil society and the emergence of conditions that facilitated open conflict. It is this reality that the past government has been trying to combat with its National Action Plan for Poverty Alleviation, its programme of macro-economic reform supported by international development agencies and its policies of support for the private sector.”

He describes the traditional Osusu credit system and posts pictures of some traders who are using microfinance.

Noah Suluku (21) and Daniella Wilson (19), two Secondary School students, were placed on independent projects to highlight the lives of street children in different areas of the city. Noah writes:

“There are two categories (of street children). The first category is defined as children who stay with their parents /guardians at home but who go on to the street each morning to socialize or to earn money for themselves and sometime they return home in the evening. The second category is children who have abandoned their home and are permanently on the street living and working on the street. They are not under any parental care. Both categories are vulnerable to child abuse and child right violation.”

He noted some miseries and experience of those street children. He also posted some pictures of those underprivileged children.

Kadi Yata Kandeh (26) is a brilliant third year student of Nutrition & Dietetics at Fourah Bay College. She writes about her experience in the Conference on the Status of the Implementation of TRC- Truth & Reconciliation Commission Recommendations where she acted as a member of Technical Committee in Planning:

“It was an educative program, it gave me the opportunity to know about various civil society organizations and interact with so many. What interested me were the discussions between the civil society groups on various topics.”

Lastly we read an update from Emmanuel Joseph (24), a student of NJala University who worked as an intern in Peace and Development Corp Program, a project under National commission for social action (NaCSA). He lists the experiences gathered during his trips to the eastern, northern and southern Provinces of Sierra Leone and concludes with:

My documentary visit to the provinces have actually increase my understand(ing) of the provinces and how decentralizing work is being complemented by council and how working condition is like and the challenges of the different kind of bosses that one may encounter during work. Amazing among my discovery of Sierra Leone is that my country is a beautiful country and such build my interest of working in Sierra Leone to aid in developing my country.

Sierra Leone:

The Think Build Change Salone (TBCS) initiative seeks to help rebuild post-civil war Sierra Leone by providing ICT training to young people placed at paid internship positions with local non-profit organizations so that they may gain work experience and contribute to development projects.

In September Vickie Remoe-Doherty, of the Think Build Change Salone, described the challenges she was facing when seeking out young, capable and passionate interns from the capital city, Freetown.

Vickie was finally able to find 14 young leaders to advance the TBCS initiative and you can view their profiles here. They are being placed at various non-profit organizations around Sierra Leone. When they become comfortable with the new media tools, they will start documenting their experiences in those organizations.

The first experience was logged by Kadi Yata Kandeh (26), a third year student of Nutrition & Dietetics at Fourah Bay College with excellent academic records. Last month she posted the profile of her intern organization ‘Mano River Women’s Peace Network (MARWOPNET)’. This month she writes about her experience in the Training of Trainers Workshop at Bo titled “Engendering Conflict Early Warning and Response”. The training advocates women to participate actively and contribute substantially to peace consolidation not only in Sierra Leone but throughout the Mano River Sub-region.

She shares:

“The Workshop was a challenge for me because it was my first workshop on residential (where I had to stay over night), and on Peace Building. I was one of the reporters, so I had to be attentive to all speakers for valuable contributions.”

Read more of her experiences.

Sahr Emmanuel Joseph is a second year Economics student at Njala University. He joined as an intern in Peace and Development Corp Program, a project under National commission for social action (NaCSA). In his informative post he describes his role and experiences there. He has some advices to the potential interns and opines:

“Information and technology knowledge is actually low in the country as stated by Siera Vision President I would recommend if donors agree to fund them let the organization provides information and technology training for student in the various university by organising free citizen media workshop for student in the various university and also organising educative programme that will enhance technology capacity of the students.”

Noah Suluku is the second youngest intern at age 21. He posts some pictures of the “Children of Bay” picking through garbage.

Bangladesh:

In the second part we take a closer look at Nari Jibon’s recent blogging activities. They are arranging regular fortnightly meetings about their progress. In the last meeting on the November 10^th they summarized that since the beginning they have posted 105 articles (both Bangla and English) and 32 more in the pipeline for editing.

They arranged a training program for twelve new and old bloggers (Nari Jibon students/work-study students), covering digital photography, the basics of blogging, how to write a post, what to write, etc.

