In Kenya, Brainstorming on Mobiles

I spent last week in Kwale, Kenya in the company of several colleagues learning about and discussing the use of mobiles in community development, both for outreach and communications and for mobile data gathering. There was a variety of people -- from frontline staff to members of Community Based Organizations (CBO) in Kwale, to monitoring and evaluation (M&E) staff from Plan Kenya’s districts and central offices and Plan’s West Africa Regional office, to IT staff, to youth and those working with youth media, to partner organizations working on child help lines and social media outreach.

Photo: Anthony from Plan along with Mativo, a former Plan colleague, trained us on FLSMS

We looked closely at Frontline SMS (FLSMS) and Nokia’s new Data Gathering Software (NDGS) and brainstormed on ways that this type of tool might support the work that people are already doing. Really an interesting week!

In addition to the more common ideas of using mobiles for health campaigns, disaster/crisis situations and general communications and monitoring, people mentioned:

For youth media programs:

-Organizing weekly radio contests via Frontline SMS and allowing many more youth to participate in the radio program that way. Now for contests, they have to write a letter with their answer and bring it to radio station by foot. Using SMS many more could participate, increasing listeners and engagement.

-Assessing the radio show right after the recording. The youth and children could go in the audience and gather the data they normally do by hand using mobile data gathering software, thus easing the processing time and analysis of the information.

-Monitoring progress and changes made in relation to the show at a broader level -- the participating youth could use mobile data gathering to monitor change related to the issues they are targeting in the radio shows and to see if youth organization and awareness building is impacting on the community over time.

Photo: people got really excited when their first forms appeared on their phones to be filled in!

For Child/Human Rights work and Global Child Rights Campaigns:

-Assessing the knowledge/awareness of the communities about rights issues and/or our global campaigns

-Receiving reports and sharing information about violations of rights (gathering info on whether children are being registered at birth, the incidence of school violence, girl’s or women’s rights violations, cases of child abuse) and offer short information on where to go for help.

-Monitoring child abuse cases, e.g. community members could text in key words such as ABUSE or MARRIAGE to report and track child abuse cases and early marriages happening in the community:

Birth Registration (UBR) implementation

-Tracking birth registration certificates and sharing information on the steps of the registration process. With auto SMS replies we could enhance information accessibility 24/7. We could provide instant feedback to people on the status of their birth registration. It would be a very quick way of sending information to many.

-Using mobile data gathering software, the birth registration process could be made paperless and computerized, thus saving time and effort for the population and increasing the number of children who are registered at birth.

Photo: Jackson and 3 other colleagues from Brazil trained us on the NDGS.

Monitor services

-Running a mobile survey or a rapid assessment to find out whether a service like Childline is reaching people and whether the service is known and being utilized in the field.

Communicating among Plan staff, CBOs, Communities

-Passing along information such as training dates, schedules, meetings, etc., to avoid making a trip out to the community to get information

-Surveying on health, school attendance, and school enrollment through a network of teachers

Communities communicating amongst themselves

-Communities have a lot of information they want to share among themselves, among the Community Health Workers (CHWs), with the other communities and other leaders – they could do this with FLSMS.

Managing Meetings and Decisions

-Inviting participants, confirming attendance, updating on the absentees when you’ve reached a decision they could be contacted this way. You could even involve those who are absent in voting by SMS if you don’t have quorum; eg., text in 1 for this candidate, 2 for this other one, or vote yes/no on something.

Photo: SMS was seen as a great way for communities and CBOs to communicate and organize.

Getting near the end!

We ended up taking a nice break Saturday afternoon to go to the beach. Really nice. Took tons of photos. Ended up trading acrobatic tricks with the guys so that was fun – everyone showing different moves and people trying it out. I only had like 2 things I could do – this one capoeira move – queda de rins and a headstand where you push up into a handstand -- but it was fun showing them how to do it. I think we all needed a break.

Anthony and some of the guys stayed up till like 4 a.m. getting rough cuts of 12 videos done since that was the goal for the week. I stayed up sorting photos, but not till 4!

