SalaamGarage » citizen journalism

World Humanitarian Day

maggie soladay — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 19:13:13 +0000

World Humanitarian Day is August 19, 2010

The 2010 World Humanitarian Day project is a collaborative film shot in over 40 countries in under 9 weeks, on a shoestring budget – with the goal of showing the enormous diversity of places, faces and endeavors of humanitarian aid workers in 2010.

It was filmed by humanitarian staff and freelance filmmakers from around the globe (over 50 contributors in total) with all time donated.

www.worldhumanitarianday.info

See you all again in August 2011!

Why Ethiopia? Why Now?

maggie soladay — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 22:51:34 +0000

SalaamGarage is currently building a team of media makers and storytellers to travel to Ethiopia in November 2010. On this trip we will explore the horrible and preventable birthing injury known as obstetric fistula. The causes, cures, and solutions to eradicating obstetric fistula entirely in the developing world lie in raising the status of girls worldwide.

Join Us in Ethiopia November 21, 2010- December 2, 2010

Addis

“At age 11, Addis’ childhood was over. Her education was the first casualty.”

Kidan

“She has plans. But there are other plans. How do you choose between your child’s education and your family’s survival?”

The Girl Effect

“The Girl Effect, n.: The powerful social and economic change brought about when girls have the opportunity to participate in their society.”

In Ethiopia: Birthing Injuries, Infant Mortality, and what we are going to do about it.

maggie soladay — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 03:11:49 +0000

In November 2010, SalaamGarage is bringing a team of humanitarian media makers to Ethiopia. The stories we will be creating will tell of the work being done to repair, prevent, and treat obstetric fistulas at the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital. Fistula is a terrible but preventable birthing injury that renders the woman incontinent, leaking feces or urine from the vaginal canal. Untreated, the woman becomes a pariah, sometimes abandoned by their husbands and banished by their families. A fistula can be caused by obstructed labor, still births, and when a physically underdeveloped girl’s pelvis is too narrow for child birth causing labors sometimes as long as 10 days.

Below is a slideshow that was produced for NPR in 2007 that explains obstetric fistula and explores some of the causes. At the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital lives and livelihoods are saved every day. Every woman who comes to them with child birth injuries is treated completely free.

Hospital Gives Ethiopian Women a Chance at Care
by Brenda Wilson

The Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital performs about 3000 surgeries per year. That number can and will go down. As you read this and listen to the attached programs, the Fistula Hospital is opening mini hospitals throughout the Ethiopian countryside. The hospital trains midwives and doctors, educates women on their rights, cures the injured, and supports the incurable. Like so many problems women face in the developing world, this one is hard to solve with one big action. Malnutrition, child brides, women’s health inequalities and status, poverty, and other situations makes this a persistent but solvable problem.

Join us in Ethiopia November 21-Dec 2, 2010 for a 13 day itinerary from Addis Ababa to Lalibela, Ethiopia. Create stories to raise awareness and inspire change. What are you going to do to eradicate obstetric fistulas and the inequalities and suffering that come with it?

Deadline August 21, 2010

Required viewing for all participants: The NOVA Documentary A Walk to Beautiful: “The award winning feature-length documentary A Walk to Beautiful tells the stories of five Ethiopian women who suffer from devastating childbirth injuries and embark on a journey to reclaim their lost dignity. Rejected by their husbands and ostracized by their communities, these women are left to spend the rest of their lives in loneliness and shame. They make the choice to take the long and arduous journey to the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in search of a cure and a new life.” (available at Netflix instantly & by mail)

Click here for more from Brenda Wilson for NPR’s All Things Considered

Selam. Peace. Salaam. Shalom.

Guatemala, Don’t you want to make a difference?

maggie soladay — Fri, 28 May 2010 20:18:56 +0000

photo by Rolf Cosar

Yesterday the Pacaya Volcano in Guatemala erupted. Popular TV journalist Anibal Achila was killed by volcanic rocks, about 1,700 people have been displaced, and 3 children are missing.

In less than two months, a SalaamGarage team made up of a select group of citizen journalists (professional and amateur photographers, videographers, bloggers, etc) embark on an exclusive trip to the remote Ixil Triangle in Guatemala. We are collaborating with NGO Agros International. Agros provides economic stability and empowerment for farmers and families through land ownership. The SalaamGarage team will have exclusive access to remote villages where we will create independent projects about the stories unfolding within. Those stories will raise awareness and increase support for Agros’ efforts throughout Central America.