We have seen more blogger profiles posted to their Bangla and English blogs. The new bloggers think that the most important part of this organization is the Nari Cybercafé where the PCs are situated and they can blog there. They discovered blogging only after coming to Nari Jibon and they are now happy and eager to share their stories to the world.

Sherin Sultana thinks that because she is from a middle class family she cannot be exceptional. She describes the limitations of being a member of a middle class family:

“We don’t have abundance of money. If our watches become useless, we change only the belt or battery and change those again and again. But we never change the dial or buy a new one. If our shoes get useless we try once again to add another sole. We can’t expect more than enough to our necessity. Our self respect is very high so we can’t want something to anybody. If we don’t have anything then we try to get those by our own ability. Our life is measured and tied by the circle of middle class.”

But she is optimistic and cherishes the values middle class lives possess: sorrows, pains, love, affection and unlimited respect.

Nina Sultana went to a slum in Dhaka and experienced their poverty and difficult life styles up close. The slum people live in a dirty environment. They are deprived of fresh food, water and good shelter. They suffer from hunger, malnutrition and different kinds of diseases. She thinks their poverty leads some of them to break laws and engage in mugging and stealing.

Hasina Akhter describes [bn] her ancestral village, Bogadia, situated in Noakhali district, which boasts of having most of the basic amenities like electricity, water, and gas.

Nari Jibon’s Dr. Kathryn B Ward posted about Justice for Nadine and Rahela, two Bangladeshi victims of domestic violence and aligned Nari Jibon blogs with the Bangladeshi blogosphere who are advocating this issue quite vocally. Finally words of concern from Dr. Ward center on the deadly Hurricane Sidr which made landfall in Bangladesh Thursday night.

Their next training will cover the operation of video cameras and digital cameras for some Nari Jibon staff members and also for some students. We expect to see more photo and video blogging from Nari Jibon bloggers soon.

HiperBarrio Featured in El Colombiano

But first, let us begin in Medellín, Colombia where HiperBarrio continues to make strides in its hillside working class neighborhoods. And they've attracted some much deserved recognition for their efforts.

In the El Colombiano newspaper, a feature article describes HiperBarrio's work in La Loma San Javier, just one of the three sites where they are training young people to take advantage of computer labs at their neighborhood libraries by sharing stories, photos, and videos of their communities with the rest of the world.

En el computador de la Biblioteca La Loma, un grupo de estos jóvenes, que suman 25, pasan las fotos y muestran sus blogs. Johnnatan García se detiene en una imagen con una vista inédita. “Es la ciudad vista desde La Loma”, asegura. Muchas de estas zonas del barrio son extrañas, incluso para sus habitantes, quienes se acostumbraron, en otras épocas, a no pasar por allí cuando cargaban el lastre de la violencia. “Nos preocupa la historia del barrio”, dice Gabriel Jaime Vanegas Montoya, el coordinador de la biblioteca.

Para él, el punto de partida es contar cómo se llega hasta allí y dónde queda esta zona, olvidada quizás para algunos. Por ello, equipados con cinco cámaras digitales, una videograbadora y conexión de banda ancha, ahora todo lo que allí sucede se relata.

Así, estas historias, con un punto de vista fresco, van a los blogs, algunos de ellos íntimos y personales, como el de Carmen Pan y Agua, llamado Baúl de Letras, en el que refleja su pasión por la literatura.

“Es una forma de expresión”, que no tenía antes, dice Carmen. Con 15 años, Catalina Restrepo publica con regularidad en su blog, que se llama Cosas del alma. Se trata de decir “lo que va surgiendo, realidades que observé y darle sentido al título”, dice sonriente.

Ahora Catalina tiene “el privilegio de contar con ellos”, los bloggers, como se denominan. Sus compañeros se contagian de lo que escribe y le dejan comentarios. Enriquecen su particular manera de ver el mundo. Sin embargo, su ejercicio no se queda allí, pues lo que escriben puede ser leído por cualquiera en el ciberespacio, que visita el sitio que los aloja a todos en http://convergentes.wordpress.com.