Sunday we had a light morning. We did the evaluation by asking what was the most significant change they had experienced at the personal level during the workshop, and what change did they want to see in the community. This led into a selection of the issues that the kids want to address in the community going forward. What really came out was poor performance in school – especially for girls, early marriages/early pregnancies, disabilities/the community attitude towards those people with special needs (the community still practices exposure and infanticide if children are born with any type of disability), and youth participation/youth action to make these changes in the community. They will work on their action plan this coming week including how they will use these and other videos they will make, along with any skills they’ve learned this week to bring about some changes in the community in those areas.

Summary of some expressions during the evaluation:

“I’ve learned that change comes from within and not from outside.” Community Chairman

“I would like to work on the issue of disability because the community needs to know that every child has a right to life and disability is not inability.” Ali

“Now I’m viewing arts and media in a very different perspective – as a vital tool in sharing and disseminating ideas/issues thereby transforming the lives of people around the world” Ali K

“The workshop has changed my attitude so I feel that I can do something better for my community.” Vincent

“I’ll make a change of early pregnancy in the community and I will stay with all girls and discuss the way girls get pregnant when they are at school and how they get it easily.” Violet

“Before I joined the workshop I didn’t have an ambition, but after I joined I was taught how to use camera, to edit, to interview people and now my ambition is to become a journalist.” Samira
“I discovered my responsibilities as a youth and a technique that I can use to convince people in the community towards positive attitudes. As a youthI will make sure that the young generation is given a chance to participate in the community.” Dickson

“I would like to work on the issue of early pregnancies. It really touches my heart as it makes most of the girls in my community not fully acquire the right to education.” Chimoche

“I have come to know how to sort out problems from the community through friendly negotiation and I have developed empathy to some things.” Bomaz

“It has helped me to look at things from a broader perspective and I am in a better position to reflect on the different situations that I come across and make necessary adjustments… I would like to use of the skills I have acquired to help the community reflect on their situation so that it changes for the better.” Rama

“I’ve been introduced to the method of looking at things/issues at different levels hence identifying the consequences and impact they may have in the community.” Zainab (teacher)

We all got on the bus around 2.30 to drive everyone back to their communities, including the 2-3 kids who lived in other communities. The door fell off the bus last night as we were coming back from the beach, so the bus was really breezy. We drove around through really lush green areas where the national park and elephant sanctuary is first (and saw a herd of 4 elephants!) and then through a very arid place, and then back to a different hotel right on the beach where Wajuhi, Ali K and Ali M, and Rama and I will put the finishing touches on the videos, do the transcriptions and translations, and wrap it all up before we go home on Wednesday. There was Arabic music playing in the bus and the guys got going singing all these songs in Swahili on top of it. Maybe some of it will be nice for background music on the videos?

We got to our hotel around 6.30. It’s really nice – gorgeous floors and wood staircases, white washed, beautiful gardens, right on the beach. Since it’s low season Plan Kenya gets a good discount price. But I guess it’s geared to the older tourist. They were having bingo at 9.15 last night! I checked out the beach this morning and it’s not that great of a beach because it’s not flat and there is a lot of seaweed washing up, but nice for a solitary walk in the early morning.

YETAM Kenya

So I'm off to Kenya tonight - just about ready to head to the airport.... We'll be training in the Kwale Program Unit district with about 20 high school aged youth from one of the nearby communities. They have to go back to school on May 3, and we weren't able to negotiate any additional time with them, so we will have to fit the 2 week training into just about 9 days -- we'll see how that goes. I'm pretty stressed right now about it actually... but normally it all works out.

I'll fly from Boston to Nairobi and then take a short flight to Mombasa, stay over night there, and then will be picked up in the morning to go to the training center. I'll meet with the Plan Kenya staff to prepare, and then Thurs-Sat we'll have the facilitator's training and work out all the details for the following week with the youth. We have a basic outline that just needs fleshing out. We'll also check over all the equipment, etc. and be sure we're ready. We'll start the training with the youth on Sunday Apr 26 and run through May 3, and then I'll stay a few extra days to finish up.

I'm going to try tweeting from there to see how that goes.... could be interesting to use the YETAM twitter account for the youth to post what is going on during the training and the project, but we'll see if they are interested and if we have a good enough connection....

vacation!

