Indymedia Convergence Planned for Dakar

 

 Independent Media Center (www.indymedia.org) - Convergence Funding RequestsThe IMC-Africa Working Group is convening next month at the World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal. Please DONATE to help fund DELEGATE TRAVEL EXPENSES. Deadline: Wednesday, Jan 19, 2011

Delegates from nine African countries are planning to attend the fourth Indymedia-Africa networking and training session in advance of the 10th Annual World Social Forum next month in Dakar, Senegal. Five of the delegations represent IMCs that are either active or restructuring, two are from groups who are forming new IMCs, and two are from groups who are not yet connected with the Indymedia network but do other forms of community-based media. The gathering will provide an alternative space to the NGO-dominated WSF and increase the opportunity to expose the indymedia network to other activists from around Africa that will be in town for the forum. We also intend to collaborate on reporting on the forum.

Delegates are still looking for individuals and organizations who can help with funding for transportation. The interest this year is over three times the registration for our last convergence - representing 99 media makers and community organizers have been recruited and identified, and due to diligent recruiting work on the part of the facilitators, a full half of these are women. Below are descriptions of the delegations, and our goals for this convergence, and the estimated travel costs of these options. You can see the full list of delegates and their individual organizations on indymedia twiki page athttps://docs.indymedia.org/Local/Dakar2011ListOfDelegates. Delegates who cannot attend this convergence will attend the next one, tentatively scheduled for late 2011.Please Donate Now through Deep Dish TV paypal! (who is Deep Dish TV?)(click on the paypal link to Donate!) 

Ambazonia (Cameroon)

The third IMC to form in Africa, IMC Ambazonia is currently restructuring after suffering repression following the student strikes of 2005. Valentine Eben (aka Sphinx) was one of those forced to flee after these actions after taking extensive video documentation of the police violence using a hidden cell phone camera. He has since obtained refugee status in the US and produced his coverage into a full-length documentary entitled “Standing with the Students,” produced in collaboration with Sin Frontesras Media Collective. Sphinx also provided much of the organizing for all four previous IMC-Africa gatherings from exile.

Other members of IMC-Abazonia include Justice Muluh Mbuh, a lecturer at a local college who just got out of jail after a year in detention for possession of dissident materials, and Edith Ngang, a community organiser with a focus on battered women. We are hoping to be able to fund at least these three delegates.

Fund Sphinx's ticket for $1236

Fund Justice and Edith's tickets for $2472

Fund the whole delegation of 5 for $6180Please Donate Now through Deep Dish TV paypal!

We are asking for $25, $50, $75, $100, and more donations. Any amount you can give is greatly appreciated.

DR-Congo

The group in the Democratic Republic of Congo has just begun to form an IMC, however they have been in touch with the IMC–Africa working group since the First African Regional Indymedia Conference in Dakar in 2004. The Congolese delegation at the time was organised by Floribert Chebeya from “La Voix des Sans Voix,” whose assassination in June last year sent a shock wave around the human rights community world wide. This year, 8 delegates from the forming indymedia DRC have registered to participate. They are building indymedia DRC to serve as a media tool to raise more awareness and do outreach in their communities as well as globally. The groups involved in this collective is very diverse; from child protection advocates like Mr. Jean Baptiste Mulongo Kaulu, to advocates against the crimes of mining companies in mineral rich Katanga province like Madame Mariette Kalango Mwayumba, to Arthur Ngoy Munfungwa from the Saint Joseph hospital which has focused on providing restorative surgical services to women who have been the victims of brutal rapes in the wars in Southern Congo.

Fund Jean Baptiste for $1416

Fund Madame Mariette and Arthur Ngoy for $2832

Fund the whole delegation of 8 for $11,382

 

Kenya

Kenya Indymedia is a thriving IMC with three active projects. The Nairobi group was the initiator, facilitated by John Bwakali following his participation in the 2004 IMC-Africa Convergence. A second group has organized around KOCH-FM, the first community-owned and operated radio station in a slum in East Africa, and a third around the Equator FM collective in Kisumu, Kenya. KOCH-FM got a new transmitter through their participation in the last IMC-Africa convergence's transmitter building workshop, and Equator FM was started using equipment and networks built at the same gathering.

Kenya Indymedia is currently the leading group spreading the word around Africa for movements in the continent to tap into the potential of the indymedia network to strengthen their local work. Mr. Bwakali's most recent recruit is a delegation of community radio makers in Rwanda.