There is 1 spot available for a media maker with the calling to make a big difference for oft neglected and under-served communities of Mayans and other indigenous people in rural Guatemala. Although the deposit deadline has passed, it is not too late to get onboard. You must email megan@salaamgarage.com asap if you are interested.

Guatemalans always seem to be rebuilding. They have emerged from a 36 year civil war, recovered from landslides, and volcanic eruptions from one of the most active volcanoes in the world. Our stories will help with whatever the aftermath of yesterday’s eruption will be on the already struggling population.

Shot in Guatemala this last July, Noemi and her Mother explain why land ownership has changed their lives in this video: http://www.agros.org/video_gallery.cfm#agrosvideo-4

In addition to visiting villages, we will be exploring the churches and ruins of Antigua, climbing volcano Pacaya if it is safe, observing ancient Mayan rituals in practice at the Chichicastenango market, and staying in “Guatemala’s most magical hotel” on Lake Atitlan. This is going to be a life changing trip and project. SalaamGarage founder and internationally renowned documentary photographer Amanda Koster is leading this trip.

SalaamGarage will award the $300 Engage!Refund to 2 Guatemala trip participants who create and follow through on a plan of action utilizing their media production skills to support Agros villages.

All SalaamGarage participants get:
-A SalaamGarage “stories” site. Stories.SalaamGarage.com is a media share site for those looking to organize and share media gathered during their trip. It works just like a wordpress blog but you get the broader audience. An example is here: http://stories.salaamgarage.com/michael/
-Refer-a-friend $200 discount on your next trip.
-All past travelers automatically receive a $200 discount
-Free Blurb book, click here for more BLURB partnership info
-Special fund raising support and opportunities exclusive to SalaamGarage participants

Pacaya Volcano on a gentler day

Join us in creating media projects and raising awareness about Agros International’s unique land-lending model that is empowering rural families to pull themselves out of poverty.

Passion is the Jet Fuel

AmandaKoster — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:43:17 +0000

Q&A

“Drocolate” of in-this-economy.com wanted to ask me (Amanda Koster) a few questions about SxSW.

Drocolate: Why should I attend your core conversation at SXSW?

A.Koster: Compare the velocity of media and society’s response of Huricane Katrina vs. the Haiti Earthquake. Also, listen to: http://salaamgarage.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/AmandaKoster_podcast_sxsw2010.mp3

Drocolate: What makes you the right person to be conducting this conversation?

A.Koster: I’m an outsider. I’m not from the tech arena. When I presented at Gnomedex in 2008, I did not have an iPhone or Twitter account. Facebook did not make much sense to me. I thought FB was innovative online dating. Since then I have been able to harness storytelling, social media and passion all for social change. If I can do that, anyone can. The passion to tell a story is the jet fuel behind citizen journalism. And it has been passion, not assignments, that got me here right now. I’ve been working as a photojournalist, writer, author for about 15 years though it has been my personal projects, again not assignments, that propelled my career and life beyond where I ever thought it could go.

Citizen journalism is more powerful than I could have ever been imagined and it is growing. Because we believe in these things it makes Amanda Rose of Twestival and I the perfect people to lead this conversation.

Drocolate: What advice would you give to aspiring citizen journalists (other than attending your convo at SXSW, of course)?

A.Koster: Your personal stories and perspectives are more valuable than ever. Make GOOD content and get it out to a relevant audience. And, there’s more to it than that:

Have a plan. SalaamGarage builds relationships/projects/plans with NGOs far in advance. We do not advocate what I call ‘drive-by-shootings’ (just showing up, shooting photos, then jet).

Be authentic. We want intimacy. I think people are tired of the slick, heavily produced story. We see through it. With the wildfire of social media and intentionally constructed social communities, impersonal, glossy stories delivered by a generic, safe personality is rapidly loosing ground.

Be relevant. Not worth telling a story about t-shirts to a dog trainer. Even if it’s the most compelling t-shirt story ever. Be relevant and focused.
Know your audience. Tell them a story 1) you care about and 2)they want to hear.

Care. There are ‘hot’ stories to tell, but you outta care about it. I travel all over the world all the time with SalaamGarage and as an free-lance journalist. There are stories that resonate with me, and other that just don’t. The advantage of being a citizen journalist is that you get to choose your story, verses being assigned something that is not dear to you.

DO SOMETHING with it. Share. Everyone is sitting on a novel, but if a tree falls in the woods….. I’ll leave it at that.

