YETAM on YouTube now!

I'm so excited because now YouTube has captions now. And I have a GREAT intern named Ayla who is doing all the subtitling for the Rwanda videos. She's posted several of them on dotsub.com and done the subtitles from Kinyarwandan and from English (using the documents that Joseph and Baptiste did). Chrystel from Plan Rwanda will send us the French versions soon, and so all 3 planned languages will be done.

We were getting some comments that the videos were not loading quickly so we are testing with YouTube and now will be posting in both places. Basically it's really simple. We take the videos and compress them into flash (.flv) files, and upload them to dotsub.com to do the subtitling. Then we upload them also to YouTube and we download the subtitle files from YouTube and re-upload/attach them to the YouTube file. And it's working super well. I started a PlanYETAM channel so as the videos get loaded they will be available there.

http://www.youtube.com/user/PlanYETAM

Once Ayla finishes uploading Rwanda films, we should have the Mali and the Senegal ones in hand to start uploading. I'm hoping that the web company can the just embed the videos from YouTube and they will come complete with the captions. You can also use geo-location from YouTube, which is cool since I've been wanting to do a google earth overlay for quite awhile, and now with the videos on YouTube it will be a snap. Ayla is already figuring it out -- she's great!

I am dying to see the Senegal and Mali films since I wasn't at the training. Mali sent a really cool attachment with their quarterly report. They used an evaluation methodology called Most Significant Change where you use storytelling to identify the most significant change from the training. So there are some amazing stories and quotes from the kids in there. I hope that we can use this for the upcoming YETAM projects in the next countries.

I had to do a presentation today at our office because it's already been 6 months that I've been on this 'secondment' or special assignment with the West Africa office. I can't believe it's gone by so fast. I think I've enjoyed almost every minute of it.

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.

on my way to Rwanda

So it's my last day in the States for awhile. I'm in a hotel near the airport in DC finishing up last minute things before I'm out till Aug 31 supporting the training in Gatsibo, Rwanda. Had a nice few days with my parents and kids in between work -- flew into Indianapolis on Tues night and spent a few days there and in my home town Ft Wayne. The kids will stay there until the last week of August when they go back home to start school. I hate being gone for their first week of school, but with the crazy schedule there wasn't much choice this time. There has been so much to do this past week that I was really stressed. It will be good to be able to focus on one thing for the next few weeks.

Julie wrote up a long report on how things have been going in Senegal that Chrystel (Rwanda coordinator) and I will use to shape the training in Rwanda. There are lots of experiences with Senegal as well as with the trainings I've been involved in to keep learning and improving with each time we do it. So I'm getting excited as well as anxious as I always do before starting something really important. It always takes a few days for everyone to settle into the routine, which is stressful.

Hopefully I'll have some pictures and short videos to post in the next week or so. I get into Rwanda on Monday after flying from DC to Rome to Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) to Kigali, so long flights and lots of stop overs. Think I'll be exhausted but have to go straight into the office for a meeting. Then Tues Chrystel and I will get ready for the partners training that takes place on Wed-Fri. Sunday we go to Gatsibo for the training with the community and youth which will start on Monday. I also have a few meetings/conference calls on other things I have to do this coming week, but after that I will be free from phone/internet for a couple of weeks which will be nice!

More later....

Villa 1223

We’re finally here in Dakar at Villa 1223, our home for the next 3 weeks. I had the week leading into today off for vacation but really only took Thursday and Friday because I had so much work to finish up. I decided on Thursday to paint Clare’s room which left us with one day less to pack, but luckily we got everything done on time. My colleague Kate gave Clare a bed she didn’t need, and I dropped the wood frame on my toe while putting it together. The smashed toe is still pulsing and purple and I’m hoping it’s not too serious.


Visibly limped the whole way, dragging the suitcases from the bus to the subway to the Air train and through the JFK airport, changing band aids in the bathroom…

Aside from the inevitably shady moment upon arriving at the airport, when the men hustle you for a taxi and everyone wants to help you carry your suitcases, we arrived perfectly. Slept the whole way while Clare watched 3 movies. Met a very nice man named Assan who noticed my Plan environmental bag. Turns out he had just come from a meeting in Toronto with one of my very best old friends, Laura del Valle, who worked with me at Plan in El Salvador and now works for WV with him in the same department. Such a small world.

The room at Villa 1223 is very sweet. It’s painted lavender and has a double bed, closet, sofa, dressing table and bathroom with a toilet, shower, sink and pail for collecting water in case it gets shut off and we need some saved up to bathe. The only problem is that we don’t have access to the kitchen so I’m not sure how that’s going to work…. (see video for a quick tour!)It’s in a dusty neighborhood somewhere near the district where the non-profits have their offices – we passed by them on the ride from the airport. The taxi driver said that Mie, another old friend from El Salvador who now works with Plan’s West Africa Regional Office would come to get us at treize heures – which I thought was 3 (Spanish kicking in) but then realized is thirteen, so 1.00. So we unpacked, showered and slept till 12.30. Julie, the project coordinator and I will meet at 6 for a beer and to get acquainted for our work together. We’ve been ‘skyping’ for a few months so it will be nice to finally talk in person.

One week to go....

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.