If you speak Spanish and would like to follow the daily updates of these new bloggers from La Loma de San Javier, head on over to ConVerGentes and click on the links on the sidebar. You can also listen to a podcast by Juliana and Jorge and explore their Flickr gallery.

Bangladeshi Bloggers and Businesswomen

The Nari Jibon project in Dhaka, Bangladesh has also been moving along full steam ahead. The young women of the Nari Jibon center began their blog with a focus on their country along with the occassional feature of a friend or acquaintance. But in recent weeks they've clearly become more comfortable with the medium and the resulting posts are at times personal, other times powerful, and frequently both. In Shahana Akter's introduction she writes:

My name is Shahana Akter Munia. I live in Dhaka City with my family. I am a student of B.A [Bachalor of Arts]. Beside this I am an English and Computer student of Nari Jibon Project. I am very glad to take training from this project in a safe environment. I have many friends. I like to gossip with my friends. Reading detective book is my hobby. I like to see Bengali movie. Some of my favorite Bengali movies are: SHUVA, JOY JATRA. I also like to hear music of Bengali Band. I am very happy to involve here in Nari Jibon Blog. I want to write about our country and myself. I am very happy to get this great opportunity from Nari Jibon.

We are also introduced to Sultana Akter and Jannatul Ferdouse, two Nari Jibon students who have started their own business, the “Rongin Tara Fashion and Boutique,” which we are told means “Color of Stars Fashion and Botique.” At just 21 and 22-years-old Sultana and Jannatul opened their shop at Khilgoan Chowrasta Moshjid Market with a 42,000 Taka investment. There are pictures of the botique and the colorful items they sell on the Nari Jibon blog. Next time you're in Dhaka, you know where to buy your female friends and family their gifts!

Another successful business woman is 36-year-old widow Ruby Rahman. In a multimedia blog post by M.G. Rabbany and Taslima Akter, we learn that Ruby was a housewife and busy mother of two until her husband - a government worker - passed away last year. She then transformed her mourning into a passion for entrepreneurialism which has resulted in a successful handicrafts business. We get a peek into her production process thanks to the great photo- and video-reporting by Rabbany and Akter.

Don't miss the recent photo essay by Sherin Sultana as she fondly and eloquently looks back at her university days and another photo essay about the good and bad of Bangladesh's intense rainy season by Mahfuza Parul Tania and Mohtarimun Nahar Bipa. And, finally, for the true polyglots, don't forget Nari Jibon's Bangla-language blog.

Weekly updates of Nari Jibon's blogging activities are available on the Rising Voices Wiki.

The World's First Aymara Blog

When we first checked in with Voces Bolivianas, just about a month ago, they were still hurriedly looking for a reliable internet cafe to host their workshops on blogging, photography, and online video. Since then, the hard work invested and the progress made is almost too much to believe.

First, Voces Bolivianas sponsored two Bolivian bloggers to attend last month's Bloguivianos gathering in Santa Cruz. Then Hugo, Eduardo, and Mario found an internet cafe in El Alto suitable for their Saturday morning workshops. They posted a video of the cafe, adding that “it is centrally located in an area with a lot of foot traffic. The video shows the surrounding area, as well as the space that will be used for the four workshops.”

Perhaps most impressive was their success in finding an Aymara translator for the project. Voces Bolivianas en Aymara is the world's first Aymara-langauge weblog. Select Spanish-language blog posts from the workshop's participants are posted to the front page of VocesBolivianas.org and translated into English and Aymara.

It hasn't been easy and the Voces Bolivianas team has volunteered countless hours to make the project a success. Via email, Eduardo Ávila writes:

On September 22, Voces Bolivianas held its first citizen's media workshop in the city of El Alto. Through a variety of recruitment channels such as a presentation at a local cultural center, interviews on a local radio station, handing out flyers at the public university, and word of mouth, 23 interested individuals showed up for the first session of 4 workshops that will be held every two weeks. The facility had capacity of 20 students, however, we did not want to turn anyone away and accommodated the three additional students at an adjacent internet cafe. Participants come from a wide variety of backgrounds, such as a baker, a textile factory supervisor, neighborhood librarians, university students, and individuals interested in the arts. Demographic information was collected through an online survey and among the interesting findings were that 61% of the participants had a computer a home, but none had home internet access. However, approximately 87% had access to internet cafes in their neighborhoods.

