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Action Alert: Blog Action Day 2008

What? Blog Action Day 2008 - Poverty
When? October 15, 2008
Where? on your blog
Why? To raise awareness and trigger a global discussion on poverty.

Vimeo has announced it’s 2008 challenge to bloggers, called Blog Action Day.  It’s meant to encourage and empower bloggers around the world to focus on one pertinent issue to write about on 15 October 2008.  Their aim every year is to “raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.”

This year’s topic is focused on global poverty.  Vimeo has even provided bloggers with a video (below) to post beforehand to spread the word, which I’ve gone and posted on my blog, and have seen several times this week on other blogs!  Please join in this effort, and follow the links below to learn more.

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

Senegal: Microfinance Online

Description: A surprising number of people in the developing world still hide their money under a mattress at home. Accessible and developed banking systems are still in short supply and borrowing money at double digit monthly interests is prohibitive and discourages business. Microfinance is the bridge that empowers the underprivileged.

Birima provides microfinance loans to the people of Senegal. It supports emerging artists and musicians but it is open to all and in particular women and youths. Birima has been part of an innovative publicity campaign to raise finance and awareness.

Tools: media, video, YouTube, LastFM

How these tools are being used: Founder and Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour, with the participation of singers Patti Smith, Simphiwe Dana, Irene Grandi and Francesco Renga re-arranged N’Dours Birima song (originally recorded in 2000). The single forms part of a global communications campaign run by Benetton’s communications research center, Fabrica.

As part of the Africa Works campaign the video clip of the song was posted on YouTube and LastFm. The campaign also includes a cartoon about micro-credit that was produced specifically for the Senegalese community and African TV Channels. A series of images was produced by photographer James Mollison displaying the progress of Birima’s loan recipients. The subjects include a fisherman, a decorator, a musician, a farmer, and a boxer and the images will displayed on billboards and ads. The campaign will be supported by press advertising, outdoor events and projects.

Campaign:Online activists take on Beijing Olympics

Description: The Beijing Olympics are coming up in a couple of weeks, and this has not gone unnoticed by human rights activists worldwide. They are using the international event to spotlight atrocities thousands of miles away in Darfur, which campaigners say is indirectly due in part to the Chinese government.

Tools Being Used: YouTube, e-petition

What Are They Doing: Switch Over to Darfur is an international initiative to bring attention to the many Olympic corporate sponsors who have not spoken out against China continuing to finance the Sudanese government. Some of the sponsors include Adidas, General Electric and Coca Cola. The campaign is not intended to boycott the Olympics, but rather the campaign say they “are urging the Olympic corporate sponsors to join [them] in pressuring the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and China to, in turn, press Sudan to ensure that there is immediate protection for civilians and humanitarian workers on the ground in Darfur well before the Games begin.”

Supporters are asked to sign a petition on their website, pledging support for the campaign as well as read a message by actress Mia Farrow. The campaign has created the video below that speaks for itself, which can be viewed here.

Video: An Introduction to Digital Activism

Check out this great new video introduction to digital activism, “The New Change-Makers: an Introduction to Digital Activism,” co-produced by DigiActive team member Mary under the auspices of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard.

Click the link for the YouTube embed code to put the video on your own blog.

Resource: What should YouTube do for activists?

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking with Ramya Raghavan, the new Nonprofits and Activism Manager at YouTube (see her intro video below). She is the head of the new Agent Change project for non-profits and activists.

Ramya is very dynamic and committed to making YouTube a better tool for activists. So, what do you think, how should YouTube being doing for activists? Let us know in the comments or e-mail her your thoughts at agentchange@youtube.com.

Campaign: Stop the Deportation of Amdani Juma

Description: Amdani Juma left Burundi during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. When he returned after the conflict he was held captive, beaten, and put under surveillance. He fled to Britain in 2003 and applied for asylum, which he was denied last December. He had become a pillar of the community in Nottingham, working for the Refugee Forum and setting up his own organization, the African Institute for Social Development. For this reason, people in Nottingham wanted him to stay in their community and started a campaign to fight his deportation to Burundi, which was scheduled for June 4th.

Digital Activism tools: several different blogs (including an official blog), Facebook group, citizen journalism, e-petition

How These Tools Are Being Used: Online tools are integrated with offline tactics and organizing to intensify the impact of the campaign. While the official blog is a center for the latest information on the case, including press releases, and the Facebook group draws in new members, offline actions, like a protest in Nottingham’s town center, bring attention to the injustice. The e-petition is used in the same way as the protest - to make a visual popular statement of support for Juma. Because the story was not being covered by the mainstream media, citizen journalists from the site Indymedia UK covered the story to raise awareness, as did bloggers.

