Australian bloggers head to Bangladeshi slums
Updated
Two Australian bloggers are heading to the slums of Bangladesh, as part of a project to raise awareness about the lives of people in poverty. The anti-poverty organisation ACTION AID chose two bloggers from more than fifty around Australia who applied to join. Over a two-week period, the Aussie bloggers will teach Bangladeshis living in slums how to blog, and will blog on their own experiences at the same time.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speakers: Sharna Bremner, Australian blooger going to Bangladesh
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BREMNER: Where I think it will extremely successful and I guess we are aiming for a two fold affect with the project. As part of the project, ACTION AID will be donating some laptop and video cameras to a youth group in Dhaka in the capital of ...?? Bangladesh. They will be able to keep these computers and access them in a community centre that is actually funded by ACTION AID.
LAM: So doesn't. I am sorry to interrupt, but it does not actually alleviate poverty, It is more of an educational exercise?
BREMNER: It is and I think that personally, giving someone a voice is one of the first steps to alleviating really extreme poverty. It gives them an opportunity to tell the rest of the world what they need. It's a tool of empowerment really.
LAM: And Sharna, how do you deal with the digital divide though that exist in many countries but very pronouncedly in Bangladesh? Many people just don't have net connections?
BREMNER: No, they don't. We will be lucky enough to be in Dhaka which does have internet cafes and access to sort of high speed broadband, but I guess yeah, the think is that they don't have the access and that is something that ACTION AID is hoping to provide them, because without the access, they also don't have the knowledge of how to utilise the internet to get their message across to the rest of the world. So by donating the computers and giving them the internet access, ACTION AID is really hoping that that will be the first step in enabling the rest of the community to be involved.
LAM: You spoke about the importance of giving people a voice. Is the danger there that the voice will be a very young one or do you hope to involve older Bangladeshis as well?
BREMNER: I would like to see everyone get involved. It's the kind of project that anyone can really get involved with no matter what their age and the younger generations are often slightly more tech savvy I guess, than some of the older generation. But hopefully we will be able to make it as simplistic as possible so that everyone can have access to it.
LAM: Well, younger people love mobile phones, so are mobile phones part of the project plan?
BREMNER: Mobile phones will be, mobile phones are a great technology for developing countries in a way that they enable people to communicate a lot more quickly. They are fairly user friendly and also relatively cheap to access. They help you to, they communicate with a community that is not so close to you, but you can check prices of grain and things like that in certain areas, so we will definitely be looking at adding a mobile phone technology to the project.
LAM: Sharna, do you anticipate language barriers. The national language there in Bangladesh is Bangla. Will the training be in both Bangla and English or in English alone?
BREMNER: The ACTION AID Bangladesh staff will provide translation services for myself and Joel, the other blogger going along with me and they will help to translate the blogs into English and also communicate between myself and Joel and the people we will be working with and ensure that the videos and things that we produce will have subtitles and that kind of thing as well.
LAM: And Sharna, on a more personal note, how did you get involved with this campaign?
BREMNER: I'm a development study student at the University of Adelaide and I get a few emails here and there about various projects going on and this was one of them that popped up and I thought, well I will just apply, give it a shot, and see what happens.
LAM: From where I sit, it seems to be a fairly exciting new kind of project for aid organisations to take on. What do you see as the overall grand plan?
BREMNER: It is, it's definitely a new sort of exciting different kind of project and I think that ACTION AID is really hoping that this sort of thing will take off and they will be able to send more bloggers to different places in the world. I guess their grand plan really is to give as many people a voice using a global stage like the internet all around the world.
