Feature Online Dialogue: Using Mobile Phones for Action

Hi it's Noel here Good Morning or evening to everyone out there.  Really looking forward to being involved with this link. I hope it is a positive experience for us all.

Noel Large.

HI TO EVERYBODY,

IT'S NATASHA HERE. I WANT TO SAY THAT THIS WILL BE VERY INTERSTING AND USEFUL DISCUSION FOR ALL OF US.

If we understand the mobile phone as a long-range, portable electronic device used for mobile communication, than we have a right when we talk for the mobile phone as tools in our communication. In Macedonia the mobile phone is very wildy used. I can say that we have at least two mobile phone per citizens. In this way it is easy to send the message to biggest number of poeple. For this reason we use SMS message in the frame of our campaign. Than we use the SMS message as tools in our communication, but we are not always very succesful. Occasianaly we havant a good message, sometimes we dont find a good time for sending, sometimes tha citizens react of recieving this kind of message from somebody who is not in their contact list...

Than we should learn from the others.

I will stop now here, and I'm waiting for your comment.

Regards, Natasa

The availability of the General Packet Radio System (GPRS) and the upgraded Edge ((3G) has enabled mobile users to send multimedia messages via the mobile phone and hence expanding the people's participation in national debate.

Through the Africa Interactive's voice of Africa project, citizen media has become a reality in holding government accountable on issues of governance, human rights and the very furture of a peaceful transition in Kenya and Africa in general.

With the opening of bureaues in Kenya, Mozambique, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa is evident of the commitment to uphold interactive participation by citizens in building democratic institutions that respect human rights and uphold the rule of law.

The capturing on phone video of mob that assaulted a suspected criminal suspect in full view of the police along the streets of Nairobi for allegedly attempting to steal a side mirror from a motor vehicle, exposed the ineptness of the police to uphold the rule of law and provide security.

However, this efforts are often hindered by the low GPRS connectivity  where mobilephone networks have not been installed. At least a huge population of the rural inhabitants are excluded in the full enjoyment of this service.

Another issue that makes this exercise difficult is the government policy on  service providers who then makes its difficult for mobile users.

Despite this obstacles, and insensitivity by governments on citizen media the use of mobile phones as a tool of championing advocacy journalism and community mobilization in Kenya and Africa in general has succeded.

In the case of Zimbabwe where we have a mobilephone reporter, we have succeded in documenting human rights violations perpetuated by the police aganist the opposition and human rights activists.

In Kenya, we are also working with a group of mobile mobile repoters and community communicators to monitor the upcoming general elections. This helps minimize incidents of violence aganist women voters and holds perpetrators of electoral miscounduct accountable.

It also helps to prevents rigging as vote results can be send by SMS from the polling stations immidiately after the counting and hence promting free and fair democratic elections.

Hello, it's great to meet you all!  I am very interested in hearing more aabout how you all use mobiles in yoursocial change and human rights work.

By way of introduction, I coordinate http://mobileactive.org, a global volunteer network of more than 1,000 NGO and social change practitioners using mobile phones in their work. We run a community blog, a resource wiki, and have developed a number of resources (with more to come!) on how mobiles can be used.

Here are a few links:

Our Strategy Guides on Mobiles in Fundraising, Advocacy, and Election Monitoring are here: http://mobileactive.org/resources/list

We also have a Spanish Strategy Guide about South America/¡Acción Móvil¡ Guía de Móvil Activismo para Latino América at http://mobileactive.org/Mobilactive-Strategy-Guide-4 

So, from me to jumpstart the conversation a few questions:

1. Evans mentioned citizen journalism and election monitoring as two areas where mobiles are increasingly used.  Natasa (hi!) talks about some campaigns where they used mobiles (and some of the challenges!).  What is the kind of work where you think mobiles are most useful?  What are some examples?

2. Election monitoring is a really interesting field.  We here at MobileActive have been working pretty closely with NDI, a US-based NGo that provides technical assistance to NGOs in emerging democracies, and tracked their work closely.  For an article in how they used mobile phones in their work in the recent election in Sierra Leone, see  http://mobileactive.org/texting-it-in.  Has anyone in this community used mobiles in elections, and wht was the experience?  What did you learn?

