Rural communities in Africa can have their stories shared with the larger audience using video blogging which is a Web 2.0 application to amplify the voices of the grassroots in the future.

Sharing his experience as a Vlogger, Prince Deh said he had been creating videos and posting them on a blog and hence received feed back from all over the world. “How do we solve the problem of rural connectivity in order to extend the benefits of Web2.0 tools much wider beyond the scope of the cities?” he asked.

It was interesting to note that vlogs provided an alternative media. Deh observed that his videos have an added helped promote deeper understanding of stories, especially for people with less educational background. He added that they also had the power to reach an unlimited audience with minimal cost as the vlogging process does not require specialised expertise and can be easily controlled by any non-technical person. “It is technologically simpler and cheaper to maintain than a website. Videos are interactive medium often encouraging readers to comment” said Deh.

On local language, Deh said there will be need to create local language videos with a translation text as it was important for increasing participation and sharing. Vlogging major challenges were outlined as connectivity or access and getting people to share Information and Knowledge and cost of equipment. He pointed out that it was important to have knowledge of video editing and innovativeness in order to create story telling videos.

Bob Sankofa is a Swahili photo blogger and Khaya Dlanga is a South African video –blogger. The two gentlemen share with us their experiences on blogging to foster social communication among individuals and communities. They also tell us how important is web2.0 techniques in providing people whose voices are not normally heard on the mainstream media an opportunity to get their stories to also get heard.

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Interviewee (s) - Bob Sankofa, Swahili photo blogger and Khaya Dlanga -South African video –blogger

Interviewer: Chris Kgadima, Nkgowa Media

Prince Deh from GINKS presented Vlogging on Day zero about “Publishing Tools: digital storytelling Video and Audio blogs for development”.

GINKS is a network of individuals and organisations that seeks to promote ICT4D in Ghana and was established in 2003 with the collaboration of the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD).

http://www.youtube.com/v/k3t2Zwx_Dc0

I asked people about what they learnt on Day Zero Web2.0fordev conference and what they where going to take home.

Prince Deh GINKS Assistant Network Coordinator, Ghana

I am planning to host local language videos and translate the text in English because I realise that many people get my stories and information from the blog. Video blogging has enhanced my knowledge and sharing skills.As you see people are attracted by video and they want to see and hear at the same time. I have learnt how to use delicious, wikis and tagging. One thing is that if you don’t tag your work not so many people will read about it.

William Eziniwa Nwangwu, Nigeria
Regional Center for Information Science, Lecture
I have been wondering why Web 2.0? Isn’t it a new word for an old thing?I have discovered how it is being used and sometimes it worries me as an academician. Some Universities in the
USA have banned students giving reference to wikis as one of their sources of researched information. In wikis who is the author? Is the information peer reviewed? In my institution I limit the reference of wiki copies. 

Makelesi Gonelevu, Anju Mangal - Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Fiji
We learnt about the potential of RSS feeds, wikis, tagging, blogging and the most interesting of all was the farmer blogging where farmers shared agricultural knowledge amongst themselves and also between experts. In the Pacific, we at SPC are trying to get farmers to access online agricultural information and have expert’s answers queries from the farmers.Web 2.0 will enable us to implement the various ways of information sharing and collaboration between farmers and stakeholders. In the Pacific, we have to deal with accessibility issues and one of the main issues that we face is connectivity. Web 2.0 is an amazing tool; however, it may not work in the Pacific if we have accessibility issues. Low bandwidth is an issue and using vlogging can be a problem in terms of accessing online videos.  We have discovered a lot on day zero and we hope to fully utilise Web 2.0 www.spc.int/lrd - SPC Land Resources Division website.  

