• Ler
• Editar
• Histórico
• Imprimir

August-06

Call :

---

hello to all.

just a reminder, we've all reserved 1pm for a conference call to discuss what the possibilities are, and how we might plan for a prometheus radio project series of workshops and station building in kenya, in and around the world social forum. here are the details for the call. this is an american number -- if it won't work for folks, let me know, and we can try to organize another kind of call, perhaps over scype?

         Thursday, August 03, 2006
        Start Time:         1:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time
        Type of Conference         Web-Scheduled Standard
        Dial-in Number:         1-641-696-6699  (Iowa)         
        Participant Access Code         49871

i don't feel like i'm an expert for setting an agenda for an international project, and i would hope someone else would facilitate the call. but i would anticipate that we would want to discuss:

1) hard dates for the kenyan world social forum -- when is it?

2) introduction to the potential radio building projects prometheus already knows about (petri or jamese, could either of you tell us about the two potential projects you've been discussing, with CEMIRIDE and the contacts made through the group in olympia, washington?

3) introduction on other potential kenyan projects (sphinx or others from the group he brought onto this CC list

4) unstructured discussion of needs for the project

        -- fundraising
        -- travel/visas
        -- technical needs
        -- timing

please do let us know if this scheduled meeting will still work for all on this list. if it won't work out, i'd recommend we reschedule for early september, after the prometheus barnraising.

i am looking forward to determining whether or not these ideas are tenable. with respect for all,

hannah s. prometheusradioproject

MINUTES OF CALL:

---

hi guys, i am not sure if they are useful, but here are my rough notes from the call we were just on. sphinx from IMC ambazonia and global IMC, siyade gemechisa and pete tridish and hannah sassaman from prometheus, and chris hill from antioch were on, as was jay sand from philadelphia and global IMC.

to do's include developing a rough equipment and travel budget that can get shopped around the imc finance lists, looking for local IMC partners in africa, talking to potential supportive former funders and administrators at antioch, thinking about the relationship between an IMC station at the world social forum in nairobi and a station at maseno university near kisumu, bringing in judith atiang (?) from the maseno communications department. connecting with ulu, the local indymedia organizer in nairobi focusing on the WSF, anything else major i missed?

thanks to all who support this project and who participated in today's call. please do edit my notes if they are not accurate (and i -know- they are incomplete).

in solidarity, hannah s. prometheusradioproject

chris hill -- works at antioch college trying to make contact w/folks in africa communications faculty at MASENO university including radio as part of their curriculum...

judith atiang, chair of communications dept at maseno, in dayton in june

so some email exchange between judith and jay.

MASENO UNIVERSITY... chris will be sending books on radio, interested in maybe doing works on that...

jay sand -- works with IMCs in africa, raising money for conferences that they've had.

in looking forward to social forum... start now to get us to go... jay would like to go... jay w/indymedia in africa has done a good jub at the last minute raising money -- but now a good time to start earlier, and use networks around funding to establish resources to get stuff to happen in advance of the conference

fundraising between antioch/maseno... steve lowry for/from antioch, PHD from madison. students from kenya on campus...

steve lowry from FORD, just came over to be president of antioch... send chris hill the tanzania video...

chris spent 2.5 weeks at maseno university... judith is interested in collaborating in some way around the world social forum.

sphinx was talking with her about LPFM at maseno university itself...

maseno is about 25k from kisumi, it is about a 1/2 day from nairobi. maseno at the top of a hill, near lake victoria...

3000 students. 2 parts to the campus, seperated by a road about 1 mile long. matatu transportation between kisumu and the campus -- minibus.

accomodations -- plenty of areas to pitch tents, whether or not the university supports that. there are also visitors rooms for 14 bucks a night, that includes breakfast... but a limited number of rooms like that on campus.

a few hotels in town.

if there were lots of people hard to consider... the communications dept has 100 majors but very little equipment. they work on VHS. so with the $ they just got they will move from analog to digital editing. 2 cameras for 100 students. journalism oriented. students have great performances and great oratory skills!

independent radio station around lake victoria.

communications dept. has 607 faculty members. all the students do intern work as part of their communications education. they do theatre too!

the dept was great, but the larger administrsation not so great.

judith would have to clear all of this and really push it through.....

sphinx!

his connexions. ULU -- one of the main coordinators of the world association federetion... did work at indymedia toronto... active in kenya... very active with the group that started indymedia kenya. last time when they did DAKUR indymedia africa conference. he coordinated the group that came from kenya. he wrote a call to indymedia africa mailing list to get involved. WSF project! sphinx thinks that radio is one of the projects we've been discussing time and again. both ULU and JUDITH are LUO.

