Since last year’s PE session the students have been working on a lot of their own interesting projects. In addition to their normal coursework the students formed an organization of their own called the Dream of the Future Group. Last spring DFG visited communities of internally displaced people who have fled fighting between the Burmese government and armed Karen groups to distribute school supplies to children. They spoke with the teachers and community leaders struggling to provide education in the desperate conditions of the IDP camps and discussed ways they could support them.

Soccer in Mae La Refugee Camp

Not only did they successfully complete an extremely difficult (not to mention dangerous) project, DFG had the foresight and savvy to record their trip and put together a DVD showcasing their work through photographs and video. The borrowed equipment for filming and editing from friends, neighbors and relatives. And though I can tell you that this DVD exists – I held it in my hand – I sadly cannot tell you what it contains. On my trip to the school I discovered that my laptop’s CD/DVD drive does not work. Something I didn’t know since, in today’s world of YouTube and downloadable music I hardly ever have reason to USE the drive. To add to our collective frustration, the students only had been able to afford one blank DVD and so had only the one copy. Unfortunately, I could not take it from them, and I had to leave it behind.

Despite my disappointment at not being able to see their work, the fact that they had experience shooting digital video was a great encouragement when I introduced the students to the Life in a Day project, which we posted about on our blog in July. My discussion with the students inspired some very interesting conversations about what one can film to give the world a sense of daily life for young people living inside a refugee camp. We also talked about different ways to protect participants’ identities and security, a critical issue when filming people who have fled political and ethnic persecution.

But once again, the many restrictions on people’s lives inside the refugee camp reared their heads. Despite our best efforts, DHL and Thai customs blocked the cameras from reaching me so that I could bring them to the students. While undoubtedly frustrating the experience also had a lot to teach me about the realities of life in the camp. Somehow, the much-vaunted services of the modern parcel delivery service I am so used to could not get the job done. It was as if the rules that we normally operate under did not apply, indeed I often found that was the case in the camp.

Finally, while with the students I took the opportunity to shared Dd’s recent good news. Very soon, we anticipate a Project Einstein to be connecting the students at LMTC to their Karen and American counterparts in Indianapolis where Emily will soon be preparing the US half of the digital penpal link-up.

Personally, I’m really looking forward to watching this exchange. In my time in Mae La I was constantly surprised by the resourcefulness of the people there. Though certainly deprived of many material things and extremely restricted in their ability to communicate with the outside world they found endless ways to reach out and learn about what’s happening beyond the boundaries of the camp.

An example that never failed to amuse me was arriving in camp on certain mornings and being asked by people there “Did you see the match last night?!” They were, of course, referring to the World Cup. From what I gathered they would find a friend or relative that had a TV and satellite hook-up, or perhaps a computer (all technically contraband in the camp) and crowd the set a dozen at a time. And so despite the obstacles they watched the games – watched them live – and were eager to discuss the relative merits of the German and Argentinean offenses or that blown call just before half-time. And while discussing sports may seem a trivial thing I found it extremely significant that people who are restricted to this small, remote corner of the globe find ways to stay connected, on their own terms, to the rest of the world.
There is no doubt in my mind that without technology like cell phones the camp residents’ insatiable interest in the outside world would never have been fulfilled (DHL clearly won’t do it for them). I believe that Project Einstein has the potential to be a transformative new tool for the students at LMTC and, ultimately, for the people of Mae La in general.

I should say, too, that I am excited to see all the things that the students in Mae La have to teach their American counterparts. The students in Indianapolis are in for an education the likes of which they have never imagined. Though as Americans they have access to all the information they could ever want, there is still much of the world they do not know and much they can learn from their fellow students in the refugee camp.

In the end, I left LMTC humbled. If ever I thought my own work was admirable, it seems small compared to the drive and commitment of these young people who, though refugees themselves, didn’t hesitate to face considerable dangers in order to help those less fortunate than they. I am proud to count them among Dd’s partners and I look forward to the day when their American colleagues in Project Einstein get to meet them. And when all of you can hear their stories and get a glimpse into their lives directly from them.

In this episode of DdTv venture back with us to January 2008 to see the origins of Project Einstein. Mark and Emily spend several days working with youth in Kutupalong refugee camp in Southern Bangladesh, home to thousands of Rohingya refugees from Burma. Stateless, the Rohingya, a muslim ethnic group from Western Burma have fled to Bangladesh to escape the human rights violations they’ve suffered in Burma, where they are also denied citizenship.

In the camp, Mark and Emily train a group of youth ages 9-14 in digital photography skills, enabling the kids to explore where in their lives they encounter such universal themes as peace, happiness, the disabled and sadness. See their photographs, listen to them as they reveal their dreams, their hopes for the future, and become the inspiration behind the creation of Project Einstein.

