Kenya Coffee Bar Offers More Than Coffee: Youth and Officials Join with The Team to Build Peace in Kenya’s Rift Valley
The following post is from Deborah Jones, Executive Producer of Common Ground Productions (the media arm of SFCG). Deborah oversees the production of The Team and SFCG’s many other TV and radio programs around the world. Thank you to Deborah for this interesting update from Kenya.
Youth Organizers: The Coffee Bar and Mburugu Gikunda of Media Focus On Africa (far right)
“We have realized that we need to be partners, not rulers.” Michael Kioni, Senior District Officer and the Acting District Commissioner of Naivasha, Kenya
The partners to which Commissioner Kioni alludes are his youth constituents who have formed a coalition, The Coffee Bar, consisting of 40 community organizations and government partners – including the police – which started as a direct result of a peacebuilding program called The Team.
Created and produced by Kenyans, The Team is broadcast on Citizen TV and on national and vernacular radio stations. This episodic drama was created in response to the devastating post-election violence of 2008. The series shows how members of a fictional football team learn to overcome their tribal, ethnic, and economic divisions. The Team is carried out in Africa, Asia and the Middle East by Search for Common Ground. In Kenya, the series is produced by SFCG’s partner, the Nairobi-based Media Focus on Africa.
However, The Team is much more than a popular serial. read more…
Black History Month in the 21st Century: Sharing a Room, Sharing a Country, Sharing a Vision
As we reach the end of Black History Month in 2012, The Common Ground Blog asked our colleague Jeanné Isler, Project Director for Search for Common Ground on Race, to talk about her work on the Congressional Conversations on Race (CCR) project and reflect on the relevance of Black History Month in 2012. What ensued was a lively discussion about contemporary race relations in America.
Participants of the Rocky Mount, North Carolina CCR learn about the history of race relations in their community.
CGB: What is the mission of the CCR project?
JI: The mission is to cultivate the leadership of members of Congress on helping to address race related concerns in their districts through developing deeper understanding of and respect for history while facilitating constructive dialogue.
I think that there is always a lot of emotional energy when people start talking about race and that’s inevitable and that’s OK. It’s actually kind of valuable. For me, the question is then what do you do with that emotional energy because you have to direct it somewhere positive. So the way that CCR is directing this energy is by helping people think about actions that they can take. What is their capacity? How can they be empowered to make some sort of difference in their community? read more…
Voices From the Field: Yemen Presidential Election and Inauguration
In response to the Yemeni presidential inauguration this past Saturday, we asked SFCG Yemen Country Director, Shoqi A. Maktary, to provide some thoughts on the election and Yemen’s future. Here are his words:
Youth proudly show they've voted.
The debates surrounding the early presidential election are finally over. The last three months in Yemen, following the Gulf Cooperation Council initiative’s signature, have included a power transfer from the president to his deputy, followed by a presidential election.
The issue of the legality of this election was among the highest topics discussed by ordinary people and politicians alike, both in the real world and cyberspace. This is because it first involves only one candidate, which could make it unconstitutional. Second it would mean replacing the president with another person who is considered part of the current regime. Therefore, there are arguments that it does not fulfill some of the Youth revolutionists’ demands for up-rooting the regime as a whole.
On February 21 Yemenis put an end to these discussions. Although the elections did not put an end to such debates, the high level of participation, which surprised everybody, sent a clear message that the people want to move on by closing the chapter of Ali Salah, the ex-president, who ruled Yemen for 33 years.
Conflict Prevention & Resolution Forum: Extractives, Equity, and Conflict
The Conflict Prevention and Resolution Forum organized another interesting and engaging discussion, this time on natural resource extraction and the exploitation that can impact conflict and inequality. The panel included a Professor in Human Rights at Columbia Law School, Peter Rosenblum, and two organizations actively involved with these issues, Catholic Relief Services and Publish What You Pay.
The topic of the forum is complex, because of the opportunities created by resource extraction for development, but also the problems created from poor management and dependence of exploitation that can increase the risk of conflict. The companies work in countries that collect 25% of their revenue from resources like oil, gas, and minerals. That money is rarely seen at the local level. read more…
‘Liking’ Laughter: Our Common Ground?
“Why do things go viral? Because everyone wants to share a laugh.” Sherif Mansour, Freedom House Senior Program Officer
On February 22, 2012, the DC Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC-DC) held a discussion on “Social Media and Freedom, Promoting Democracy in the Middle East.” The participants included Davin Hutchins, Managing Editor of Middle East Voices at Voice of America, Sirwan Kajjo, Syrian human rights activist/journalist, as well as the above-cited Sherif Mansour. All three speakers confronted the same question: how instrumental was social media in the Arab Spring uprisings? read more…
World Radio Day: Liberia Community Radio Research
Owner/manager of Radio Gbarpola in Liberia.
By Audra Gustin
In honour of World Radio Day this month, The Soul Beat newletter highlights the role of SFCG in using radio in Africa’s social development, from peacebuilding to civic education to community radio research.
As the last part of a three-piece series, the focus today will be on SFCG’s research on community radio station sustainability and interaction with communities in five Liberian towns. read more…
