At the beginning of a project like this the technology portion can seem to be the hardest to get off the ground. In the end, it’s just the tool, and the hard work will come from people in the field who are working with NGO’s to keep this information accurate and to chronicle as much of it as they can. If you want to help, get in touch with Daudi or Ory to get started.

When all the dust settles from this in Kenya, don’t be one of the ones saying, “I should have done something”.

Tags:
Kenya
Ushahidi

Cross Posted from Kabissa Blog

Two weeks into the Kenyan post election crisis has seen a range of technological initiatives being applied by advocacy groups, Kenyan bloggers and human rights organisations.

In an environment of fear and violence with many businesses closed and little or very expensive transport how do you communicate with friends and family? How do you send and receive money when banks and other financial businesses such as Western Union offices are closed? The simple answer is the ubiquitous mobile phone. One activist (for purposes of his personal safety we cannot mention his name) wrote how he was able to distribute a donation of money by purchasing phone credits and dispersing them to colleagues in need. One person in Eldoret needed money for transport, others could not get to a Western Union paypoint to receive funds and so on. He was then able to phone all of his colleagues and ensure they had cashed in their credits and were safe.

One innovative way of using technology was suggested by Kenyan blogger, Ory of Kenyan Pundit and taken up by White African in his post “Using Technology to Chronicle incidents of Violence.” The idea is to use Google maps to create a mashup which would be used to indicate the locations were violence is taking place. The location would be marked, with in this case, a red flame which would reveal the details of the violence in text form.

With this in mind White African and others have put together a dedicated site called USHAHIDI. The site will be having an SMS feature as soon as possible PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD……

[Ushahidi] is a tool for people who witness acts of violence in Kenya in these post-election times. You can report the incident that you have seen, and it will appear on a map-based view for others to see. Ory and Daudi are working with local Kenyan NGO’s to get information and to verify each incident.

One excellent resource has been created by Worknets a global community Wiki site. They have a series of dedicated spaces which provide a resource of new sites and bloggers, action alerts, commentary and chat rooms by and for Kenyans.

Pambazuka News which last week published a special issue on Kenya has created an Action Alert blog to provide up to date alerts and news on the Kenyan crisis. In addition a number of Facebook groups have been created such as Peace for Kenya and Kenya’s Post Election Humanitarian Crisis.

Tags:

Kenya + Elections
Technology Africa
Kenya Bloggers
Mobile Phones
Google Maps
Work Nets

By accident. By accident, I am an environmentalist. Growing up financially challenged (read: poor) makes me very conscious of conserving resources and re-using things. This was not because as a child I cared so much about the future of the planet, but because if you ran the water too long then the bill would be too high, if you left the lights on in unoccupied rooms then the electricity bill may not get paid, if you recycled those cans and bottles then that would be money to rent videos that week, and if you saved those plastic bags from the grocery store then we could save money on trash bags. There was also the if you take care of your clothes you could pass them on to a sibling, or if we run all of our errands at once, then we can save gas money.

These were all lessons that I feel a lot of struggling families and communities pass on to others without consciously affirming an environmentalist discourse. Through the hustle and bustle of the day, working 2-3 jobs, raising kids, etc. none of them, and especially my parents, had the time to sit down, think, research and say ‘by gosh! I am an environmentalist.’ For all they know, they were just trying to navigate poverty and make it through the day. Of course there are those who are consciously activists and organizers, but there is a certain beauty in the unconscious activist. Sure, the explicit intentions–or what we can myopically perceive of them aren’t to change the world, but by circumstance there is some organic initiative to at least ‘fix’ the situations that seem most accessible.

This is not to force the punitive conclusion that every struggling woman in the hood is an activist, but it is an attempt to force all of us to (re)conceptualize the way we understand activism, activists and organizers. I always refer Robin DG Kelley’s Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class. Kelley addresses the politics of everday—so-called “hidden transcripts of resistance” by placing things such as theft, feigning laziness, or the refusal to enter the formal work sector within the James C. Scott’s paradigm of “infrapolitics.” Infrapolitics as he explains is

the circumspect struggle waged daily by subordinate groups is, like infrared rays, beyond the visible end of the spectrum. That it should be invisible…is in large part by design—a tactical choice born of prudent awareness of the balance of power.

With all the conferences converging self-identified activists and organizers, can we get a conference to get the informal, unconscious activists together? Can we have a conference to garner respect for these people? Because Allah knows that I can site all the most wonderful organizers and revolutionaries of the world and none of them will come to close to my mother. Not because my mother has transformed a country or establish community centers; but because she never saw her life as a mother as different as the life of an activist. That artificial separation was never there–it was just an organic impulse to act because it is how we survive(d), how they survive(d).

Maybe the way mothers mother is a form of activism. Maybe there is a such thing as radical mothering, and maybe all the feminists who are so hasty (and nasty) to critique stay at home moms, have yet to realize that those mothers are the midwives for the revolution. They are the ones who give birth to and sacrifice to raise the me’s and the you’s.

Environmentalist
Activism

In Britain there is a law which places a time limit on disclosure by abuse survivors. The law at present is 3 years for negligence and 6 years for assault. For children time runs out at age 18 which gives them until 21 and 24 to disclose. There is no time limit on Nazi war criminals or anyone else accused of war crimes. Many survivors of physical and sexual abuse are unable to talk about the abuse let alone go through the process of disclosure 10, 20 years after the abuse. Some may never get to a place where they can speak publicly about the abuse. If and when they do, they need to know that proper support is available which they can fully trust. Trust is the big thing in abuse, because it takes away your trust of people. The closer the abuser is the greater the loss of trust and if the abuser is a family member the intimidation can continue long after the abuse stops.

There is a campaign to change the law which can be signed here.

Tags: Sexual Abuse; Physical Abuse; Time Limit Campaign; Britain

Following on from the Pan African Mobile Phone Activists workshop in Nairobi last month - Ken Banks who developed Frontline SMS - has started a SOCIAL MOBILE GROUP on Facebook

Mobile phones are revolutionising communications across the globe, more so in developing countries where landline infrastructure is lacking in many rural (and some urban) areas. Mobile phones represent the only means of communication for hundreds of millions of people.

At the same time, mobiles have opened up huge economic opportunities for their owners. They can now be more easily contacted when work is available, they can use them to advertise their services, receive market prices, job information, and so on. Others now make a living ’sharing’ their phones and charging non-owners to make calls. Some make a living charging phone batteries, selling top-up vouchers, or covers and chargers.

Frontline is a brilliant multi-purpose sms/text messaging open source tool for activists that can just about do anything from organising campaigns, monitoring elections or any other activity, run surveys, competitions, manage phone-ins using sms, receive information, send information multiple recipients. Ken also created a searchable database on mobile applications with

details of projects from around the world which make social and environmental use of mobile technology in fields such as human health, economic empowerment, conservation, education, human rights and poverty alleviation.”

Tags: SMS; Mobile Phones; Activism;