(Incidentally, NDi will publish a step-by-step guide on how to do this work in the next few weeks in conjunction with MobileActive, so I will keep you posted on when that is finished)

3. Lastly, I would love to hear what you might need in your work. We here at MobileActive are committed to reducing the learning curve for NGOs using mobiles and as a volunteer network, to extract knowledge and peer learning from this rich community to develop resources and materials so that NGOs the world over have an idea how to effectively use mobiles in their work strategically and tactically.   What information or skills would you like to see  so that you can better take advantage of this pervasive communication device? 

Looking forward to the discussion in the next few days! All the best, Katrin at MobilActive.org

Hi again, Noel here picking up on Katrin's blog earlier, it's a small world!  I am just back from Indonesia where I spent two weeks working in three seperate three day workshops on "peace and transformation" .  This programme was supported by N.D.I. and although it was hard and intensive work it was very rewarding to know we were making a positive contribution to their peace process.

Now back to our subject.  I was just thinking about mobile phones and the impact they have had since their introduction.  The Prison Service in Northern Ireland had to eventually introduce a pay phone, complete with kiosk, for every wing of the H blocks.  There were 8 H blocks in all, 4 wings per block, after they discovered there were dozens of prisoners in each wing who had smuggled in a mobile phone. So they get about don't they?

Hi all!

It's great to be involved in this evolving discussion, one which started some time ago, which comes to a head this week, and which will continue on into the future. I hope I can help move things along and share my own experiences with you all.

I've been in IT since the 1980's, in mobile specifically for the past five years, and have worked and lived in a number of African countries. My professional qualification is social anthropology, something I find very useful - interesting things happen at the point where people meet technology. I've been involved in a number of mobile initiatives, and am currently working on a new version of my FrontlineSMS system (http://www.frontlinesms.com) which has been used for election monitoring in Nigeria and the Philippines, and more recently in Pakistan to help get news in and out of the country, among others. I'm also running an SMS competition for NGOs at http://www.ngomobile.org and working with Grameen in Uganda on the future development of their Village Phone scheme. There's a full Bio at http://www.kiwanja.net/kenbanks.htm if you're interested.

One of the key problems I have noticed out in the field over the past 15 years has been the gulf between technical specialists and fieldworkers. There's more than one digital divide! Techical people don't tend to understand the nature of human rights work, and human rights activists are often too busy dealing with their own pressing conditions to keep abreast with technical developments and emerging mobile technology.

My work tries to address what I consider the three key issues. I try to:

Inform

Firstly, provide mobile-related information to those who need it most

Advise

Secondly, once you have it, helping you make sense of it

Act

Finally, once you understand it, providing the tools to help you act on it

As well as gaining an understanding of you and your own work, and getting a sense of what you currently do with mobiles (if anything) and, more importantly, what you would like to do with them, I'd be interested in hearing about which of the three areas above provide you with the most difficulty. There are maybe more...

I'm very much looking forward to joining the discussion this week. Mobile can be hugely empowering, but also hugely frustrating!

Ken

http://www.kiwanja.net

It might be of interest to some to read this white paper that my colleague Corinne Ramey has written for MobileActive.  It focuses on a history and overview of using mobiles in mass organizing, both from a strategic and tactical prespective.  It references a lot of the cases that Philippe mentions in this blogost in greater details.  Here is the information:

Remember the 'coup de text' in the Phillipines in 2001? How about the text message joke circulating right before Poland's elections last month that read "Steal your grandmother's ID"?

Anyone following protest movements in the last few years has witnessed how mobile phones have become an integral part of the mass organizing of protests and demonstration. In the Philippines, South Korea, Nepal, Bolivia, China, the Ukraine, the United States, and most recently Burma and Pakistan, cell phone have connected activists and ordinary people, giving civic voice to individuals and creating communication channels for organizing, mobilizing, and reporting.