Little Brother - Burmese Cover

When brave people risk their lives for the greater good. When they’re accidentally giving an aggressive military a full roadmap to their extended contacts and friends, it’s unfortunate. Given Facebook’s recent breach of trust, allowing for more private data to leak out than people are comfortable with, there has been a growth in people knowing about their digital rights. This 21st century literacy is crucial.

But in places where data leakage is most risky, I’ve found that it’s also least understood. Cory Doctorow’s “Little Brother” is a compelling book about a teen and his friends who use technology to challenge an authoritarian regime. Using real-life technologies, the book is more than a thrilling story, but it can also become a viral training manual for activists who need to use technology to do their work and can start to do so more securely and effectively.

If you haven’t read the book yourself, I recommend buying a copy or downloading one for free to see what all the fuss is about. Why free? He talks about the benefits of publishing for free online over at the Guardian.

Thanks to all those that supported our Kickstarter campaign, I’m happy to bring to you the first in what will be our serialized release of “Little Brother” in Kachin, Karen and Burmese languages. To our partners at ABITSU for the translation. And thanks to Jonathan P. Berger for his cover design and overall inspiration.

Comments and questions from you are always appreciated. Our question is, when “Big Brother” is watching, who is watching back? This is another step towards answering it.

Little Brother - Kachin Cover

Little Brother - Karen Cover

Niki Jawerth has been working with us since January, and in that time has transformed from an Ushahidi novice to our Human Rights Cartographer in Chief. Focusing on Handheld Human Rights, she has single-handedly entered hundreds of human rights abuses into our Ushahidi map and has helped refine the material we use to train others. In addition to working with us, Niki is a graduate student at the School of International Service at American University. She is seeking a Masters degree in Ethics, Peace, and Global Affairs with an emphasis on human rights and social justice.  As a Swedish-American, Niki has utilized her international upbringing to her broaden her knowledge of human rights, and she hopes to impact the shaping of the global human rights framework in the future. It was her interest in Burma that brought her to Digital Democracy, and through her work with us she has been able to marry her passion for human rights to her background and excitement in technological innovation. Her internship with Digital Democracy will formally end this summer when she heads to Brussels, and we are excited to see how she will continue to leverage technology to promote international human rights.

Dragana Kaurin also got involved with Digital Democracy in January, responding to our call for help developing Ushahidi to track human rights in Burma. She has since worked on Handheld Human Rights as well as helped with our Haiti work, focusing on researching the status of Haitian women. Originally from Sarajevo, her family came to the US in the mid-90s as refugees. She recently graduated from Ohio State University with degrees in Arabic Language and Cultural Anthropology, and completed an honors thesis on the “The Socio-Cultural Impact of Turkey’s Ban on the Hijab: The Case of Leyla Sahin.” Well-traveled, she has worked and studied in Western Sahara territory, Bosnia and Syria, where she worked closely with Iraqi refugees. Her career has focused on human rights, with specific interests in the MENA region and Central Asia, and in the fields of women’s rights, cultural/structural violence, and refugee rights. She began interning with us following a six-month stint at UN OCHA where she worked at ReliefWeb. Her critical thinking and commitment to human rights have made her a perfect fit with our team, and we’ve particularly appreciated the work she and Niki have put into refining the categories for the Handheld Human Rights map.

In addition to Niki and Dragana, a team of students from an undergraduate course on Digital Media & Global Development at the University of Maryland has been helping log incidents as well as blogging about the experience. Along with Niki and Dragana, these volunteers are really pioneering how human rights information can be placed on a visual map and timeline. We’ve particularly learned from the challenges they have faced along the way, such as shifting through long-reports in search of data, or deciding exactly where to map an incident with often limited information. These lessons will be invaluable as we move forward and expand the scope of Handheld Human Rights.

Finally, we owe our biggest thank yous to our Burmese friends who translated Ushahidi into Burmese, enabling HHR to be fully functional in the language (download the zawgyi font to view Burmese script) and most of all to the incredible coalition of human rights organizations operating around Burma’s borders. On a daily basis human rights workers risk their lives to report on the realities inside Burma’s many states and divisions. By mapping their information on this dynamic map, we work to honor their research by making it more accessible and actionable.

Handheld Human Rights in Burmese

Mark and Emily travel to Mae La refugee camp in Northern Thailand to launch our digital penpal program Project Einstein with Burmese youth. Students from the Leadership Management Training College, never having held a camera before, are taught the fundamentals of digital photography, including composition and editing, and choose themes from their lives to document with the cameras: Internally Displaced People, A day in the life in the camp, youth life and School life.

