Wednesday 24 of March 2010
Kenya: Cross-media peace campaign ‘Building Brideges’
Launching April 2, 2010, Building Bridges will recognise and reward peacemakers and peace projects across Kenya as a way of strengthening the peace building capacity of Kenyan citizens. Kenya needs peace to prosper and everyone has a role to play. The campaign supports people from all backgrounds to make a change. Building Bridges, in partnership with Media Focus on Africa Foundation and Butterfly Works, is raising awareness and support for the winning initiatives and individuals through an interactive online platform buildingbridges.co.ke. The campaign will run for three months and the winning individuals and organisations will receive cash prizes.
Building Bridges is open to all Kenyans engaged in peace building and peacemaking activities, including organising peace gatherings, community discussions, creative and sportive activities or even holding festivities and doing pro bono work to ensure peace in areas. Building Bridges is putting them all on the map and rewarding the most promising projects.
Individuals stand to win Ksh. 50,000/= and organisations can win Ksh. 100,000/= to Ksh. 150,000/= to support their peace building cause.
Everyone will be recognised! Register yourself, your organisation or people you know!
Send an SMS to shortcode 5447 (on Safaricom and Zain, no extra cost)
E-mail: act@buildingbridges.co.ke
On the web: www.buildingbridges.co.ke
Or via Mail: P.O. Box 660-00606, Nairobi, Kenya
Prizes
All registered peace initiatives will be recognised and have their efforts promoted on our online mapping platform. In addition, a jury will select the winners of our cash prizes. Building Bridges offers three cash prize awards:
1 Individual will win Ksh. 50,000/= of which half in cash and half in goods and services for the peace activities
1 Community Based Organisation will win Ksh. 100,000/= to be used by the organisation for peace activities
1 Civil Society Organisation will win Ksh. 150,000/= to be used by the organisation for peace activities
The results of the competition will be publicised through an advert in The Standard newspaper, and winners will receive their prizes during a prize-giving event in Nairobi.
Building Bridges: The Mapping Tool
The campaign website provides various ways of linking individuals and organisations. The mapping tool gives an overview of Registered Peace Building Activities throughout the country. It makes use of Ushahidi’s crowd-sourcing information system (http://www.ushahidi.com). The search functionality includes selection on location, fields of expertise and type of activity. Through ‘Yellow Pages’ one can find the contact details of professional operating organisations for information or assistance.
Promotion & Timelines
The campaign will launch on April 2nd with a promotional advertisement in The Standard newspaper. Registration will run for three months, after which the jury will select the winners.
Print material and existing Radio and TV programmes are used to promote the campaign, notably the soap opera series ‘The Team’ on Citizen TV (http://www.theteamkenya.com) and the ‘Sambaza Peace’ project (sambazapeace.org). 20,000 flyers and 2,000 posters will be distributed throughout the country through partner organisations. People who find it difficult to participate due to e.g. illiteracy or limited access to media will be assisted by facilitators.
Implementing Partners
Media Focus on Africa Foundation is an independent, non partisan, non profit making institution registered in both Kenya and The Netherlands. MFA’s activities are geared towards promotion of good governance, informed and participatory democracy, effective and informed citizens’ participation in democratic governance, rule of law and respect for all human rights.
Butterfly Works is a social design agency who co-creates a fair deal for people all over the world. The organisation was founded in 1999 and works in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Morocco, South-Africa, Brazil.
Both organisations also implemented the ‘Unsung Peace Heroes’ campaign in 2008/09 aimed at identifying and recognizing those who played a positive role during and immediately after the post elections chaos in Kenya (http://peaceheroes.ushahidi.com).
For more information online: buildingbridges.co.ke
For further inquiries please do not hesitate to contact the undersigned persons:
- Marten Schoonman
Media Focus on Africa Foundation
E-mail: marten@mediafocusonafrica.org
Telephone: +254 20 3861435
- Kersti Ruth Wissenbach
Butterfly Works
E-mail: kersti@butterflyworks.org
Telephone: +31 20 4711780
www.butterflyworks.org
- March 24, 2010 by Media Focus on Africa Foundation and Butterfly works
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Source: FOME (received via email alert 24.03.10)