In this MobileActive.org White Paper on Mobile Phones in Mass Organizing, we describe the tactical uses of mobiles in organizing, security for activists and NGOs, and address some of the realities and myths that have surrounded the rise of the mobile phone as a tool in mass organizing.

Continue to the White Paper.

Katrin, http://MobileActive.org

For anyone interested in two specific examples of mobile phone use in citizen election monitoring (Nigeria, 2007) and bloggers circumventing government restrictions using SMS (Pakistan, 2007), feel free to check out these two documents. Both, written by the activists themselves, give a good sense of what they were looking to do, and how they did it. They were distributed through kiwanja.net (they used, or are using, FrontlineSMS).

Nigeria: http://www.kiwanja.net/miscellaneous/NMEM_Election_Report.pdf

Pakistan: http://www.kiwanja.net/miscellaneous/FrontlineSMS_Pakistan.pdf

Anyone interested in the application itself can read more at http://www.frontlinesms.com

Ken

Here's an example of a current SMS campaign being conducted in conjunction with the 16 days of Activism Against Gender Violence - Speak out! Stand out! Commit to preventing Violence against Women (25 November, the International Day against Violence against Women, to 10 December, International Human Rights Day.

The organizations involved  - The Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET), Womensnet South Africa, and Association for Progressive Communications (APC) -Africa-Women, are conducting an SMS-based campaign.

You can contribute a message or slogan on the theme of the campaign and if your slogan is chosen, it will be sent out via SMS with you/your organisation credited as the source of the message.

The idea is to send out an SMS on each of the 16 Days of Activism to allow individuals and organisations to Speak Out against violence against women.

Nancy Pearson, New Tactics Program Manager

We developed a worldwide system for redistributing free items -- sending text message alerts to subscribers everytime their keyword free item becomes available. We think mobile text alerts are one of the best ways to help people all over the world get first alerts when their items become available in the first world. www.freealert.org

hi all.

i am happy to be part of this online discussion on the use of mobile phones. we are a migrants rights ngo in manila that focuses on policy advocacy to promote the rights and well being of overseas filipino workers (OFWs) and their families. to complement our policy advocacy program is our program to assist OFWs and other overseas filipinos in distress. last year, we activated an sms based system to enable the OFWs in distress to promptly report their distressed cases and facilitate assistanc by concerned government agencies and partner migrant rights groups in the philippines and abroad. the sms projest was initiated in 2005  by a team of IT-expert-OFws in saudi arabia. later, they were joined in IT-expert colleagues in Manila and Australia until its online launch last february 14, 2006. since then, our case load has increased by more than 500% with most of the texters originating from west asia.  

cma facilitates the prompt response of government and partner-groups alike for the resolution of the cases.  

as you may have heard, there are some 8.2 million filipinos overseas in more than 192 countries and destinations. more than 3 million of them are OFWs mostly in asia --in west asia, south east and east asia.

all for now. i'll be happy to share more.

thank you.

Hi Noel again, I would like to share with you all some of my work experiences that have helped to change and shape my attitude to peace building /building relationships here at Interaction Belfast.  At Interaction the foundation of all our work is on three core issues.  Process.Results.Relationships.  Think of them as a triangle.  In any order.  But the basis for your Process and the Results you hope to achieve must allways have Relationship Building at its core.  We work with community activists from both the Loyalist/Unionist community and the Republican/Nationalist community.  Many of of our most committed members are former sworn enemies.  The success of our Mobile Phone Network did not happen overnight and we are still working to strengthen relationships.  I can easily remember our first meeting with activists from both communities at the Belfast City Hall.  It was not an easy meeting to facilitate, both sides sat so far apart we needed microphones, it was a long table! ha ha.  Both sides came with a long list of grieviances.  Both sides were intent on blaming each other for most of the violence on the Interface.  But at the end of the day the most important thing to come out of the meeting was that both sides agreed "it was good to talk".  So we got a comitment from them all that they would meet again soon.  We met again and made some progress and soon were meeting every Friday.  That has grown into what is now the Springfield InterCommunity Forum (S.I.F.) We have had politicians from all over the world visiting S.I.F. including a visit a few years ago from the President of East Timor!  There are many reasons for our success, not least of all the committment of our members, all voluntary, but the main reason is good solid relationships.   The Mobile Phone Network on its own would not work, it would help reduce tension and incidents of violence, but committed activists working for the benefit of their communities is the real reason we have had success and those relationships built over the past ten years are the mainstay of Interaction Belfast.

