Rising Voices and Open Society Institute’s Health Media Initiative are happy to announce the six newest health-focusedcitizen media outreach projects. We received over 110 proposals fromhealth activists and organizations based in over 50 differentcountries. The six selected grantees represent the most innovativeapplications of citizen media tools like blogs, podcasts, and onlinevideo to help further the advocacy goals of public healthorganizations, and to empower the communities they work with.In Brasov, Romania, the Casa Sperantei hospice centerwill train its nurses, doctors, and staff how to use audio and videorecording equipment to share the direct stories of patients withlife-threatening illnesses. The center’s staff will also take advantageof their online media training and interactive website to explain theobjectives, successes, and challenges in palliative care,which focuses on improving end-of-life care for patients and theirfamilies, with a special focus on vulnerable populations including theelderly, children, and patients with cancer or HIV/AIDS. In the township of Kwa Mashu, on the outskirts of Durban, South Africa, the Kwa Mashu Community Advancement Project {K-CAP} will use its Ekhaya Imagination Labto train 20 new citizen journalists from within the township how toreport on local stories related to local health issues affecting thecommunity. In 1998 Gugu Dlamini was stoned to death in Kwa Mashuafter publicly declaring her positive HIV status. The twenty citizenjournalists trained at K-CAP will aim to counter such severe stigma toHIV and AIDS while also bringing local health issues to aninternational audience.Pavel Kutsev of the Drop-in Center will use blog posts, photos, podcasts, and online video to share his experiences working at a harm reductionfacility based in Kyiv, Ukraine. The blog will open a window to thedaily reality of drug users and describe how that reality affectspublic health throughout the country.The Orizonturi Foundation in Campulung Moldovenesc,Romania will create a blogging club for mental health service userswhich trains them how to maintain a weblog, upload videos to onlinesharing sites, and use social networks. The technical skills willenable the participants to share their own stories and forge their ownonline identities.In Brazzaville, Congo the AZUR Development organization, as part of its AIDS Network Africa initiative,will “train communication officers of local AIDS organizations indigital story telling, podcasting, and the creation of blogs todocument the stigma and discrimination of people infected and affectedby HIV and AIDS in Congo in order to use them as a tool for advocacy,education, and the promotion rights of people infected with HIV.” Eachcommunication officer will describe how the AIDS pandemic is currentlyaffecting the local community where he or she works and what daily lifeis like for people living with HIV and AIDS.Last, but not least, the FrontAIDSproject based in St. Petersburg, Russia will use citizen media tomonitor accessibility to treatment for people living with HIV, AIDS,hepatitis, and TB in 20 regions around Russia. The interactiveblog-based site will become a an aggregator and go-to resource ofcitizen media information related to health issues around Russia.The six projects are diverse in their geography and their strategicapproach, but they all share a desire to train health activists to usenew media in order spread awareness about their work and thecommunities they serve.
rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2008/06/28/public-health-projects-to-use-citizen-media-to-empower-community-voices/