While giving the training, Mark and Emily stream live for the DdTv audience: a tour of the camp’s facilities, and conversations with the students on topics of technology access in the camp, and how digital photography has the potential to change their lives. Watch this episode of DdTv and see what this refugee camp looks like through the eyes of the youth living there.

Government slogan in Ruili: “Speak Civilized, Act Civilized, Be Civilized.”

In 2008 Digital Democracy sent a team of researchers to China to investigate the state of Kachin youth in community-based and human rights organizations and their use of technology on the China-Burma border. The team conducted interviews with Kachin youth leaders and educators and led new media literacy and photography trainings. We are now releasing the results of that research and our recommendations in a new report.

For more information about our work there, please see the following report:
Digital Democracy China Report 2008

We used Kickstarter to run the campaign and we’re extremely happy with the results. Kickstarter is a funding platform that includes rewards for people who back the project, a way to send frequent updates, and an all-or-nothing deadline that encourages people to contribute in order to guarantee a project’s success.

We are so grateful to our backers! Thanks for making the project a success.

$5.00 and up — A shoutout on Twitter & in a thank you blog post & an invite to Digital Democracy’s Birthday Party

Sam Gregory, Charles Lenchner, Heather, Jason Kende, Chrysm Watson Ross, Pete Young, Yancey Strickler, Cristina Moon, Enigma Images, Liz Wall, Martha Jackson, Frank G, Matthew Murphy, Kyle B. Doeden, Jaroslav Valuch, Lara Shortridge, Eunah Choi, David Manheim, Mary Robinette and Patricia Chou.

$25.00 and up — A thank you in the Digital Democracy January newsletter + all of the above

Noel Hidalgo, Sarah Ann Ran, Martin Sutherland, Scott Andrews, Gregg Butensky, Timo Rossi, Ashley Mui and Elizabeth Stucki.

$50.00 and up— Stickers for Digital Democracy Sticker & the All Burma IT Student Union + all of the above

Joe Beshenkovsky, Christine Martin, Alex Shepard, Robert Soden, Carl Rigney, Dietrich Ayala, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Julia Posteraro, Allan Beatty and Kevin Riggle.

$100.00 and up — A copy of the book + all of the above

Jonathan Berger, Ben Babcock, David Cross, Stefan Jones, Brad Weikel, Eric Cooper, the publisher Tor Books and the book’s author, Cory Doctorow.

$250.00 — A video conference call with the Burmese activists/translators + all of the above

Nathan and Laura Arico.

Thanks to 46 backers, we’ve raised 75% of the money we need to translate Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother into four Burmese languages. It’s been amazing to see such support.

But we only have until Dec. 15th at 8pm EST to raise the rest of the amount. Can you chip in and pledge? If we don’t reach our goal, none of the project gets funded.

Special thanks to Patrick Nielsen Hayden, the Editor of Little Brother who posted a blog entry about the project. There have been lively comments, including this one from AndrDrew:

“Wow! I’ll be passing the word along about this project. I’m now wondering what other works would be good candidates.

It’s sad that Amazon’s rules mean non-americans can’t initiate Kickstarter projects. This is one amazing, and potentially game-changing way of fundraising.”

Little Brother tells the inspiring story of a group of courageous teens who take on Big Brother using technology to challenge an authoritarian regime. In September 2007 Burma/Myanmar, monks took to the streets in non-violent protest, using technologies – cell phones and digital cameras – as a means of documenting these protests, the world witnessed the extraordinary power of technology for enabling the flow of information, and as a way for so many citizens to express their struggle living in the country. As these technologies become increasingly available, it is vital that Burmese readers gain knowledge that will enable them to use the technologies they have most effectively.

The funds raised for the campaign will support Burmese activists living in Thailand, India and Bangladesh who will be translating the book into Burmese, Karen, Chin, and Rohingya.

Our campaign will continue through December 15th. Please visit the site today and pledge your support!

On Sept. 26, the protests were still going strong. It was 11 am, and Aung Aung Ye was juggling two computers and a mobile phone from his office in Thailand. That morning he was on his mobile talking with contacts in Burma’s commercial capital, Rangoon. At 1:34 am EST, he told me that more than 10,000 people had gathered near Traders Hotel in downtown Rangoon.

By 1:40, the mood, still palpable electronically, changed. He had received frantic calls – the military had begun using tear gas and bullets against the peaceful demonstrators. His status message read, “Now, shooting in North/Oakalapa.” Two minutes later, it changed again – “Don’t brake my heart into a million pieces.”

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