Hi everyone, 

Those on the august panel of experts here who know me would recognise that I am and have been for a very long time a proponent of mobile technologies to strengthen peacebuilding and democracy. Since much is already written on the ways through which mobiles can play a meaningful and significant role in social transformation, I was going to write something here yesterday that raised  note of caution - that mobiles are fickle, generally less reliable than fixed line phones and that mobile networks are ill suited for sudden surges in network demand.

Then the bomb went off down the road. I had just come home and sat down in front of my PC when I heard the sound. It was the second bomb in Colombo in a single day. The first, a suicide attack, killed one or two and was aimed at a politician. This one, walking distance away from home, killed over 18 many of whom were school children we suspect and injured over 30. I won't go into details as it's on the web.

What is important to this discuss is what I have blogged at greater length here - The problem with mobiles in emergencies… 

In short, my mobile was comprehensively useless as a communications device in the aftermath of the incident. For over two hours, I couldn't get any messages out or any calls out. Some messages came in, but that ironically made the situation worse since most of them were from loved ones, friends and close colleagues attempting to get in touch with me to find out whether everything was ok with me and my family, but I had no way of contacting in return. It seemed to be the case that on my network, all mobiles in Colombo just froze for around an hour, though in my area, it took much longer for services to come back to normal. 

This isn't the first time this has happened and my blog also has a post on experiences in mobile based communications during a tsunami alert earlier this year. It's honestly been my experience that mobiles are very unreliable as a means of communications in the immediate aftermath of a disaster in Sri Lanka and that early warning and emergency response mechanisms that are reliant on them are bound to fail.

As I note in my post on the bomb blast yesterday, there was a another dimension in the manner in which mobiles were used. Many of the first news stories and images that captured the incident in visceral and sometimes gory detail were exclusively from camera phones. Long before the news media came to the scene, many who were around to see the carnage and some who were victims themselves, were shooting images and video using their phones. 

So while mobiles are as yet dicey at best for emergency response, they seem to be used as a device that captures life in violent conflict in a manner that traditional media did before the advent of the camera phone. This is an aspect that I believe holds great promise and I've written on extensively over the past number of years and is the inspiration behind simple work that documents citizen's voices Nokia N93i and Citizen Journalism in Sri Lanka

I aplogise if I've added a note of doom and gloom to these discussion. Make no mistake, I am convinced of the potential of mobiles - but feel that we also need to be acutely aware of the limitations of mobile networks at present, lest we conjure up emergency response scenarios using mobiles that bear no relation whatsoever to the very real limitations of mobile networks today.

Warm regards to all,

Sanjana Hattotuwa 

In follow-up to our conference in Brazil recently, the Economist who had a reporter at the event reports on mobile actvism and the many ways actaivists are using mobiles: http://economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10219930

It's a good read :-) 

Katrin

Hello,

Toay I want topresen how Jouranlists for children and women rights and protection of environemnt in Macedonia use the SMS message as tools in campaign.

For teh first time we use SMS message in the presidential campaign in Macedonia. It was in the time when our  actual president death in plane crash and in the country the question of new election of president was very emotional. We didnt think about this and we send the message to all abonment of mobile phone trough one of mobile operator in the country.

What's happend?

Lot of the citizens react that was agitate, that was wake up a cause this message and they faind that the message was promotion of one of teh candidat.

After the campaign we percieve that we make some mistake: maybe the message was enough clear, maybe the time of sending message wasn't adequate and wath was very important the period was very senzitive.

After this campaign we make one other. It was for local election when we want topromoto the womes in the elctional process. We want to involve more women in the local communities. We send the two messages in the interval of one hours on the day of election when we want to motivate the citizens to vote for women. With this campaign we havan't any problem, we have succes and lot of citizen say that in last minute they change thier opinion and that they vore for women.

