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

[newkenya at riseup.net]

blicero:

thanks for everything.

we are all so eagerly awaiting approval.

we want to jumpstart it with an aggressive campaign for gender rights in
kenya.

over the last month the religious right in kenya has been pushing a very
odious anti-choice agenda following the discovering of  fifteen fetuses
next to a fundamentalist christian centre in nairobi(we found that rather
convenient and some of us suspect that it was planted there). as we speak,
a  kenyan doctor and two nurses have been hauled to court to face charges,
not under the penal code dealing with abortion, but with MURDER and
pro-choice activists in kenya( and  we are among those forces) believe
that this  fetal homicide prosecution is part of the wider agenda to push
the "abortion is murder" credo to further criminalize reproductive rights
in kenya.

well, like i said, we are raring to go!

onyango oloo
montreal

>
> 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 :))))
>
> -------
>
> 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.
>
> --
> ciao
> blicero
>
>