[IMC-Process] IMC Kenya: deadline 25 feb

[clara]

Dear all,

IMC Kenya looks all ready to go. All documents are below. The deadline for
questions and concerns is set for 25 February.

love and solidarity
clara

--------------

> Comrades:
> People back at home are pretty excited about this. You cannot believe
the amount of censorship currently prevailing. We are working with some
very radical and progressive journals who are seeing story afte story
killed and would really welncome and alternative to that.
> So below is the document:
> 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.
> I hope that this suffices for now.
> Thanks Blicero once again.
> Onyango Oloo
> --------
> 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.
> about techie- perhaps you can communicate directly with me for the time
being for two reasons;
> 1. i am getting trained so that i could be one of several;
> 2. we have two people(still relatively new to our group- one in britain
and one in the states and for the time being they just wanted to us to
involve them on as needed basis so we prefer to consult with them only
when we need to;
> Oloo
> --
> ciao
> blicero
>  --- ho reagito male --- bill (killed in 2 volumes)
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