Finalist – Netherlands: Reaching for the Overlooked Oromo Voices
Posted April 1, 2013 14:58 GMT
Categories: Netherlands, Ethnicity & Race, Audio Podcasts
Albeit the Oromo people is the single largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, its language, culture, norm, tradition, politics and indigenous knowledge have been overlooked by the successive regimes for more than a century and half. It was self-governing nation for about 600 years through democratic election in every 8 years. About a million Oromo people are also living abroad as minority, of which about 1000 are in The Netherlands. Hence, this project aims to interconnect the local Oromo people with the diaspora and outside world and help make them heard through online radio and social media.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
The Hague
Describe the specific community with whom you will be working.
Back home, the Oromo nation has remained without any domestic alternative Media (printing or electronic ones), business as usual. Firstly, this project basically focuses on the local Oromo peoples who have no any access for free media by giving them awareness about using online radio and SMS-mobile service. This could be done through telephone contacts with students over there. The selected high school and university students would be trained using social-media, and train their communities subsequently. Secondly, focuses on the (elderly) Oromo communities who don’t know how to making use of online radio/social media to get their voices heard in The Netherlands and abroad by training them on recording, editing and uploading. The training would be given in groups by journalist and volunteers
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
The vision of this project is to empower the Oromo community with media knowledge by enabling them making use of internet as a medium of information exchange and training how to recording and editing news and programs with audacity and putting online radio/internet. In addition help the people make use of Facebook, twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, WIZIQ, Google+ and LinkedIn as the places for information exchange. Reliable, impartial and up-to-date news and programs related to their language, history, culture, indigenous environment protection and conflict resolution knowledge would be produced and disseminated to the public.
What technologies and digital tools do you plan to use in the trainings?
Describe the connections that you or your organization have already established that will contribute to the success of the project.
Predominantly, for the success of this project I already have strong contacts with the Oromo communities/leaders in The Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Nairobi, Sudan, London, Washington DC, Minneapolis and Melbourne. I have also a plan to make contacts with those based in the USA, Canada, Uganda, Eritrea, Greece, Sweden, Switzerland and Den Mark. I have good connections with the local Oromo people and students in the universities, in Ethiopia. Very few volunteers are willing to recording and airing news and programs on the online radio designed for this project, called Simbirtuu radio. The volunteers are from Germany, Den Mark and The Netherlands.
How many participants do you think will be involved in your project?
This training will be implemented in two phases. During the first phase, about 329 Oromo community members, leaders and students across Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and Ethiopia will be trained as trainers, of which 20 0f them are from The Netherlands. In the second phase, these trainees could subsequently train about 15, 400 local communities where they reside. This chain continues based on circumstances. Once they get trained, a special follow up would be conducted for those in the Netherlands by building social-media networks with them. Also few of them would be allowed to participate in the Simbirtuu programs production and transmission until the end of this year. As a coach, I shall also follow up those in Ethiopia and abroad through regular telephone, Facebook, Skype, SMS, etc.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
During the training, we basically depend of the H1 zoom recording and audio city technologies for recording and editing items. We shall make use of computers and Skype as supplementary tools. Of course beam, mobiles and mini-sound records would also be used as training aid. The apprentices shall be trained how to make use of Facebook, Skype, YouTube, Vimeo, LinkedIn and open own website to exchange ideas among themselves and the larger communities/world. The Simbirtuu website is to be used as a training case where they could make use in the futures.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
The work-shop would be hold in a rented hall containing tables, chairs, toilets, electricity, water, coffee/thee machine, excellent signal strength and radio type internet connection with 100mbs, Dial-up, SSID and/or USB modems in the Hague or Haarlem city. Though the project is based in The Hague, the training could also be given in other cities and towns of The Netherlands where more Oromo peoples reside. The series of training would depend on the availability of budget and training materials. The same thing works for in the Germany and others.
What is your current relationship with the community with whom you plan to work? What makes you the most appropriate individual or organization to implement this project?
I am a journalist currently working for the Radio Simbirtuu, which is intended to be the voices for the voiceless Oromo people. I have more than 6 year work experiences in the field with reputable ethics of journalism, sources of news, and information dissemination both in homeland, Oromia-Ethiopian and the diaspora Oromo. I have good relationships with the communities to whom the project is envisioned as well. These are what make me more known within my people. I am university graduate and sometimes human-rights activist. And I am committed to do these activities indefinitely.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
In the Netherlands and neighbouring countries, the workshop would be given in the form of groups. In this case: transport costs for trainees; shortage of computers and mobiles; absence or delay of the trainees from the workshop; refusing to travel long distance for the training or preferring to get it nearby; and shortage of volunteers and money. This could be overcome by effectively and efficiently using the existing resources and giving the trainings in places where more peoples reside. For the online trainings given to those in Ethiopia and other countries: the unavailability of mobile phones as equal as demanded by the students and local communities in the rural areas; far to control the workshop; faulty of internet and tight control and tapping conversation by state are the problems.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
In the Netherlands, the outcome of this project would be measured by subsequently following up the capability of the trainees creating own social media networks among each other in which I would also be in their networks. Besides, this could ultimately be proved by allowing few of them participating on items recording for the Simbirtuu (online) radio production and transmission (or show) so as to exchange their issues that most matter them and their people back home. By doing so they could be able to bring differences in making their voices heard by the local community they reside within and the digital world at large.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2013?
Nr. Activities Dates 1. Mobilizing local Oromo community in The Netherlands 13/04/13-27/07/13 2. Organizing volunteers 06/04/13-20/04/13 3. Arranging training place (hall) 04/0513-18/05/13 4. Purchasing training equipment 18/05/13-25/05/13 5. First part training in Netherlands (20 people) 08/06/13-09/06/13 6. Trainees exercising on social-media/radio 15/06/13-31/12/13 7. Second part training 27/07/13-28/07/13 8. Online training (for Ethiopians and others) 15/06/13-31/08/13
Detail a specific budget of up to $4,000 USD for operating costs.
Nr. Activities Estimated cost ($) 1 Workshop (training hall rent, coffee/thee) cost 445 2 Travel costs 300 3 Coordinators expenses 200 4 Training materials (like sound, video and zoom recorders) 1435 5 Laptop(1) 500 6 Cables/internet 155 7 Mobile phones (50) 750
Besides the microgrant funding, what other resources and support are you seeking for your project to ensure its success?
With capacity building: • H1 Zoom (sound) recording devices, • Beam projector • Mobile phones, • Video editing devices, & • Technical training on video editing, website designing and other digital tools
Contact name
Dessu Dulla Gashe
Organization
Simbirtuu Radio