Mirjam Schaap, Wageningen International
I learnt about real relevant use of Web 2.0 tools for grassroots people (farmers, traders etc), the potential of bridging gaps between farmers / researchers. It was also interesting to have the impression that some people are concerned about a threat of use of Web 2.0 tools by ‘amateurs’ for the ‘professionals` (concerns about taxonomies, about traditional video professionals etc). I also learnt that some of the names I have come across online, actually are real people …, that they also exist outside cyberspace … Very nice to meet people in real life. I loved the ‘online presentation’ and desktop sharing from Wageningen, and I got to know some handy tools which are used by others (desktop sharing, good cheap hosts, wordpress plugins etc.)I really liked the energy during the day, and the willingness of everyone to share experiences. I am still looking for tips on how to infect my colleagues with the Web 2.0 virus, how to convince my friends to share info using Web 2.0 tools, how to convince my colleagues to not just use text to communicate but also use video and audio. So on how to mainstream Web 2.0 tools use in my organisation and among our partners.But we’ll have another 3 days of working together, and sharing and learning.

As part of a research conducted by GINKS (www.ginks.org) in Ghana, a web-based tool (Ekumfi Atakwaa Information Kiosk) was developed to stream videos on Agricultural practices online for women farmers in a small community in the Central Region of Ghana called Ekumfi Atakwaa. These women have very little or no formal education, and are mostly peasant farmers. As part of the research project, an information center was set up at the village. This center has about 10 networked computers with an installed VSAT for internet connection. The software is currently streaming the video on the LAN. It would have been interesting having it on the internet for it to benefit more people but the general connectivity issue………….. We tried it in the initial stages but it took almost forever to upload the videos unto the server (These were very big video files). Althouth we installed a VSAT for the center and we are paying for a 128 kbps (shared) bandwidth, the speeds are just too bad. (General Service Conditions by ISPs in the developing world).

It will be interesting to use Web 2.0 tools to capture these videos for a wider dissemination. Let me confess that we have not tried that yet. My concern however is still the problem of the usefulness of online content for the rural folk. Although we have trained these women to use the tool themselves, and are using it effectively, they are most impatient with the loading time (20 - 30 sec). They prefer to play the videos on a DVD player because that one plays almost instantly. I wonder if they will be patient enough to wait for the long download times associated with links in out part of the world. One sometimes have to click the refresh button a number of times to get a full download.

As I said earlier, I have had just a little experience with the Web 2.0 tools, but I am aware of its power. What I will like to people to devote some efforts to, in its development is the issue of low bandwidths in developing countries. There are arguements that the target is for Web 2.0 is not “a direct access of the poor to the new technology“. I agree with the assertion that it should be seen as a framework of the service landscape in rural areas in general. My concern once again is that these service providers and informediaries, like myself, who will access these tools for the benefit of the rural poor themselves have to contend with the low bandwidths. It is therefore my opinion that these tools are developed such that they are accessible to us, “The World’s Poor”, it terms of its use of resources like bandwidth and computer resources. My understanding of the world’s poor is not the uneducated, simple, rural people but people like us who work as intermediaries, and informadiaries, trying to make life a little confortable for our unfortunate brothers and sisters “down there“. I believe sincerely that where all have failed, ICT has the capacity to save them.

Cheers
Eddie

On June 5 and 6, Euforic and CONCORD, two European networks for NGOs, organised a conference about ‘Communicating European Development Efforts’, in Brussels. The conference experimented with a weblog, as the central online space where information can be found. Several blogposts are written about the sessions, including short video clips, and photos and the presentations are uploaded using blip.tv for videos, a flickr group for photos and slideshare for presentations. You can have a look at the blog here. Though a small team was specifically responsible for the blog, participants could blog about the conference too, and could upload their pictures too (and were stimulated to do so).

If we would not use web2.0 tools, the information would probably not be available till much later. Now, the conversations and atmosphere of the conference is accessible for anybody with access to the net. Some conferences remain a black hole for people who have not been there, but for this case, the information is out there for all to access. This, in my opinion, gives a huge opportunity to, for instance, sister NGOs and NGO networks in the south and in other continents to learn from the conversations in this conference. They will definitely encounter similar challenges. On the other hand, people are not yet used to reading blogs and writing on blogs, so we can still make a big step in introducing these web2.0 tools and changing the habits of people, so that they can activity look for the information that’s interesting for their daily work.