But, before few days when we start the campaing 16 days against women violence we have few reaction in the media.

Firs of onbe was that we haven right to send the message to everyione because in this way we crush the right of privacy of the citizens because the mobile phone is private things. Second they react that this message was recived by minors which is also the crush of childrens rights...

Thisis our experiiance, but we try to solve all the difficulities and to continued to work on this way.

Natasa

Hi there, nice to read your positive responses, Ken and Nancy on the importance of relationships in our work.  I have seen a massive drop in the number of incidents espescially of a sectarian nature on or near the Interface where I work over the past couple of years.  One of the reasons for this is because we have made it our business to let more people know, locally,about the very existance of our Mobile Phone Network.  This has led to more people contacting us about trouble or potential for trouble at "hot spots" along the Interface.  When those involved in rioting, or anti social behaviour, know they are likely to be challenged at the Interface it seems to deter them.  This in turn has led to a reduction in tension in both the Unionist and Nationalist communities.  It has definitely made a difference to the quality of life for Interface communities in Belfast.  It also has a knock on effect too where politicians can see that  peace is being built upon at ground level, as well as at the political level.  I personally feel that this is one of the many positive reasons why we now have a power sharing assembly up and running at Stormont, our Parliament Buildings.

Bonjour,

I have read with great interest all the posts on this page and have found great insights. As someone who doesn't own a cell phone, I find your contributions easy to understand and very accessible. Thank you so much for including lay people into the conversation!

So what I have done is pay a visit to the different sites referenced here and, although I couldn't possibly cover everything I found interesting, I wrote a little piece about what I consider my top five up and coming uses of mobile phones for positive change. It's on the interTactica blog, right here on this site.

Thank you for all your beautiful, and so very crucial work.

Hello again!  I am not a proponent of spamming people ever for two reasons: 1. you are going to turn people against your cause even if you are texting only infrequently, and 2. more importantly, you are in danger of getting blacklisted by the carriers in a given country, hurting your ablity to get the word out in the long run. 

We had some very interesting discussions about this topic at our MobileActive event in Brazil, especially with people working in countries where there is no effective media and where it is very hard to get the word out when you literally have few ways of having people sign up to receive information, or where this becomes politically dangerous.   Is it ok to spam, that is, send people unsolicited information in those cases?  In Brazil that gets you blacklisted and shut down by the carriers, and cultural mores there are such that people react very angrily when they get spam on their phones. 

I was impressed by a local grassroots group that was soliciting phone numbers one-by-one in a literal "build a mobile list' campaign at events such as potluck dinners, and literally door-to-door solicitations.  The group now has 550 subscribers to its SMS list, sending out regularly information about jobs and health care to a poor community in a small city in the interior of Brazil.  In a survey they conducted about how satisfied the receipents of the information were, they not only received a 50% astonishing response rate, but also hugh marks for the usefulness of the content and the thought in which it was delivered.  The group was able to establish a trusted relationship with it mobile subscribers, partially because the solicitation and subscription process was so personal (they are also known in the town, of course). 

And granted, Brazil is not Zimbabwe, and the process of building a mobile list does not get you arrested there.  So, I am curious to hear what others think about this issue!

Katrin 

Hello all -- I am heading out to Jordan for a training on using mobiles in election monitoring (different than in Nigeria -- rather than citizen reporting that was done there, this is systematic and comprehensive monitoring and reporting that is used to counter official results by coalitions of citizen groups that are official watchdogs in elections in emerging democracies). More on that soon -- we will have, in short order, a comprehensive guide to "How to use SMS in Election Monitoring" that will go into great detail of how exactly this process works so to be valid and reliable. I will report from there, but will be offline for a day while traveling.

In the meantime, check out the MobileActive wiki where we have a bunch of useful resources for activists (and more to come, such as mobile tool comparisons, and research!). Especially useful is probably the Strategy Guide that is now a year or so old but still useful.

You can also find the sessions there from the recent MobileActive08 conference.

