[New-imc] Travel Stipend for Indymedia Organizer / Indymedia

[osfa_wewearbuildings]

hi sasha
this is osfa, volunteer at imc estrecho / madiaq. [the straits
of gibraltar].
"our" indymedia territory is southern spain, the magreb - that
is north western africa -, and the canary islands. we are working
therefore with border and transcultural issues between europe
and africa. we just began with the project, which became an official
imc site last august.

we have been working hard on building a wide social network supporting
the project. however we are right now far more advanced in the
european side than in the african. we do have 4 strong nodes:
sevilla, jerez, malaga and canarias. nevertheless there are already
some morroccans people and organizations beginning to participate,
both living in marrocco and in spain, we are also collaborating
with the Red Las Dos Orillas, - a spanish morroccan - network
of over 60 organizations, in order to extend the use of indymedia
in the magreb.

our plan is to continuosly redesign the indymedia in an assemblary
way, according to the criteria contributed by the new participants
that we hope will be becoming part of the project.

This summer three of the participants in the project had been
o a tour all over marrocco meeting diferent organizations, that
declared themeselves to be very interested in participating.

See http://madiaq.indymedia.org  central column right now.

as a result of this tour we will be holding a first formal meeting
next november 8-9th in tangiers to give some tech workshops 
and exchange views about the project with marroccan organizations.

i don´t know if any of these projects would fit your stipend
money.

In any case we would be very glad to collaborate with you guys
in any way possible.

all the best _ osfa (((i))) madiaq volunteer




love and peace, always better with cyborgs!

>--- Original Message ---
>From: imc-estrecho-owner at lists.indymedia.org
>To: imc-estrecho-owner at lists.indymedia.org
>Date: 10/9/03 2:09:36 AM
>
As list administrator, your authorization is requested for the
>following mailing list posting:
>
>    List:    imc-estrecho at lists.indymedia.org
>    From:    sascha at ucimc.org
>    Subject: Re:  [New-imc]  Travel Stipend for Indymedia Organizer
/ Indymedia
>  Growth in Africa Project
>    Reason:  Post by non-member to a members-only list
>
>At your convenience, visit:
>
>    https://lists.indymedia.org/cgi-bin/mailman/admindb/imc-estrecho
>        
>to approve or deny the request.
>Hi Petros,
>
>I appreciate your concerns -- hopefully they are all addressed
below.
>
>On Thu, 9 Oct 2003, boud wrote:
>
>> hi sascha, petros, everyone,
>>    i suggest everyone interested discuss this issue with
>> African Indymedia people (or others who feel they can
>> validly comment) on
>>
>> imc-africa at lists.indymedia.org
>>
>> since it is not (right now) a new-imc issue.
>>
>> On Wed, 8 Oct 2003, Petros Evdokas wrote:
>>
>> > Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003
>> > From: Sascha Meinrath <sascha at ucimc.org>
>> > Subject: [New-imc]  Travel Stipend for Indymedia
>> > Organizer:
>> >         Applications due by Nov 1, 2003.
>>
>> > I am writing to let folks know that the
>> > Urbana-Champaing IMC (UCIMC) is
>> > soliciting applications for a travel stipend to an
>> > Indymedia Organizer who
>> > is willing to help with the Indymedia Growth in Africa
>> > Project (IGAP).
>>
>> > http://brainstorm.ucimc.org/ucimcWiki/igap
>>
>>
>> > ---------------------------
>> >
>> >
>> > Sascha and other imc friends and colleagues,
>> >
>> > I believe in the good intentions of yours and everyone
>>
>> > 1. Trust.
>> > Right now, the "global south" and thirld- world
>> > countries (whether we have an imc group or not) view
>> > anything like this with mistrust. Western, and
>> > specifically, US/ UK- based activists, must do a *hell
>> > of a lot* of trust- building before anything like this
>> > is not viewed as a "benign" intervention.
>>
>> On the wiki:
>> http://brainstorm.ucimc.org/ucimcWiki/igap
>> it is said that at least one individual from each of
>> IMC SA and IMC Nigeria are involved in the project.
>
>The UCIMC has a several-year history working with IMCs throughout
the
>world and has been working with specifically with IMC Nigeria
since 2001.
>Given that the initiative for the project came from all the
stakeholders
>involved, I don't think there's any problem of trust.
>
>> However,
>> (1) the imc-sa mailing list has secret archives:
>> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-sa
>> (see
>> http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/NewImcMailingListIssues
>> for arguments for/against secret archives etc.)
>>
>> (2) nothing has been said on the imc-nigeria mailing list
>> since Jan 2003:
>> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-nigeria
>>
>> So there might be a problem of transparency here.  i agree
>> with petros in the sense that more transparency (use of
>> open mailing lists) might help build up more trust among
>> African activists.
>>
>> i am a bit curious as to whether IMC Ambazonia and IMC
>> Estrecho-Madiak are interested or have been consulted. In
>> any case, some IMC Ambazonia people use the imc-africa
>> list, and i'm cc-ing imc-estrecho in case it doesn't yet
>> have a liaison on imc-africa. So now everyone is hopefully
>> in contact.
>
>The answer is very simple -- when the grant was being written,
the only
>two established IMCs were Nigeria and South Africa.  Had others
been
>well-established at that time, they would have been asked if
they wanted
>to collaborate on the project.
>
>> > 2. Consensus.
>> > This is a decision which is absolutely political, but
>> > being promoted (disguised ) as a financial transaction.
>> > A project like this can only be part of a global
>> > IndyMedia policy if there is a global consensus (or a
>> > severely heavy majority globally, among us) to back it
>> > up. Do we have that among us?
>>
>> As i understand it, this is a horizontal cooperation
>> between one IMC in N America and two existing IMCs in
>> Africa.  As i understand it, it's not claiming to be a
>> global indymedia project, and it's not trying to avoid
>> the new-imc process - on the contrary, it asks the
>> "candidate" to have experience in starting new IMCs
>> and in going through the new-imc process.
>
>I also completely disagree that this should be a Global Indymedia
>decision.  This is a project taken on by an individual IMC and
no
>different than many other projects that many other IMCs take
on.
>
>> > 4. Evaluation.
>> > Whe isn't this project aimed directly and specifically
>> > at African IndyMedia activists?
>>
>> See above - we could also ask why *criticism* of this project
>> is not directed to the imc-africa mailing list?
>>
>> > but who happen to be steering the imc boat without
>> > realizing the depth of the waters. The depth can be
>> > learned, and there are maps.
>>
>> Nice metaphor :))
>>
>> i suggest everyone interested get together on imc-africa
>> and sort things out there.
>
>I think it's easy to overproblematize this project.  The idea
behind the
>IGAP project is extremely simple: 1. transfer resources and
equipment to
>areas in Africa where they're direly needed; 2. get someone
who is highly
>experienced with the Global Indymedia and New-IMC process to
help out any
>interested groups to become IMCs; 3. share skills among Indymedia
>participants and provide media production training to interested
folks;
>provide funding for folks to do Indymedia organizing in Africa;
and create
>information that can be disseminated to possible funders about
what needs
>exist for Indymedia growth in Africa.
>
>Given these goals and the fact that the folks we've been working
with in
>Africa are all highly supportive, I'd be really confused if
anyone has a
>problem with the project.
>
>In solidarity,
>
>--Sascha Meinrath
>Urbana-Champaign IMC
>
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