Whew. It's 5.25 a.m. and I am just about off the the airport to go to Los Angeles with my kids to see my 2 brothers who live there, the one who doesn't, and the parents. We have tons of snow here so I got to enjoy 3 days of it and now can escape it to warmer climates. It should be fun! Just kinda hoping it rains on Christmas as my mom wants to spend it at Disneyland, and I'm not too keen on that. Christmas is commercial enough without spending it at the mecca of commercialism! (Sorry mom if you still read this!) But yeah, if we go it will still be good since my family is great...

I spent the weekend subtitling the Senegal films so there are several up on YouTube now. The rest I'm either missing translations or the actual video files, but I think Ayla (our intern) and I will resolve that after Jan 5. The films are quite good, so I'll be happy to finally see them up on the website when it's ready.

Last week I cleared through my last emails and only have 5 in my inbox! I had to update the Nokia proposal and budget and get going on some of the prep work for next year so we can get started on time. It should be a good year and I'm excited about it.

Over vacation I am determined to figure out my new YETAM mobile phone. After the SM4SC workshop, I decided I needed to become a real mobile user and stop just using the phone for texting and calls. So I purchased the N-82 that we had in the project budget and plan to figure it all out over the break. I figured out the camera already, how to access my gmail and get Twitter updates, but can't get into Yahoo. And there is all kinds of software linked to my laptop and 'home network' that I need to figure out so I can pass photos, music, etc back and forth. It should be fun to master....

Nicolaas just sent me my first YouTube music video by email to the phone, so it's looking promising....

Happy Holidays and here's to a fun-filled New Year full of new and exciting projects!

Social Media for Social Change Workshop

I’m back from Brazil and in Kenya now for the Social Change for Social Media workshop. There are about 25 of us here and the first day was really really good. I learned tons of stuff from everyone here. It’s about 6:00 and most everyone is still here in the workshop room, doing email and stuff. We are going into “Bar Chats” in a few minutes – where people can just suggest topics that they want to discuss and form groups to do it. Photo: Lukenya Getaway









We have tried live broadcasting some of the talks – some worked some didn’t. And we’re testing a blog on a site called Maneno. The link is http://www.maneno.org/. Under SM4SC workshop you can find it.... I couldn't get my photos to post there so I thought I'd revert to here to put some up. Photo: Tonee from Wazimba blogging. Erik from White African/Ushahidi and Mativo and Anthony from Plan Kenya.

Will post more this week.

Photo: Erik starting his talk.

more YouTube videos up!

We got the hang of it now and Ayla's amazing. So we have about 10 videos up on YouTube now, linked to the subtitles that we did on dotsub.com. She's going to tackle google earth overlays and youth film festival submissions next week when she's all done subtitling and uploading the Rwanda videos.

Meanwhile the Brazil Congress has me tearing my hair out! It's been difficult to organize with so many moving pieces. I'm sure it will all be worth it when we all arrive and the preparatory conference with the kids starts, and they have a chance to voice their opinions in the Congress sessions.

We have provisional approval for the YETAM project next year so I've been working a lot on planning for that as well as finalizing this year.

The Kenya meeting on the horizon finally. I'm really looking forward to that. We're almost done with the agenda and I'm really excited about that week and everything we'll share and discuss.

But it's hard to believe the year is almost over. I'll be in Brazil for 10 days, back for 5, in Kenya for 7, back for 5 and then off to Los Angeles to finally have a break with my whole family for Christmas holidays. I hope I can stay off email and actually relax because there is another insane year ahead....

YETAM, WCIII and Kenya coming up

OK almost another month has gone by already since I got back from Rwanda, and I've been bad at blogging.... things are chugging along with YETAM. I'm still waiting on the external drive with all the materials on it from Rwanda, but Julie's gone to Mali to start the training there, and the Senegal films are all finished now also. They need translation still though.

We have selected the YETAM website provider and they are going to start working on designing the new pages. In the meantime we finally finished the 4 virtual visits at www.planusa.org/maps so now Togo, the DR and El Salvador are up there. We're waiting on the DVD that will be sent out to schools to be finalized -- it has the 4 virtual visits that are ready along with the curricula that we developed around them. We sent a mailing out to 9000 current events teachers about the virtual visits and DVD/curriculum and got about 500 responses back - which is quite good!

