[Imc-africa] great story about Kenya indymedia!

[Hannah Jane Sassaman]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3565/kenyas_indy_media/

Features > March 14, 2008 Kenya's Indy Media By Michelle
Chen<http://www.inthesetimes.com/about/author/5168>

Fred Orek, a cameraman and assistant editor with the Kenyan video collective
Slum-TV, works on a shoot in October 2007.
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While news reports across the world have displayed images of chaos shaking
Kenya, an alternative media system driven by ordinary Kenyans is emerging in
the East African country to help raise the voices of the seldom heard. The
violent aftermath of President Mwai Kibaki's disputed election in December
has detonated Kenya's festering ethnic, land and power struggles, leaving
hundreds dead and displacing hundreds of thousands. But it has also
energized the country's independent media-makers, many of whom see their
work as key to overcoming the crisis.

Fusing mass communication with political organizing, the Kenya Independent
Media Center (IMC) has aired local activists' perspectives on the violence
and its root causes. Through its growing network of independent reporters,
IMC Kenya aims to generate "information for action," according to co-founder
John Bwakali.

The organization also tries to lead by example through its non-hierarchical
structure as a collective—a potential model of radical self-empowerment in a
society besieged by political disillusionment.

In an IMC audio piece, Jimani, a young activist with the Warriors, a
Nairobi-based self-help group, reflects on the desperation that has pushed
many of Kenya's youth into violent clashes.

"Why has a youth gone out to fight, ready to die?" he asks on a recording
produced shortly after the elections. "Is it freedom for those who are
oppressed in this world? Maybe you can say so." But he continues: "As a
[young] man is ready to go out there and die because he wants his voice to
be heard, we need to give them that chance. We need to hear what they have
to say to us."

Some youth are amplifying their voices through a video collective called
Slum-TV, led by Kenya-based media activists. By documenting everyday
struggles in Mathare—a densely populated slum in the capital Nairobi—the
project enables young people to produce homegrown media and, through local
public screenings, fosters community dialogue. Following the outbreak of the
post-election violence, Slum-TV has focused on current recovery efforts that
bring together activists from different ethnic groups.

Slum-TV co-founder Sam Hopkins noted the contrast with corporate media's
coverage of "tribal" violence. "The idea behind focusing on characters who
have crossed the ethnic divide is really just to provide another version of
what's happening, to counteract the mainstream international media," he
says.

As an ear to the ground in their communities, grassroots media activists
have sometimes been ahead of the news.

Patrick Shomba and fellow artists, who founded the Ghetto Film Club media
collective in 2006, foreshadowed the approaching unrest in a screenplay
titled "The Ghetto President." The film, created last year as a
civic-education project, explored issues of corruption, voting rights, youth
rights and ethnic conflict. After scraping together volunteer help and
borrowed equipment, the group completed the film a few days before the
election and held a public screening in a Nairobi slum. Their next film,
they hope, will be about reconciliation.

Since cities like Nairobi are ethnically diverse, Shomba views street-level
art as a way to "maintain the peace here in the urban sector, with a mix of
culture and a mix of tribes."

Local youth lead the project as actors and producers—a rare opportunity for
them to overcome marginalization. The group aims to eventually turn media
work into a sustainable income source for young people wrestling with
poverty, crime and lack of schooling in their communities.

In the post-election turmoil, Shomba is also working with Kenya's budding
community radio scene to air local news, as well as anti-violence messages,
on three small urban stations, with an estimated reach of more than 2
million listeners.

"What our guys can do at the grassroots," he says, "the mainstream media
can't come and do."

Though still in its infancy, grassroots reporting is gaining traction in
Kenya. Since 2007, the Web-based Voices of Africa project, an initiative of
the Africa Interactive Media Foundation, has delivered field reporting from
mobile-phone-based correspondents in Kenya. Its coverage features video
commentary from everyday people on politics, underlying social problems and
concerns about the ongoing mediation talks.

Although Kenya's independent media-makers generally do not face outright
authoritarian restraints, more insidious barriers can impinge on their work.

IMC Kenya reporter Oscar Odhiambo recently fled Kenya temporarily for
Tanzania, in part, he says, because he felt that as an independent
journalist, he risked being targeted by violent factions for speaking out.
Meanwhile, he says, Kenya's establishment press has failed to hold powerful
officials and business elites accountable because it is hampered by
corporate control.

"The media as an institution must be set free," he says, "so that we as
independent journalists can also use that freedom to express an autonomous
view of what we believe is true."

Yet one of the most immediate challenges facing independent media activists
is simply logistics. Reflecting the global "digital divide" between North
and South, Kenya's online infrastructure is threadbare. Internet users make
up less than 10 percent of Kenya's population, according to international
estimates; both media producers and consumers typically lack consistent
access. In response, media-makers are repurposing old-school technologies to
reach new audiences.

While IMC Kenya runs a website, co-founder Bwakali acknowledged that its
digital material is out of reach for most Kenyans. The key is to capitalize
on "good old traditional distribution networks," he says—cassette tapes and
compact discs, distributed hand to hand. The group also plans to work with
mini-bus operators to air IMC recordings on their daily routes.

For Slum-TV, just the shared experience of a public audience has deep social
resonance. "To see the reaction of a crowd when we have a screening is
really incredible," says Hopkins. In Mathare, where hundreds of thousands
struggle with poverty and political disenfranchisement, "the potential to
affect people's aspirations is huge."

Meanwhile, among the small community of wired Kenyans, blogs channel
information, outrage and hope.

In January, the blog Kenyan Pundit ran a self-penned "obituary" by writer
Simiyu Barasa. "I know not my tribe," he wrote. "I have only known myself as
Kenyan, and others as fellow Kenyans. In these times, belonging or not
belonging [to a tribe] means not being dead or being seriously dead. What
chances does a person like me have?"

While fostering political discussion, Kenya's blogosphere has also taken a
proactive role in coping with the crisis. The Web-based mapping project
Ushahidi.com tracks citizen-reported violent incidents, along with local
peace-building efforts, across the country.

Nairobi-based political cartoonist and blogger Patrick Gathara distills
pointed dissent into scathing images and commentary. One of his recently
posted comics shows Kibaki playing the fiddle and singing as the city behind
him blazes in flames.

To help raise consciousness through art, Gathara has worked with the
Association of East African Cartoonists (KATUNI) to launch a political
cartoon competition, which is themed around the current conflicts and ideas
for solutions.

"Involving the Kenyan people in the debate over the future of their country
and giving them nonviolent avenues of expression," he says, "is the way out
of the current crisis."

As activists look to recast the country's political landscape, IMC Kenya
co-founder Bwakali says free media is a critical tool for opening dialogue:
"You are telling each and every person that your voice matters, that your
opinion can play a key role toward making a difference."


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hannah sassaman
prometheusradioproject

building radio stations = awesome
http://www.prometheusradio.org
215-727-9620 x 501
267-970-4007
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