Nari Jibon Project and Its Bloggers: What Other Bloggers are Saying

Cross posted from bideshi blue

Students in the computer lab.....

Recently I returned from 45 hot (beshi garum) days in Bangladesh where I visited the Nari Jibon Project, among other activities. Loadshedding continued to take its toil on me, Nari Jibon computers, students as well as garment factories. Nonetheless students have come to their computer and english classes as well as practiced in the women only cyber cafe. During this visit, many students opened their own blogs!

During this time, Nari Jibon hosted a visiting lecturer, Kira, who gave a lecture and worked with smaller groups on blogs, photography, photo websites.

In response, many students posted in the Nari Jibon english blog for the first time. Other students have continued to contributed to Nari Jibon bangla blog. Many of the bangla poems have been translated into english and posted in the english blog. Some students opened their own blogs (in English and Bangla) and some staff started blogging again...

some bloggers' photography session with Ms. Kira:
Zannat, Jannat, Choti, Kira, Jainub's daughter, Jesmin

For overviews of these blogging activities, check out what others have been saying about Nari Jibon and its bloggers. Please follow the links within and read the bloggers' creative activities as they find and develop their own voices and computer-photo skills and continue to post. Your comments (kind, thoughtful, constructive) will provide much needed encouragement. Below, I list some students' and staff members' individual blogs.

new from David Sasaki's visit to Dhaka and Nari Jibon Project:

http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2008/09/02/nari-jibon-using-blogs-to-give-bangladeshi-women-new-skills/

new ! http://el-oso.net/blog/archives/2008/09/02/bangladesh/en/

http://el-oso.net/blog/archives/2008/08/15/an-update-from-nari-jibon/en/

http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2008/08/14/nari-jibon-making-a-difference/

http://uncultured.com/2008/07/25/what-would-kathy-do/

http://www.k-minos.com/?p=577

http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2008/07/10/nari-jibon-the-joy-of-having-their-own-blog/

Some Students’ blog addresses:

Afrin's Gallery http://asiaafrin.blogspot.com/

Jesmin’s garden http://jesmingarden.blogspot.com/

Zannat's world http://zannatworld.blogspot.com/

Rainbow http://jannat-fardoush.blogspot.com/

Bangladeshi Women http://jainub-khanam.blogspot.com/

Ahona http://ahona-hira.blogspot.com/

Window of Mind, http://sufia-eti.blogspot.com/

My Dream, http://poly-dream.blogspot.com/

Choti’s blog http://choitrerdinguly.blogspot.com/

Staff blog addresses:

new ! Kajol's destiny http://kajols-destiny.blogspot.com/

Bipa’s Prokrito Bangladesh http://www.bipa-prokritobangladesh.blogspot.com/

Sujan’s Chinta, http://hi-bangladesh.blogspot.com/

Creative talk by Nilufa http://annekuet.blogspot.com/

Kazi’s eye, http://kazi-rafiq.blogspot.com/

Techna Tara: http://taslima-toma.blogspot.com/

computer teachers taslima & nilufa watch kira teach about photography

Blog workshop on Flickr

By Kazi Rafiqul Islam

Nari jibon blogdol arranged blog workshop on Friday (20.06.08). Venezuelan journalist and photo blogger Ms. Kira Kariakar, Mr. Shawn Ahmed of Uncultured project, Prof. Dr. Kathryn B. Ward (Executive Director Nari Jibon Project), Ms. Shaina Haider (Visiting English teacher/researcher (Nari Jibon) and under graduate student Florida State University USA) were present in the meeting. 40 students and 13 staff attended the workshop. In the workshop Ms Kira told the staff/students/bloggers about the importance of photo blogging, flickr account etc.

In discussion on Flickr she told us that Flickr is a photo management and sharing application. We can use flickr to store pictures for our personal private use, to share them with our friends/family, to aid us blogging, to establish communities with friends and family and to pursue an interest through communities. She informed that in order to join flickr we need a yahoo account and no other email account can be used.

She told that image is worth a thousand words. Sometimes a unique image can express what we want to say. Other time an image can bring strength, emphasis to what we want to say. She also told that blogs that have posts with pictures often get more visitors than post without. Readers get interested on the pictures of the bloggers and his/her “eye of world” so they’ll mean likely come back. She told pictures get listed in search engine like google and they attract visits referred by the search. And photo blog use pictures as their mean of expression instead of writing.

Ms. Kira told us the way of uploading pictures. She told in this respect that there are many ways to upload pictures and videos to flickr. We can do it through the website with third part application and plug-ins by email and with our mobiles. On the website we click on the link to upload pictures on the welcome page. We can use the basic upload photos and videos page. Ms Kira told us that we can send also pictures by email with an email address given to us for that purpose by flickr.

Ms Kira told us that we can organize our picture by set and collection (only for paid account). For free accounts there is another way to organize the pictures is by tagging. She also informed us how we can post a picture in our blogs from a flickr. In this respect she told that we can integrate our account with blogger. We can choose the pictures we want to blog even if it is not ours. And flickr account copyright permits. We select the size we need for our blog and insert the code of the image in our post. The email will be retrieved and displayed in our blog. Ms Kira also told about safety and copyright. She told that in general we can set our levels of safety for searching and for what kind of content we have. We have to establish in our setting if our content is searchable and if it’s safe. We can keep all our rights of authorship or select any of the licenses of creative commons.

At the end of her speeches she told that she needs a small group of students/bloggers so that she can teach them clearly and easily about flickr accounts etc.

At the end of the workshop Kathryn B. Ward announced the name of the best bloggers of Nari Jibon blog. They are Nurunnahar Islam Munni (Dowry system in Bangladesh), Jannatul Ferdoush Nargis (Garments Workers), Sufia Khatun (Ogradhikar- Priority) and Shahida Islam Mony (Nari—Woman).

bloggers meet face to face in Dhaka, Bangladesh!

Cross posted from bideshi blue


Shaina, Shawn, Kathy y Kira @ Nari Jibon Project, Dhaka, June 2008

First, Rezwan (Berlin) linked to Shawn (Bangladesh). Kathy (USA-Dhaka) linked to Shawn and gave him some of her expat advise and in turn he gave a video workshop at Nari Jibon. David (todo del mundo y Rising Voices blogging grants) linked Kathy to Kira (Bangladesh, Africa, Venezuela) who gave a blogging workshop at Nari Jibon. Shaina’s dad (Florida-USA) sent Shawn’s link to Shaina (Sociology undergraduate, Florida State USA) who read about Nari Jibon in Shawn’s blog. Shaina sent an email to Kathy about volunteering at Nari Jibon in summer 2008, where she has been teaching English2 since May.

Second, in June 2008, Shaina, Shawn, Kathy, and Kira all sat together at Nari Jibon. Kira gave a Flickr workshop. You can read Shawn's thoughts and Kira's photos and thoughts on our gathering(s). Such are the intersectionalities of blogging and Dhaka.