[New-imc] imc kenya almost ready for approval for new-imc

[blicero]

i send to everybody mission statement, editorial policy, and membership
criteria for imc kenya

they just got a site where they are starting developing
the outreach is at fairly good rate
they still have to clarify what kind of collective method of taking
decision they share (mailing list ? face to face meetings? others ?)

but situation is pretty advance :))))

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IndyMedia Kenya is a non-non-profit, democratic collective of Kenyan
progressive independent media and social justice activists based in Kenya
and other parts of the world.

Principles of Unity: IndyMedia Kenya

1) We strive to provide an information infrastructure for people and
opinions who do not have access to the airwaves, tools and resources of
the mainstream media. This includes audio, video, photography, internet
distribution and any other communication medium;

2) We support local, regional and global struggles against exploitation,
oppression, discrimination,  and marginalization;

3) We function as a non-profit, anti-imperialist collective.

4) IndyMedia Kenya involves volunteer participants and allied collectives
organized along anti-authoritarian principles of open and transparent
decision-making processes, including open public meetings; a form of
modified consensus; and the elimination of hierarchies.

5) IndyMedia Kenya participants shall not act in a manner that endangers,
intimidates, or physically harms any member of the group, including by
sexual harassment, tribal hatred, racist attacks or any acts of violence.
Indymedia members shall strive to act in a respectful manner to other
members of the collective as well as the public;

6) IndyMedia Kenya shall practice mutual respect, mutual benefit,
consensus, consultation, and the independence and initiative of all
persons and parties interested in joining or supporting it. No person or
party or political belief shall arbitrarily impose its will on any or all
the others;

7) IndyMedia Kenya decisions are– by way of consensus and consultation;

8) IndyMedia Kenya is committed to the principle of human equality, and
shall not discriminate, including discrimination based upon race, region,
gender, age, class or sexual orientation. As such, it shall not act in a
manner that endangers, intimidates, or physically harms any member of the
group, including by sexual harassment or acts of violence IndyMedia Kenya
strives  to act in a respectful manner to its members as well as the
public.

Mission Statement

-To fight for a New Kenya in the context of the global contest for a New
World based on equality, justice and non-exploitation;

-To cover Kenyan and other stories, events and happening that are
censored, ignored or poorly covered by the mainstream media both locally
and internationally;

-To provide edited audio, video, and print stories of the above on the
internet for independent and alternative media outlets, Kenyans worldwide
and the general international public;

-To facilitate the networking and coordination for the coverage of Kenyan
stories and events as well as gather information about stories and events
to cover.
To provide links to alternative media, activist, and research groups in
Kenya and around the world;

-To seek out and provide coverage underscoring the global nature of
people's struggles for social, economic, and environmental justice
directly from their perspective;

-To offer community-based training and education for training in internet
and media skills;

-To encourage, facilitate, and support the creation of independent and
alternative progressive news gathering and organizations.

Get Involved

This is your independent media center. As an all-volunteer organization,
we need you to get involved! Introduce yourself at our volunteer signup
page and check our contact page for info on meetings and e-mail lists.



IndyMedia Kenya EDITORIAL POLICY

This was adapted from Manila and Perth Indymedia's editorial policy.

Aims and Objectives

-To provide an open-publishing newswire in accordance with established
Indymedia policies and philosophy.
 -To maintain the newswire and website as a space that welcomes members of
disempowered or marginalised groups.
-To acknowledge that words have the power to cause injury, but that
instances of injurious speech or writing should also be seen as
opportunities for a critical or insurrectionary response.
-To preserve the quality of the website as a useful media resource.

Newswire Protocol

IndyMedia Kenya hosts an open-publishing newswire. Members of the
editorial collective regularly monitor the newswire, keeping their eyes
open for particularly significant, informative contributions to add to the
centre-column features section.

Open Publishing

Open publishing means that the process of creating news is transparent to
readers. They can contribute a story and see it instantly appear in a pool
of stories. Readers can see editorial decisions being made by others. They
can see how to get involved and help make editorial decisions. If they can
think of a better way for the software to help shape editorial decisions,
they can copy the software because it is free and change it and start
their own site.

Hiding Posts IndyMedia Kenya  Editorial Collective, in order to maintain
the integrity of the newswire and the media commons it creates for our
community of participants, may "hide" posts to the newswire when the
content contravenes the guidelines that have been put in place (see
below). All hidden posts (exceptions noted below) should be notified to
the collective email list so that the Ed-collective has the chance to
agree or disagree with the hiding of the post.

Notifiable Removals

Posts the author has requested be hidden.
Posts which are obviously incorrect or misleading. This includes attempts
to spread disinformation or to impersonate another individual.
Posts that incite violence against disempowered members of the community.
Threats to maim or kill.
Posts which publish identifying information without the individual's
knowledge or consent. Posts which use language, imagery, or other forms of
communication to promote racism,tribalism,  religious hatred, fascism,
xenophobia, homophobia, sexism etc., or any other form of discrimination.
Abuse of others in the form of personal attacks. Indymedia is not a space
for people to play out personal vendettas.
Pornography, but not sexually explicit satire.

Non-notifiable Removals

Unreadable formats for eg: photos posted as text / text only posts without
relevance nonsense/flooding.
Duplicate/Repetitive posts.
Advertising of products or for-profit services.
Notification or cancellation of events. Please use the events calendar.
These may be moved to appropriate wire.
Persistent nuisance posts to the newswire or comments sections. +
Posts that are deemed to be devoid of content or analysis and appear to be
published with the sole purpose of disruption.


