Reaching out to Arid Lands
The Media Focus on Africa Foundation (MFAF) held a 3-day training workshop with the Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN) to promote responsible participation in the electoral process. ALIN is a network of over 2000 community development workers drawn from Non-Governmental organizations, community-based organizations and government departments. ALIN's mission is to enhance the livelihoods of communities through information exchange.

The three day training took place in Nakuru from October 5-7, 2007 and targeted Community Information Volunteers (CIVs). These CIVs are primarily drawn from the youth living in the arid lands. The objectives of the training included:

To educate CIVs on the campaign programmes and voter education material
To train CIVs on the use of mobile phones in making short movies
To integrate civic education information and the use of SMS material
To popularize the campaign programmes and SMS platform at the grassroots level

Telling their stories in picture
A follow up workshop that brought together facilitators from the Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN) and facilitators from Media Focus on Africa Foundation (MFAF) was recently held in Nakuru. This second workshop aimed at discussing and implementing the collaboration between ALIN and MFAF in preparing short films to project the voices of people living in the arid lands on the forthcoming elections.

Through these ALIN volunteers information exchange networks are developed that are instrumental in supporting the development of communities through disseminating information using various avenues including the internet.

ALIN volunteers have partnered with MFAF to make short films using the new technology 3G N73 NOKIA video phones that can record and upload one to two-minute films through the readily available Safaricom network onto the internet (www.skoeps.com).

This second workshop in Nakuru brought together twelve participants, which included two facilitators from Media Focus on Africa Foundation (MFAF). It was an opportunity to assess the work of the five initial video phone reporters and highlight their challenges and showcase their achievements.

Participants addressed the technical challenges faced in developing short films and compared notes on areas for further improvement in improving their skills. The earlier trainees were able to induct and pass their knowledge and experience to the new volunteers who were due to start shooting films.

During the workshop, additional phones were handed to these new video reporters to increase the content and participation of more ALIN volunteers and their communities as Kenya prepares to vote in December.