Fund John Bwakali for $1358

Fund one delegate from each of the two radio stations for $2716

Fund five female delegates for $6790

Fund the whole delegation of 15 for $20,370

 

Mali

The Mali delegation has been organizing for several years, but has not yet completed the new IMC process. Working in collaboration with groups such as Movement for the Voiceless , Association of Maliean Exiles (AME), and the Union of the Wretched of the Earth, they have used the momentum around the Dakar mobilization to rekindle energy for a relaunch. Organizers include Moussa Coulibaly Mamadou, who has maintained communication with the IMC-Africa group, and Alassane Dicko who is a member of AME. The Mali group is traveling via bus, making their travel costs very efficient.

Fund Moussa and Alassane for $300

Fund three female delegates for $450

Fund the whole delegation of 8 for $1,200

Please Donate Now through Deep Dish TV paypal

 

Nigeria

The Nigeria delegation is made mainly of women from the Delta Region of Nigeria where a low key war has been going on with Nigerian Federal government forces and oil companies’ security outfits on one side and the local population that is fed-up with exploitation, pollution and poverty on the other. Recent research shows that an Exxon Valdez sized oil spill has occurred on average every year for the past 50 years in the Niger Delta. Exxon is responsible for 6 spills in the same area of the Niger Delta since December 2009.

Some of the Delta Region Community leaders we are trying to bring to the Convergence include:

1. Ms. Emem J. Okon - Executive Director of Kebetkache Women Development & Resource Centre. Kebetkache is a community action, grassroots education, advocacy non-government organization working to empower women to address issues of social justice and human rights and development.

2. Ms. Inyene Okon - Niger Delta Women for Justice (NDWJ). This is a grassroots women movement that serves as a platform for community women to speak about issues of environmental racism, social negligence and the unresponsive character of oil and gas companies in the Niger Delta.

3. Ms. Dorothy Ejuwa - Ugborodo Women forum. This is a platform of action for women in the communities in the Warri south west local government area who occupied chevron oil tank farm in June 2002, which got the government and the oil companies for the first time to listen to local leaders about the pollution in their land by oil companies and the problem of flaring.

For the last three years, Kola Olaleye has been working to build these networks in order to reorganize and re-launch Indymedia Nigeria.

Fund Kola Olaleye for $743

Fund Emem, Inyene and Dorothy for $2,229

Fund the 18 female delegates for $13,374

Fund the whole delegation for $27,491

Please Donate Now through Deep Dish TV paypal!

$25: Rwanda                

As the Indymedia Africa working group continues its outreach afford across the continent of Africa, Rwanda is the latest country to which we are starting to build a working relationship with a local community project. Indymedia Kenya folks introduced Izuba Radio project organizers in Rwanda to the Indymedia network in the wake of preparations for the Dakar Convergence; and the group immediately registered three delegates for the Convergence. With the difficulty we are facing with raising funds, we are at least trying to look for a sponsor or funds to at least cover the transportation of one of the Rwandan delegates to the Convergence.

Fund one delegate for $1307

Fund the whole delegation of 3 for $3921

 

South Africa

Indymedia South Africa was the first IMC in Africa. With the emergence of web 2.0 and the continuous lack of technical support to help with proper maintenance of their online platform, indymedia organizers in Johannesburg and Cape Town gave up on the project and got absorbed into other local media projects. In the last years, a new groups of activists working around the Center for Civil Society in Durban have recognized the vital role the indymedia South Africa web platform played; not only for local struggles that could not afford such a platform by themselves, but also for global networking. These activists are starting efforts to relaunch indymedia South Africa. We are looking for funding to at least bring one of the 12 South African delegates who registered for the Convergence to Dakar for the skills sharing workshops and networking opportunity.

Fund one delegate for $1168

Fund the 9 female delegates for $10,512

Fund the whole delegation of 12 for $14,01 

Uganda

Mission Youth from Uganda participated for the first time in an IMC-Africa Convergence Center in 2007 in Nairobi, Kenya. Mission Youth amongst other things uses video screening in neighborhoods to raise awareness on social justice issues in Uganda. Being the first group with which we have developed a working relationship in Uganda, we hope to continue building on the relations started in 2007 by also helping at least get a delegate from Mission Youth to the Dakar Convergence.

Fund one delegate for $849

Fund the 5 female delegates for $4,245

Fund the whole delegation of 8 for $6,792

 

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe IMC like several other socio-political structures in that country has come under enormous pressure following the political turmoil of the last couple of years. As life starts showing signs of returning to normality, some media activists are working on restructuring indymedia Zimbabwe. We got a chance to work with some of the Zimbabwean media activists in the 2007 Nairobi Convergence, and are trying to help get at least a delegate from that collective to the Dakar Convergence as well.

Fund one delegate for $1,375

Fund the female delegate for $1,375

Fund the whole delegation of 3 for $4125