If you don't agree with a decision...

We strive to make decisions in the most democratic, transparent and
accountable manner. If you have any questions or concerns regarding our
policy or our practice, or would like to work with the Manila IMC, please
contact us at

Copyright of Features and Articles

All posts made to the newswire are effectively covered by the principles
of "COPYLEFT". The author retains the moral right to be recognised as the
author of the article in question, but the article is free for
distribution for non-profit and educative purposes. Articles may be
reproduced in full for any purpose and in any media provided the
reproduction is subject to the same principles as laid out here, that is,
the same representations of the COPYLEFT of the article must appear
alongside the article.

Under no circumstances may articles or features from the IndyMedia Kenya
site be reproduced in full in a fee-paying or for-profit medium. However,
for-profit media may quote from articles or features in accordance with
the "fair use" copyright principles.

We think stories contributed to this site should be free for non-profit
re-use. Copy left is an idea central to indymedia (for more information,
check out http://www.opencontent.org/). If you want to change that for
your story, please give your conditions in the summary.
After stories have been published, they may be edited, linked or even
deleted by the collective running this site. Please read our privacy and
disclaimer statements.



Question: A. How does the makeup of your collective reflect the diversity
of the
> local community (e.g. in realtion to gender-, sexual-, spiritual-,
> and/or cultural-identity)?

ANSWER:

Our group is very diverse. We have women and men. At the first annual IMC
regional conference for Africa,  we were the ONLY  African group to send a
woman as a delegate to Dakar. Grace Waita is at the forefront of
coordinating things within the country. We have young people barely out of
their teens as well as much older people with greying hair; We have
atheists, Christians, Muslims, followers of traditional African religions
and agnostics; We have socialists, anarchists, liberals, nationalists,
social democrats and people from  across the PROGRESSIVE ideological
spectrum; we have people from different parts of the country who come from
a diversity of  ethnic and racial backgrounds; we have people who live
inside the country and those who reside outside; we have people with
university backgrounds as well as  primary school drop outs; in short  we
think we meet this criterion very effectively.
>
> B. If your group currently does not represent the diversity of the local
> community, particularly in relation to groups who are underrepresented
> in mainstream society and denied access to vehicles of expression, what
> steps will be taken to address this on an ongoing basis?
>

NOT APPLICABLE. SEE ANSWER ABOVE
> C. What steps will be taken to involve individuals in workfields new to
> them? What measures will be taken to overcome a gendered work division?

Grace Waita, one of our two delegates to Dakar is a relative newcomer to
digital media activism and she learned a great deal from the IMC workshops
in Senegal. We hav taken concrete steps to overcome a gendered work
division by identifying it as one of the baggages in society that we must 
struggle and confront if we hope to  walk the talk. To say that we have
overcome it would be a blatant lie. We have barely begun to work together
as a cohesive unit and we believe that we will  confront these challenges
around gendered work division as our group matures. Certainly
philosophically we come from  a place with  zero tolerance for  such
sexist division of labour but we recognize the need to transcend empty and
sanctimonius pronouncements.


In terms of communication, we are using a diversity of means to facilitate
meetings and coordination since internet based communication has its own
pitfalls in the  concrete Kenyan context.



IMC MEMBERSHIP CRITERIA - DRAFT Each IMC and Global Working Group is
expected to:

a. Agree in spirit to the NIMC Mission Statement and Principles of Unity,
(PrinciplesOfUnity) YES

b. Have a committed membership substantial enough to sustain a functional
IMC, YES

c. Have open and public meetings (no one group can have exclusionary
"ownership" of an IMC), YES

d. Work toward developing a local Mission Statement or Statement of
Purpose. Network Mission Statement may be adopted or used on an interim
basis, DONE

e. Establish and publish an editorial policy which is developed and
functions through democratic process, and with full transparency, DONE

f. Agree to the use of Open Publishing as described in the NIMC Editorial
Policy [editorial collective comments: "We did agree that the term "Open
Publishing" was one that is still being defined by the Global Network
Collective, and we would wait and see what the results were before
rewriting this criteria], YES

g. Adopt a decision-making policy that is in alignment with consensus
principles which include open, transparent and egalitarian processes,
AGREED/DONE

h. Have a spokesperson(s) willing and capable of participating in the
global decision-making process and meetings as a rotating
liaison/representative, with a clear understanding of the responsibilities
that come with this role, DONE

i. Participate in the key IMC Network Communication Methods that pertain
to the health and vitality of the Network and that contribute to the work
of the IMC. Assure that at least one person from your local IMC
participates at any given time on the IMC-Communications list, YES

j. (NOT FINALIZED): Have no official affiliation with any political party,
state or candidate for office (comments: but individual producers have
freedom to do whatever they like and local IMCs can "feature" stories
about various political parties and initiatives), YES

k. IMCs shall in no way engage in commercial for-profit enterprises. [We
could add: The IMCN is committed to the decommercialization of information
and will disassociate from any local IMC that decides to become a for
profit media corporation.] AGREED

l. Display a ³local version² of the IMC ³i² logo on your website and
literature. YES

m. Include the IMC Network current ³Cities List² on your site, preferably
on the front page.

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ciao
blicero