You can read the lastest posts from all of Voces Boliviana's El Alto workshop participants and view their photos on Flickr. More videos will be posted to dailymotion.

Coming Soon …

Our last two Rising Voices outreach award winners are still navigating through the obstacles that are to be expected when implementing a citizen media outreach initiative in communities that have little experience with computers and, often, extremely slow internet connections.

Vickie, of the Think Build Change Salone, describes the difficulties she encountered when seeking out young, passionate interns from the capital city, Freetown. In total she received over 119 applications, but many of them seemed unsure about what an internship even was. But in the end, Vickie found 14 young leaders who, as she writes, “are the future of Sierra Leone.” You can get to know the 14 young interns yourself and see their pictures in Vickie's introduction to the program. Over the next few months these young men and women will start their own blogs and describe their experiences as they work with NGO's and social groups throughout the country that are helping to restructure and reunite Sierra Leone after years of civil war. They will also organize outreach workshops in which they relay their citizen media skills to other Sierra Leoneans outside the capital.

The Neighborhood Diaries project has gotten off to a slow start, but the project's organizers have been extremely busy registering their organization, Kalam: Margins Write as an ‘official independent literary arts organization recognized by the Indian Government.' As they should be, the group is all smiles after signing all the necessary forms in Dalhousie's West Bengal Registration Office. As an independent organization, it should now be easier for Kalam: Margins Write to find the perfect project coordinator for the Neighborhood Diaries project, which promises to train young people in Kolkata's slums to use digital photography and blogs as an outlet of creativity and a way to document their neighborhoods from their perspectives.

The Rising Voices website has also gotten off to a slow start, but that should be changing soon. Please keep your eyes on http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org for more updates from our outreach award winners, more features on media activists from the developing world, and more resources to make entry into the world of participatory media less daunting. Stay tuned!

In Sierra Leone Elections Update - 3, Swit Salone writes:

National Electoral Commission has announced 100% of all presidential votes. All Peoples Congress (APC) candidate, Ernest Bai, Koroma has won 44% of the votes while the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) has won 38% of the total vote. The People’s Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC) leader Charles F. Margai won 14%; a remarkable feat for a political party less than 1½ years old. The constitution of Sierra Leone stipulates that a presidential candidate has to win at least fifty-five (55%) percent of the total votes in the first round of elections to prevent a run-off.

If the A.P.C had managed to gain at least 50.5% of the votes in the first round then they would have been guaranteed the win in the 2^nd round single-majority-win election. Charles Margai the leader of the P.M.D.C whom many believed shortchanged the SLPP of votes in key areas in the South & East has announced that he will form an alliance with the APC. However the other members of the PMDC party executive board proclaimed that Margai’s decision to join the APC was unilateral and that they are not following suit.

Jill and Dan write about the apprehensions felt going into the election and the break down of supporters regionally:

National Presidential Elections were held throughout the country last Saturday. We haven't mentioned it because there was so much uncertainty about how things would go… and lots of warnings to be prepared for the worst. Sometimes things flare up so fast — especially here where there is palpable discontent with the high rates of unemployment and the dismal state of social services and infrastructure. But as far as we know, everything seems to have gone off well. BBC has announced “free and fair” elections. There were over 4000 international election observers posted throughout the country to ensure this, and to report on anything seeming a bit fishy. There were a few political skirmishes here and there, but people turned out to vote peacefully in record numbers. We were told something like 2.6 million voters registered for this election — around 93-95% of the voting population. And people have high hopes for positive changes.
So far, five days later (as today is Thursday), the word is that somewhere between 17-19% of the votes have been officially tallied and counted. It will take a while before any results will be announced. At first, radio stations and party spokespeople, even the UN and NGOs were hearing all kinds of info, some of it conflicting. Whenever a tentative result was announced, whichever side was in the lead at that moment would claim it was winning. So now, we don't hear anything. Most of the country is expecting a runoff election to take place in a few more weeks. There were 7 candidates on the ballot on Saturday, and no clear winner as of yet. Seats in Parliament were up for grabs, and historically the North and West (predominantly Temne) support the APC party and the East and South (predominantly Mende) support the SLPP (current party in power). Of course this is a huge oversimplification of things, but basically those are the two parties with the largest bases of support, and typically over the last 30-40 years or so, power goes back and forth between the two. It's possible that some seats in Parliament will change and there might be some shifts… that's what people are waiting for as well as to hear if there's going to be a Presidential runoff or not