They are still a little raw but will be turned into additional resources in the next few weeks, thanks to support form Nokia, on how to gather data with mobiles, how to use mobile blogging and photo tools, and a number of other hands-on resources. If you have a wishlist of tools or resources that you want to know more about or wish you had in your work, post a comment - we are VERY open to additional resource development (again, thanks to Nokia) and we have great expertise in our midsts to commission those How-To Guides and materials. Thanks and see you all online in a couple of days again!

Katrin

In Kenya, where press freedom has come under legislative restrictions and the government has perpetuated attacks aganist the media, the use of mobile phones have enabled journalists to mobilize citizens participation for action. The use of SMS to rely messages to variers mobile subscribers has resulted to the government to soften its stance on the media.

News updates and campaign slogans are send to mobile phone users to inform them of  various updates in the country.

Journalists used the SMS system to mobilize support from members of the public to campaign aganist the introduction of the Media bill 2007 which was regarded as dragonian piece of legislation.

The Voices of Africa project has equiped journalists in Kenya with mobile phones which they are able to use to transmit data from report parts of the country. This enables journalists to cover  news and events from the remote areas of the country which were not covered by the main stream media. This has allowed citizens to effectively participate in democratic decision making and promote the fredom of the press.

Mobile phones are most effective in mobilizing for change in democratic governance and have provided a powerful tool for advocating for equal participation in the administartion of justice.

The choise of a mobile subscriber will depend on a number of issues including the nature of service intended for the mobile. Voices of Africa mobile reporters uses GPRS which is available to all SafariCom subscribers. The GPRS or its higher version Edge (3G) is suitable for multimedia data transmission and SMS.

The cost is also another factor to be put in consideration since GPRS is connected via internet access and it is often time taking and hence the cost element of its usage must be factored.

Voices of Africa mobile reporters also use the data cable to upload video and text content via internet which is cost effective.

The smaller the video or photo the less the time it will take to upload and its most advicable to only upload photos that carries the story. The video or photo should be self explanatory.

The Voice of Africa project in Nairobi is currently managing an election platform with the Media Focus and this has enabled the reporters to upload quality pictures and videos from site.

The choise of mobile phone is also important when its for multimedia transmission. For instance, Nokia N73 is most suitable since it has a internal editing software and this makes it easy to edit pictures and videos before uploading.

May be this will help in deciding which mobile phone to use and which service to consider when engaging in the use of mobile phones for action.

I have been learning a lot following this discussion and really appreciate the comments of the practitioners.

I have a question related to the types of phones being used. As several people have already noted, cell phones transfer a lot of information to the network carrier (privacy issue) and they are also built with commercial rather than activist purposes in mind.

I was curious if any of you are involved in "open source" cell phone initiatives like Openmoko (http://www.openmoko.org/). And would cell phones that worked on traditional cell phone networks and with WiFi (hotspots) offer any additional advantages?

Thank you!

Josh Robbins Program Associate, Science and Human Rights Program American Association for the Advancement of Science 1200 New York Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20005 Ph. 202.326.6797 email: jrobbinsaaas [dot] org

One thing that I've been interested in while hearing more and more about the uses of mobile phones is the huge amount of people who have mobile phones. Personally, I use email more than text messaging and SMS, but I realize that's not the case for everyone. Various sources I've looked at say that internet users number around 1.3 billion people in the world, versus 2.7 billion mobile phone users (these numbers are not exact, obviously). So, especially in developing countries, it seems that SMS is a much more feasible way of communicating than email. It makes sense, because phones are much easier to acquire than computers, and need less of an infrastructure to make them functional. But I still found this suprising, because of how much I rely on email as opposed to SMS.

What do you think of this? Is it suprising to anyone else, like it was for me? And do you think that it is a question of email OR SMS services, or could the two technologies work together well without excessive overlap?

Hi everyone

I'm heading off shortly to Uganda (to continue working on a project with the Grameen Foundation), and will be out of email contact for the rest of the online discussion.

It's been great connecting with you, and I hope to get the chance to work with some of you in the future. I'll be in touch with Nancy on my return to see how this might work.