JOHN makawaki, he was the person who initiated one of the groups in kenya, sphix knows him from work in germany from conferences, sphinx introduced him to indymedia.

also a lady sphinx forgot their name -- does some work in mumbasa -- also involved in the indymedia conference in dakur.

WAYS THOUGHT ABOUT PROJECTS COMPLINENTING EACH OTHER OR COLLABORATING? 2 radio stations -- indymedia and maseno, or working together on one station?

MASENO -- expensive to use the internet, the dropout on this is insane...

SPHINX -- these tools are vital in organizing, so theory is that indymedia gets involved... schools in sphinx' experience schools are important because of the capacity they have... so when schools get involved they become the space for that activity, so if we can activate judith then maseno becomes like an organizing space for indymedia. there are already indymedia folks in maseno...

sphinx sees this as the start of a project that can duplicate itself over time...

uganda, mali, and other countries will see this project as a connecting point to get experience and to learn how to do this stuff...

INDYMEDIA IN KENYA -- sounds like maseno is a major training program, so some of the graduates move on to work for corporations and state owned media. so petri wonders politically -- how does that work?

shphinx hopes that the horizonally arranged radio project would shape the discussion and introduce the dept. to this kind of infrastructure and organizing. the discourse could get influenced... hopes the station inspires a critique...

alternative software, critiques...

chris hill was mostly around instructors, students, drivers, hotel staff... they were amazed at the level of involvement on the discussion around the constitution and how informed people were.

doesn't think that most folks have been exposed to that much independent media, htough a few faculty are conducting media or theatre work in their home villages.

they want their students to go into the industry, chris discussed going into the industry in kenya and maybe being able to make change, not being able to do so as much in the USA

chris brought up indymeda in a talk on grassroots international movements around media, mostly people just not familiar with it. many of the faculty didn't have computers.

only one computer in the dept was hooked up to the internet.

chris: because there are this collection of studnets, the larger undergrad program in communications, if the project was set up either in maseno or kisumu, using the lake, the students would be able to intersect with indymedia there. maybe think about using maseno in some ways but building in kisumi.

sphinx: in nigeria, we hooked up with a school club, computer club, baseing the focus on the computer club on which the indymedia group could be funded or supported. then if it is a project under a club, the school definitely would put limits on the project.

experience in central africa - people caught up with survival so if a resourced space is built still hard to use. if at a school where they hooked up regularly, then it would be easier to use, because folks are used to engaging with the school.

JAY : what about the WSF< and is there a sustainable group to keep up the work? so maybe january focuses on nairobi and where the world social forum is going to be. what kind of radio activity could appear there? and are the nairobi based indymedia kenya folks interested in building a radio station that is sustainable? and keeping it together? can we do a station at the forum, that can be a model for other groups across africa?

SPHINX -- it would be nice if indymedia were the centre of communications at the WSF. ULU really overworked with preparations for hte forum.

the africa WSF is going to be pretty centrally localized. so if we asked for/pushed for a radio/media component we could get some really central space in it. if ULU gets involved in procuring some physical space in this area where we can run workshops, a few days before the forum starts, get our stuff there, start running....

creating trainings, workshops, how to explanations... so people could talk about what happens in their own area.

is tehre time between now and january to get through bureaucratic hoops at maseno?

FUNDING FOR AFRICA INDYMEDIA WORK.

indymedia africa fundraising has been very chaotic. we get indymedia groups on board and have them fundraise locally. that is how it worked in the past... it is hard but the WSF is something we hope that every indymedia will work towards.

1) write the request to indymedia finance. get a local indymedia involved to act on the finance request. spell out the entire project, what is needed, why, how. indymedias that want an image for themselves to approach in their community based on that image.

jay -- the thing that works well and that we have enough time to do is to come up with a decent budget for what we need to raise for bringing people in. that is a major factor in finance people feeling comfortable. if they see a budget they will organize for travel.

in terms of equip -- it is easier to present a full budget, for equimpent and then stuff like travel/transportation...

jay: indymedia groups enthusiasic about paying for equipment aht will abide, and less excited about paying for travel. that has been a lot harder. focusing on equip and figuring that out -- people like sending their mp3 player to be used. focusing on tech.

JUDITH: she thought the university would invest in a low power transmitter for dorms, etc.

when petri does projects, petri tries to focus on the transmitter, which is the missing ingredient.

SPHINX -- will get ahold of ulu, to develop a budget... petri will give a list of materials for ulu.

about 2k of funding.

soros just opened an east africa funding source in nairobi...