I also sent an email out to people about the 4 completed ones and we had really good feedback. More and more countries want to do something similar or to post them on their home office websites, so that is cool.

On top of the YETAM project, the main things I've been doing are working on the Child and Adolescent Participation Commission for the World Congress against Child Sexual Exploitation happening in Brazil in November. I'm going to Brasilia next week to meet with UNICEF, ECPAT, Save the Children, etc. to plan for that, and then will go back in November to Rio for the actual Congress.

The other thing, which is really exciting, is the workshop we've been planning for in Kenya Dec 8-12. We've been thinking, dreaming, planning and now it's all really coming together. All the funding came through, and in the past week our list of external speakers has become an amazing group of minds. We will have Ken Banks from Frontline SMS http://www.frontlinesms.com/, Daudi Were from MentalAcrobatics http://www.mentalacrobatics.com/think/, Juliana Rodich from GlobalVoicesOnline http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ and Ushahidi http://www.ushahidi.com/, and Erik Hersman from White African http://www.whiteafrican.com/ and Ushahidi. We're also trying to see if we can visit Google Kenya and have a speaker from there as well. There will be about 25 Plan staffers/partners and 2-4 Kenyan youth as well. So I'm really looking forward to the week. I think we are going to learn and plan so much.... really excited.

In the process, we are going to work with Ushahidi to pilot some of their technology and use it for our programs. Their platform combines SMS with mapping and they created it during the election violence in Kenya last year. There are lots of uses for it in the work that we do that we can begin to explore, and I think it will be really amazing!

Another project that is coming along is Plan's participation in the 6th World Summit on Media for Children www http://www.wskarlstad2010.se/. I wrote a proposal outlining how the child and youth participation and protection could be managed at the Summit, and they liked it a lot. So we are in negotiations now about how we can make it happen and secure the necessary funding and human resources to do it. In the proposal, I also submitted ideas together with Media Snackers on how to build in the whole social media angle of the Summit and they liked that too. I'm going to meet with DK from Media Snackers http://www.mediasnackers.com/ in New York this Saturday on my way to Brazil to discuss more and then we'll talk again with the chairman of the 6WSMC to see how to move it along.

So once again I think I have too much on my plate, but it's all tasting very good.

YETAM partner training, Rwanda

I couldn't sleep last night because of jetlag so was really tired today. But the workshop that we did and the partners were so so so good that it kept me energetic.

We started at 9 and went until 4.30. We had several people including Bernard, Jacques and Olivier - young guys who work with video through Maison de Jeunes; Musafiri and Patrick from PAJER which is a youth parliament organization; Nandita and Amina from Never Again which is a theater group; Chaka a painter; Genevieve and Edison from the Plan program unit office, Joseph and Jean Baptiste from the University of Rwanda as translators, and Isaac, Chrystel and me.

There was tons of discussion about the project, ways of working with youth, facilitating vs. 'training', etc. It was really clear that we are all on the same page in terms of how to work with youth and what the project can blossom into. I'm so excited. Already the partners kept saying how we think this but we should see what the youth themselves want/think. They are talking about how to keep the project alive and sustain it and support it if the youth decide to create a youth association in the district.

They are really happy that Plan is not a 'city' organization, and that we are going to the community to work there not bringing kids into the city. They were really complimentary about the project design and the fact that Plan/Nokia have general goals but are not obligating and pressuring the community to implement in a certain way -- that the partners and communities are able to find the best way for the project to work in their realities. Although when we talked about our 'hopes and fears' almost everyone had some concerns about being away from family, work, school and friends for 3 whole weeks, they were all extremely committed to follow up with the youth and to be really present during the 3 weeks training.

Now with a common vision, tomorrow we will work on who does what, when and how for the 3 weeks. We'll focus on more solid plans (though we will be flexible as the workshop goes on) for the first week and debrief each evening, and then after the first week we will re-group to take another look at the plans for the 2nd week, and the same thing for the 3rd week.

So tomorrow we'll put up flip charts on the wall, one for each week, and the partners will come with ideas for activities. We'll fill things in and make sense of it all. Well, that's the plan, at least.