Sandra’s Latest gave us the latest statistics on the elections as 34.3% of the votes were announced:

The latest election update (from yesterday) is that 2119 of 6171 (34.3%) of the polling stations have reported their results. So far there has been a lot of fluctuation in the outcome. A couple days ago APC had over 70% of the votes, but the following day it was SLPP that was ahead. The presidential winner must take more than 55 percent of the vote to avoid a run-off. Here are the latest results:

Candidate Votes Percentage

Ernest Bai Koroma (All Peoples Congress) 46.17%
Andrew Turay (Convention Peoples Party) 1.4%
Alhaji Amadu Jalloh (National Democratic Alliance) 1.02%
Kandeh Baba Conteh (Peace and Liberation Party) 0.56%
Charles F. Margai (People's Movement for Democratic Change) 15.17%
Solomon E. Berewa (Sierra Leone People's Party) 35.32%
Prof. Abdul Kady Karim (United National People's Party) 0.37%

Swit Salone writes about the experience of being a national observer for the elections as well as lessons to be learnt from the results:

First stop on my observation was PortLoko….got there right as the polling center was opening and everything was orderly…..old, young, and not so old sierra leoneans waited sometimes patiently and other times a little rowdy but it was all in good spirit. All polling stations that I observed in Port Loko, Bombali, and Tonkolili [three districts in the northern part of Sierra Leone] were predominantly Temne speaking areas….and even without them saying, it was obvious that they were voting APC…..the most prevalent issue in the polling stations was that people didnt know how to vote….Some polling center officers and managers spent time explaining the processes in temne and sometimes in krio but even with the explanations people were confused about the process…some people didnt mark anything on their ballot paper while others selected multiple candidates or all the candidates. Some people signed their name instead of indicating their choice with a check mark or thumb print. In the polling stations and centers that i observed nothing peculiar happened that disrupted the process though rumors of pre-voted ballot boxes were rife everywhere……i dont know of any proven box stuffing incidents….

The biggest lessons from these elections are that Sierra Leoneans are never again going to let themselves be ruled by a regime that doesn't deliver. The funny thing is that most people who voted against the APC recognize that much may not change with the APC and that all politicians are pretty much the same but they voted for change to send a message to all parties that we are a changed people. We believe in accountability and anyone who does not meet our expectations will be voted out. Even if the SLPP wins, the message has been sent….loud and clear….WAY MAN DEM NO GLADI WI DAY VOTE FOR CHANGE....[meaning when the people aren’t happy they will vote for change…a popular saying by youth in Freetown, the nation’s capital]

During the campaigns, Nasratha wrote about about the first ever presidential debates in the country:

Last Week, the first ever presidential debates were held in Freetown at Lagoonda Entertainment Complex and this young wannabe scored tickets curtesy of a friend with the BBC. All parties were represented at the Debate besides the SLPP….Berewa refused to attend the debate because as he believed who ever was hosting it had no authority to call him to a debate and what not. Anyhoo, all the other parties were there though Charles Margai was about an hour late due to the fact that they were holding their rally earlier on that day.

First of I must admit that I questioned the relevance of the debates so late into to the campaigns….Almost everyone Tuesday of last week had already chosen their party….Also with most of Sierra Leoneans being illiterate….i questioned whether it was useful to have the debates in English….As far as I'm concerned these debates were more for the benefit of Sierra Leoneans in the diaspora (who are not voting) and the self satisfaction of the organisers themselves.

Since none of the candidates won 55% of the votes, there will be a run-off on September 8th, 2007 as Sandra announces on her blog:

1,839,208 votes at 6,171 polling stations have been counted. The results are out. At 10:00 this morning the final results of the Sierra Leone elections were announced over the radio. To be honest, the announcement did not come as a surprise. For the past week people have been talking about the upcoming run-off. The only difference now is that it is official. And the campaigning can begin.

The presidential run-off between the All People’s Congress and the Sierra Leone People’s Party will be held on Saturday, September 8th, 2007.