Best of luck in all your work, and take care.

(And remember to check out nGOmobile if you're looking for equipment to run your mobile campaigns! The competition closes on 14th December).

Ken

http://www.kiwanja.net

Hi Noel, here, sorry you have not heard from me over the weekend and then yesterday.  I had trouble with my computer at home, at the weekend, and was not able to log on.  Yesterday I had to attend a conference on Policing in North Belfast.  My attendance meant I could have an input into the forthcoming Policing Plan for North and West Belfast.  So I was out of the office all day.  Hope you all did not miss me too much!

I have been looking over the blogs and am delighted at the interest our discussions have created.  I think the use of technology/software is definitely improving the quality of life for millions of people around the world.  Wether this be through  raising awareness of services to disadvantaged communities, or at home,  where traditionally Interfcae communities are always the most deprived in terms of access to services, are highest in unemployment, are the lowest income families and the highest in poverty and social deprivation. So any source that raises their awareness has to be welcomed.  I know from reading the blogs that many of you are interested in holding the poweres that be to account, be it in election moitoring, or in raising the profile of women's rights etc.   I warmly welcome all of these projects, although I feel ill prepared to even offer my opinions on many of them  But long after this process has come to a close  I will continue to offer you all my encouragement in fighting for justice against injustice, wherever it may emenate from.  I will step down off my soap box now and give someone else the floor. ha ha.

Hi there just a line to say "Thank You" to all at Newtactics and to Nancy of course for making it possible for me to play a part.  I have really enjoyed the whole process and hope we can do something similar in the not too distant future.  But for now it is Good Bye from me with,

 Best Wishes at this very special tmie of the year.

From Noel Large

Interaction Belfast.

Friends,

Over these last seven days, it's been a real pleasure to have not only our featuered resouce people but so many others in the New Tactics community share so many interesting, helpful and inspiring ideas and resources about how mobile phones are being used for action.

The New Tactics project will "archive" this discussion but it is still available for interaction. You can continue to come in and contribute your ideas, experiences and questions. Even though our featured resource people will be getting on with their very busy lives, the New Tactics project is here to continue the dialogue and help human rights advocates make connections to others.

Let us know what tactical discussion topics you would be interested to have featured. Contact us at: newtacticscvt [dot] org

Nancy Pearson, New Tactics Program Manager

Hey Katrin,

In Kenya, where the freedom of information is serverely threated by legislation which including the provisions of the Official Secreat Act (OSA), and a pervasive culture of secrecy. Thanks to Voice of Africa Project, a vast amount of information is now obtained from our mobile reporters using mobile phones. Within the framework of the government's repressive legislation and the culture of secrecy, Kenyans have been denied the right to information through a free press and often matters of public intrest are communicated through the  office of the Public Communications Officer- a government propaganda tool. Last month, the government continued to use the Information Act and the OSA to arbitrarily threaten press freedom.

Voices of Africa offers a level of transparency and accountability in naturing a culture of press freedom and access to information for public intrest.

The Voices of Africa breaks the culture of restrictions and supression of information by those in authority and promotes democracy through citizen participation and enhances advocacy journalism in the community.

Voices of Africa is a form of community-based media which offers the main instruments used by the public to supress the restriction to access information.

Based on a concept of promotion and protection of press freedom, it enables the public to participate effectively in democratic decision making process by publishing any information in the intrest of the public without restrictions from the government .

The government has continued to be intolerant to the press, as was seen in the case of possible attempts to gag the press by introducing dragonian laws that would muzzle the freedom of the press.

Voices of Africa has managed to mobilize independent journalists under the prevailing culture of secrecy that prevents the public from accessing information despite the fact that much of this information is in the intrest of the public.

In Kenya, the liberalization of the media has witnessed a number of privately  owned media that is critical of the system.

However, one of the greates challenges paused by this scenario is the fact that there is no legislative protection to protect those report aganist the government.

Mobile phones have been able to break this cycle and it is now possible to send videos and photos using a phone (Nokia N73) and this is uploaded on the website of voices of Africa.