Outcome: Juma’s deportation was moved back 6 days, to June 10th, though a final decision has not yet been made.

Read more »

Tactic: Online Video Protest in (Virtual) Tunisia

You can see a larger version of the video on the Nawaat site.

Description: In 2007, the Tunisian government, led by President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, blocked the video-sharing site DailyMotion.com, in part because the site hosted video testimony of Tunisian political prisoners. In response, the human rights organization Nawaat has created an online video protest on Google Earth. If you visit the Tunisian presidential palace on Google Earth, you will see that it is covered with links to the same videos of political prisoners which President Ben Ali was trying to block (see video above). Now, at least online, evidence of Tunisia’s political prisoners are right in the President’s front yard!

Organizer: Nawaat (”the core”), a Tunisian human rights site, co-founded by Tunisian digital activist Sami Ben Gharbia, creator of the video above.

Purpose of Action: To show President Ben Ali that he cannot censor the truth about Tunisian political prisoners, that the truth will come right to his front door.

Organizing Tools: Google Earth, YouTube

Outcome: Unknown.

Ease of Replication: Pretty easy. You can add the Google Earth video geo-tags through YouTube. when you upload a video to YouTube you have the option to specify the date and the location of the video. When you click on that option, you will find a Google map which you can zoom in on. Then you place the geo-tag marker on the location you want the video to be associated with, in this case, the Tunisian presidential palace in Carthage. You can also place the geo-tag marker by inputting the longitude and latitude of the location. There is such easy interactivity between Google Earth, Google Maps, and YouTube because all three applications are owned by Google.

Resource: Digital Activism for the Environment

Title: Green Global Voices: Web 2.0 Environmental Activism

Author: Juliana Rotich, editor of Green Global Voices

Published by: Reuters Blog (2008)

What is it?: A detailed post reviewing how activists are using digital tools to protect the environment. Featured tools include blogs and video, Flickr, data mashups, and mobile phones.

Read more »

Tactic: Why Don’t Chilean Parties Use Web Tools?

Description: Last week El Mercurio (one of the oldest newspapers in Chile) published a report about the use of Web technologies by political parties in the country (original source in Spanish). The article stated that what the parties were using was very very basic and lacks the “social” element. Even though each one of these parties have a website (list here), they don’t apply the latest interactive Web 2.0 technologies.

Organizer: The political parties of Chile

Purpose of Action: To win elections and gain voter support

Organizing tools not used: YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, or blogging

Outcome: The impact of this new situation is uncertain, but if access to the Internet increases and the activities of young voters online continue to increase, we will see a very different electional process in 2009. The fewer the number of parties that understand this, the lower the probability that they will understand the phenomenon of “Politics 2.0″ that is consolidating around the world and may produce very deep changes in the way we understand “Government”.

Ease of Replication: If we look at the political campaigns in the US, and search a bit about the use of this tools, we can see that, for example, Obama has more than 800,000 followers in Facebook and Ms. Clinton has 150,000. In the past presidential elections in France, the Internet was not only important in the campaigns (in fact Nicolas Sarkozy opposed using it to debate with other candidates), but also it allowed to spread the news who was the winner, due to the bloggers who had fresh info that the media couldn’t get at the same time.

Read more »

Campaign: Saving Israeli town of Sderot

Note: We at DigiActive understand that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an extremely sensitive topic. Our goal is to maintain a neutral perspective, highlighting digital activism from both sides without favoritism. However, we will not post content which actively advocates violence against either side. If we have linked to violent content in error, let us know and we will take it down.

Description of Campaign: Sderot is a small town near the Gaza Strip (see map below) which has been the frequent target of Kassam rockets from Palestine. Bloggers are getting together to “save Sderot” by telling the stories of its citizens online.

Digital Activism Tools: Facebook, blog, YouTube

How These Tools Are Being Used: The Sderot Media Center, whose goals is to present the human face behind the news, is using its YouTube channel to provide a window into daily life in Sderot. In addition, videos unrelated to the center have appeared, including one, “Children of Sderot Just Want A Little Peace”, which focuses on the safety of children to Sderot, and “Save the City of Sderot in Israel.”

Blogs, are also being used to raise awareness of Sderot. The international Jewish organization United Jewish Communities has created a blog called Voices from Sderot which also describes daily life in the town.

Finally, Israeli activists are using Facebook to bring together supporters of Sderot. There are over 100 groups about Sderot on Facebook, most with less than 1000 members. The largest, “Stop the Kassam rockets on Sderot!” has over 5,500.

Read more »