I am very passionate about this and have a lot more (not big on advice) ideas around this topic, though, this is the topic of our conversation so come join the conversation.

Drocolate: Where is your dream location to take a citizen journalism project? Antarctica? Atlantis? Detroit? Where?’

A.Koster: The White House

Four Men Severely Injured by Bomb near Khe Sahn, Vietnam

maggie soladay — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:06:40 +0000

Last month, January 2010, Amanda Koster and the rest of the SalaamGarage team visited Khe Sanh to experience first hand the work of NGO Peacetrees Vietnam. While there, they learned about UXOs (unexploded ordnance) left from the Vietnam War and the dangers they cause to the local farmers and their families still today.

Unfortunately the event they fear most happened again this week. Four men who were weeding at a coffee plantation near the former US military base at Khe Sahn were seriously injured Sunday Feb. 7, 2010 when they accidently detonated a hidden bomb.

Landmines.org reported, “‘My hoe hit the bomb while I was removing weeds from around a coffee tree,’ Chung said. ‘My cousins were all behind me. I don’t know what the ordnance was.’ Chung said he was in severe pain because all four of his limbs were badly injured. The explosion severed his right hand’s thumb and index finger. Open wounds could be seen on his left thigh and shin, and his right foot was badly injured.

For more on this story please visit Landmines.org

photos by Amanda Koster, 2010

Vatsalya Stories: Sugan Chose Lisa

maggie soladay — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 07:00:22 +0000

On the SalaamGarage trip to India in September 2009, Lisa was moved like I rarely ever see. Everyone who travels with SalaamGarage gets to choose the story they are going to tell but for Lisa, it was she who was chosen.
Lisa Field-Elliot and Eduardo Sciammarella, 2 of the 10 participants on the India project, chose to report on the Women’s Self-Help Groups that Jaipur, India based Vatsalya.org runs. None of us knew how amazing and life changing this program was till we experienced it.

Lisa describes what it was like when she met Sugan: “She put her arm around me and called me sister. She gave me a beautiful Rajasthani dress, that may take her up to six months to replace, because she wanted me to wear it when I came to visit her home.” Lisa adds, “Sugan knew that we are the same. We are women. We are mothers. We are curious seekers of beauty and connection. We enjoy laughter and tea. We want only the best for our children. We care for our homes and want to be useful outside them. Our hearts are open.”

“It only took a moment, an afternoon, for Sugan and I to really see one another. To see ourselves, reflected back, in the simplicity of who we are. What I learned from my time with Sugan in the rural Indian village of Shampura, is that, at the bottom of things, we are the same. That our stories collide in a meeting. My story about Sugan is as much about myself as it is about her. It is about connection, being seen, and helping a woman, a sister, realize her potential in this world.”

For more of Lisa’s beautiful and breathtaking words, please read about her visit to the Durgah Sufi Shrine in Ajmer India at her blog entry called “Thread”

