Digital Democracy

These days the office in NY is abuzz with activity, with a fantastic group of volunteers and collaborators sharing our work table and couches. Three in particular have been working long hours on everything from our Haiti programming to events to press outreach. Fall intern Jessica Assaf comes from a strong background in youth organizing [...]

26.3 miles. That’s the distance I’ve been driving every day this past week to work with two communities of refugee youth living on opposite sides of town in Indianapolis, Indiana. Many of their experiences – moving to a new country, resettling in the US, adapting to life at an Indianapolis high school – are quite [...]

We are thrilled to announce support from United States Institute of Peace for our work with grassroots Haitian Women’s groups. Thanks to an urgent grant from their Haiti program, we are launching a citizen reporting initiative for the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in Haiti, scheduled for November 28. This week, I’m in Port-au-Prince to [...]

It’s an exciting week for Digital Democracy. One of our key Haitian partners is in New York, and we’re attending two conferences. Mark is in Budapest attending Google’s Internet at Liberty 2010 conference. I’m in NY, representing Digital Democracy at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) annual meeting. CGI is built around commitments – every single [...]

I’m in Port-au-Prince, Haiti for the next week to follow-up on the great trip Abby Goldberg and I took this spring. I began my trip distributing cameras for the Life In A Day project – the first user-generated feature film. I’ve also been distributing photos from our workshop in April and I ferried some films [...]

This summer we’ve had two new faces around the office and we couldn’t be more pleased. Arielle & Ellen have been helping with communications and our Haiti work, and as the city – and our schedule – has continued to heat up, it’s been a huge help to have them around the office. We’ve also [...]

Project Einstein started as photo training with a group of youth in a refugee camp in Bangladesh, so named by one of the participants because “Einstein was a refugee but could still do great things.” We’ve since expanded the project, working with youth in Pretoria, South Africa, a Burmese refugee camp in Thailand, and the [...]

Abby and I just returned from an inspiring and full week in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We couldn’t have done it without your support, and we’re thrilled to announce that, thanks to a donation we received this week, we have met our fundraising goal of $7,500 for the trip! Thanks to all the donations, we were able [...]

Tomorrow morning Abby and I travel to Port-au-Prince to focus on the needs of Haitian women. On our trip we have two objectives, and we need your help to meet them. Investigating how technology can be leveraged to protect women and girls from gender-based violence. Conducting media trainings with women and leaving them with equipment [...]

In Haiti, a second humanitarian crisis is unfolding: Haiti’s women are under siege from increasing insecurity, which has grown steadily since the earthquake devastated the country in January. Facing violence and rape, Haiti’s women operate within discriminatory legal structures which prevent them from accessing aid and taking an active role in their country’s redevelopment process. [...]