Today, democarcy is being monitored and citizen participation has increased.

Hello friends,

I thought you would be interested to learn about this upcoming gathering.

International Summit for Community Wireless Networks (MAY 28-30, 2008)

The AAAS Science and Human Rights Program, New America Foundation, CUWiN Foundation, and the Acorn Active Media Foundation will be hosting the annual International Summit for Community Wireless Networks in Washington, DC on May 28-30, 2008.

For more information visit: http://shr.aaas.org/wireless/upcomingevent.shtml or www.wirelesssummit.org

The AAAS Wireless Communication Technologies and Human Rights Project is devoted to introducing a new generation of communication technologies to human rights organizations and bringing human rights to the bourgeoning movement of Community Wireless Networks (CWNs).

Wireless communication technology is any technology (including radio transmitters and receivers, remote controls, satellite phones, paging systems) which uses some form of energy (radio frequency, infrared light, laser light, visible light, acoustic energy) to transfer information over short or long distances without the use of wires. New wireless technologies have the potential to ensure free and unimpeded access to information for all who seek it. This possibility has stimulated the formation of CWNs throughout the world, a science and technology driven social movement to protect and extend access to a vital means of communication in the digital age.

For more information about the AAAS Wireless Communication Technologies and Human Rights Project, please visit our website: http://shr.aaas.org/wireless/

or contact the project leader, Josh Robbins.

Josh Robbins, Program Associate for the Science and Human Rights Program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, email jrobbinsaaas [dot] org

Nancy Pearson, New Tactics Program Manager

Nancy Pearson, New Tactics Program Manager

We’ve just announced the winners of nGOmobile (this morning, in fact) if you’re interested and/or decide to post the details up.

The Winners are profiled at http://www.ngomobile.org/?id=13

The Press Release is at http://www.ngomobile.org/nGOmobile_2007_winners_Press_Release.pdf

And there’s a nice write-up at http://www.160characters.org/news.php?action=view&nid=2547 Ken Banks

Founder, kiwanja.net

Kristin Antin, New Tactics Online Community Builder

http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/hardware/page7216.cfm

 Perhaps this technology can be used to help connect the numerous NGO's & non-profits that are typically found in major cities.  Often resources and energy is wasted due to the lack of communication between organizations.  This technology can solve part of the communication problem and can increase organizations' effectiveness and effieceny.  

Example: Costs can be reduced with purchasing in larger quantities.  If there are several clinics in the area, perhaps they order bandages together saving each of them money.  

Example: A rebel group is sighted near the town.  By alerting other organizations around, they can alert the citizens, ensure the safety of their workers, and collaborate to come up with a unified solution.

Example: Sharing information like road conditions, diesease outbreaks, etc. will allow everyone to do their role much better. 

Each of these examples will result in positive change for those the organizations are attempting to help.  The increase in communication may seem daunting to overworked, busy non-profits but the result will be time saving and help them attain their end goal of serving the community.  

There are so many great resources out there for practitioners interested in using mobile phones, including the mobile advocacy toolkit that you mentioned. Ken Banks (of kiwanja.net) just sent us an article about an organization in the Philippines using FrontlineSMS for election monitoring and other tactics. The organization is called 'Computer Professionals' Union' (CP-Union) and their are working on advancing ICT 'for the people'.  CP-Union has used mobile phone technology for election monitoring, signature campaigns, and monitoring and documenting human rights violations for rights-workers. CP-Union has developed a database called K-Rights Monitor that connects to the Frontline SMS software. 

Click here to read the article titled 'Frontline SMS Integration with K-Rights Monitor and other Usage of Frontline SMS in the Philippines'

Kristin Antin, New Tactics Online Community Builder

Hope your project turned out to be a great success!.

MobileActive.org has a new resource "How to set up an SMS Campaign". You can find it using the link to their library of How-Tos, and here is the link to the new one: A guide on how to set up a campaign using SMS.

It is a great resource to answer the questions you need to ask and the tools to consider. 

Nancy Pearson, New Tactics in Human Rights Program Manager