Lisa Field-Elliot’s blog Doorwaystraveler
twitter.com/doorwaystravelr

From Dong Ha to Khe Sanh Vietnam by Daysha

superstringer — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:44:39 +0000

The past few days have been a whirlwind. Before we left Dong Ha, the group traveled to the Truong Son Cemetery, the Vietnamese equivalent of Arlington National Cemetery. I lit incense and placed it before the towering monument at the entrance then proceeded to walk around the beautiful grounds. The scene was stunning and the monuments beautiful, but the reality of where I was set in as I read the names and dates of the fallen soldiers from a list on one of the walls. Than Nho, 1967, Thanh Long, 1969 … Than Duong 1970. These guys were dying at the same time my dad was over here fighting. Next we visited the Demilitarized Zone, or the DMZ. Basically this is a river that was designated a dividing line between North & South Vietnam after the first Indochina War and was made official during the Geneva Conference in 1954. We walked across a bridge and visited a replica of the building where the Post-Colonial Conference was held on that very spot. The Vietnamese are big on replicas, I’ve noticed. We stopped for lunch at a seaside restaurant where they served everything that moved in the sea – squid, crab, prawns and my standby rice and steamed morning glory vines. We ate giant grapefruits and Vietnamese Apples dipped in a hot & sour sea salt mixture for dessert. Next we went to the Vinh Moc Tunnels. This was pretty interesting and it was nice to get some physical activity rather than just riding around in van from monument to monument. Local people built the Vinh Moc Tunnels in 1966 as shelter from the constant raining of artillery on their villages. They were used until 1972. The whole village basically moved underground for six years. They had one toilet for everyone. They had a hospital and a birthing room. A generation of babies was born down there. They watched films together in a common room. But when I say room, think Hobbit-size. We are talking small spaces here. This tunnel was not made for a nearly 6-foot tall woman like me. I had to duck just to get into the entry and stay hunched over for the entire tour. I also forgot my flashlight, so I’d have to rely on others to guide me through. Water dripped down the red clay walls of the tunnel as I walked blindly down stairways carved into the earth. Down, down, down we descended into the place where these people, caught in the middle of the war, retreated to try to go about some semblance of normal life. I was most worried about a giant spider I’d seen in the museum area before I went in. It grew warmer as we descended and the tunnel grew narrower. I used my yoga breathing to overcome the spider thought and to keep claustrophobia from taking hold. Now we are in Khe Sanh. The first day was spent meeting with the PeaceTrees de-miners at nearby Cua Village. The de-miners showed us how they survey the area with metal detectors. They have about 20 of 42 hectares cleared. Mostly they’re finding rifle grenade shells (M-79’s) but they say they also find cluster munitions and bigger bombs up to 175 pounds. The de-mining unit has been lent to PeaceTrees by the Vietnamese government. The leader of the unit, clad in a metal helmet and fatigues, led us down a trail where we crossed a single wood-plank bridge over a creek toward the minefield. The other two photographers stayed back. Amanda & I crossed over. On the other side the de-miner showed us two cases which we learned were first aid kits — the larger one the size of a suitcase. Then the de-miner led us to a sign marked with skull & crossbones. This was the place I needed to go. On the other side three uniformed men scanned a grid with metal detectors. The leader of the team took us over to a pile of brush and he began uncovering a hole. Inside were somewhere between one and two dozen pieces of unexploded ordinance, or UXO. He told us that they destroy the UXO once a week on Thursdays. It was Monday, and this was what they’d found so far. As I stared at the explosives I thought of the disabled people I’d met in Dong Ha, Ms. Cuc, who’d lost both legs while gardening, Mr. Phuaung who had lost a leg and an eye while planting a tree an Li, who is now confined to a wheelchair because his injuries are so extensive. I knew I should be afraid, but somehow I wasn’t. I knew I was in the right place at the right time and that this story was important to tell. Yesterday we visited Xing village in Thuan Commune just outside Khe Sanh along the Lao border. This area is home to Vietnam’s ethnic minorities, the Van Kieu and the Paco. In Xing I heard a story from a community leader about how his brother was killed while hunting for metal. He told me he was grateful for the work PeaceTrees is doing, especially the kindergartens they’ve set up to help kids learn Vietnamese and to learn to stay away from UXO’s. His son is enrolled. He also told me that Typhoon Ketsana, which hit this fall, uncovered three 150lb bombs in his rice field. He says he called the PeaceTrees hotline to have them removed. I asked him if he thought of selling them and she said definitely not. I asked him how much he made per year on his rice field. He told me he earns about 5 million dong per year, or about $250USD. I asked him how much he could get for each bomb if he decided to sell it on the scrap metal market and told me 7 million dong EACH, more than $300 per bomb or about $1,000 for all three. Pretty big incentive. Today I’m going to see UXO’s destroyed by the de-mining unit and then I’m going to metal scrap yards to learn more about metal hunting. And so goes the freelancing life … -by Daysha Eaton, originally published at Superstringer.com

El Paraiso Guatemala- Agros International SalaamGarage Trip July 2010

maggie soladay — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 05:16:02 +0000

photo by Agros International

Join us in Guatemala this summer.
Our partner NGO is the amazing Agros International- putting land ownership into the hands of rural indigenous peoples. Check out their photo stream on Flickr.
Contact us for more info and sign-up now before the trip fills. Deadline this february!

Join Us in Guatemala Summer 2010, create a story that will help get land ownership into the hands of the rural subsistence farmers.

Village Batzchocola- Agros and SalaamGarge Summer 2010

maggie soladay — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 05:11:45 +0000

photo from Agros International

For more beauty from Agros International and the villages, like Batzchocola, they work to help throughout rural Guatemala.
www.agros.org/ag/our-villages/guatemala/batzchocola/

Join Us in Guatemala Summer 2010

Here are the stories we will be working on in Guatemala with Agros International. Choose yours!