A team of about twenty opinion leaders have been elected to lead election monitoring in Kibra and Karen/Langatta constituencies.
The leaders were elected in a forum organized by Map Kibera Trust, on 24th of October 2012 at Mchanganyiko hall, in Kibra constituency.
During the forum (KNN coverage on youtube), participants identified issues to be monitored, and suggested to host debates, where the aspirants contesting various positions will be interrogated. The aspirants will be required to explain to the citizens their manifestos, ideologies and plans.
Map Kibera Trust executive director, Kepha Ngito said over 60% of all Nairobi residents stay in slums, and stressed the need for the citizens to embrace Citizen Journalism to tell the world the happenings around them during the election period. “Map Kibera Trust exists to amplify citizen’s voicesâ€, said Kepha. He added election monitoring team will be tasked to monitor what the main stream and local media will be reporting, the happenings at the polling stations during election, security concerns and political leaders’ utterances, before, during and after elections.
Kepha also mentioned the need to dig deeper into election related violence, and unearth what key institutions and leaders are doing, their roles, failures and successes. Pamoja FM programs manager, Philip Muhatia, said there was need for reporters to adhere to journalistic ethics to avoid what happened in 2007/2008 post election violence. Muhatia also advised the forum to identify who they were reporting to, since media influence could as well fuel conflicts.
Participants pointed on the need to create structures where classified contents from the community will be directed. Others suggested the creation of other advocacy tools to help to amplify their voices. Among the tools suggested were the Umande Trust dialogue forums between the community and political aspirants, Kibera Mirror newspaper, Pamoja FM, Mtaani Insight and the current Map Kibera available tools.
There was also a suggestion to harmonize the work of different Civic Society Organizations doing similar things in Kibera. They also suggested development of a memorandum to be signed by all political leaders outlining their commitments on fostering peace.
If you are interested in reading more details, the we have posted the Stake Holders Forum Report.
The Global Voices Summit, was a good opportunity for Map Kibera to get exposure, share and interact with different bloggers from all over the world.
On 2nd July, which was the first day of the summit, at 2pm when the Map Kibera team of Joshua Owino [KNN], Steve Oduor [KNN], Lucy Fondo [Mapper], Cosmas [map Mathare], Javin Ochieng [Map Mathare], Sande Wycliff [V.O.K], Yvonne Tiany [ Map Mathare], Vincent [Mukuru] and Kepha Ngito [Map Kibera Trust Director] took to the panel to present about map kibera trust.
Joshua and I shared how KNN, started, what we do with the limited resources we have to bring about change in our community.
Members of these different programs under map kibera trust shared in detail what they have been able to achieve in the 2- year approximate time that map kibera has existed.
Lucy Fondo speaking. Photo by @rezwan
For instance, Lucy Fondo , one of the mappers present at the summit, explained how, by the use of GPS gadgets, they have been able to map different facilities within Kibera and later been able to revise the maps in different topics that affect the community directly such as health, education, security and Water & Sanitation.
These maps have played a great role in improving the services offered by the government in these respective topics, for example, the local governing authorities have used the security map to help improve security especially around the black spots identified in the map. the map on water and sanitation has also been of great importance to the government-owned Nairobi Water Company which has relied on the map, to identify areas in Kibera hit by water shortage.
KNN on the other hand, use flip camera to make video on issues and happenings in different areas within Kibera, through the Youtube channel, www.youtube.com/kiberanewsnetwork which are linked to the map created by the mappers thus helping to identify on the map what happens at a particular place.
Sande Wycliff of Voice of Kibera explained how through ushahidi platform, they have been able to get the community members to send reports that come as text messages on the site, www.voiceofkibera.org , on events and things that take place within Kibera, the report is later verified by a team of editors and then appears on the site. which uses the map to show where a certain report was sent from.
Sande, Joshua, Steve, and Vincent on panel. Photo by @rezwan
Map Kibera also shared how the information sharing has helped improve the community and how it has been extended to slums of Mathare and Mukuru, where other young people like Cosmas, Yvonne, Javin and Vincent, who were also present at the summit, shared their experiences in these respective regions.
On 3rd of July which was the second day of the summit, Map Kibera director Kepha Ngito gave a presentation with an overview of the whole trust and it’s relation to the community where he later answered questions from participants.
Steve, KNN
On Sunday 1st July 2012, we’ve just had a visitation by people from Global Voices, and they were about 20 visitors. I led the meeting, Sande gave voice presentation, Maureen gave a mapping presentation, and Joshua gave Kibera News Network presentation. Then, all group was taken out in the field under different interests. We had four interests starting with meeting people with HIV/AIDS, going to the points where they express technology literacy, education, and meeting the ambassadors of peace in the community. A lot of questions were asked and the young innovative leaders answered them. It was a nice experience…….Being a leader is an experience to learn.
#gv2012
