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The only time I ever got a bit scared when I was living in Jamaica was when I had a massive argument with a cabbie for charging me too much – I had to run out and hide because he started to get really aggressive.
What are the cabs like where you live? Love ‘em or hate ‘em?
Taxi drivers are the object of rage for a growing number of passengers in South Africa who have been protesting against their speeds and seeming lack of safety when it comes to the rules of the road. A facebook group and protest group has been set up called Enough is Enough.
I got an email from Cecile about it -
Yes I have been intimidated by taxi’s and I think it is fair to say that most people driving on the road in South Africa have been affected. One taxi driver has actually driven over a red light, smashed into my dad and then tried to drive away..with the same mini bus taxi.It is so unfair, and you know some people don’t have a choice but to use the taxi’s for transport. As a country we are shouting out for this to end!! Why should you be afraid to follow the road laws. Something has to be done!!
It comes at the same time as taxi drivers themselves have been protesting (see the photo above) taken in Johannesburg as their livelihoods are threatened by government plans for a new bus system which could put 500 minibus taxis off city routes.
I’m asking Cecile to do a report on this and to try and sympathise with a taxi driver’s plight.
There’s more coming from South Africa from my colleague James Fletcher (who I sit next to at work). He’s going to SA next week to work with citizen journalists who will be reporting on the election from their point of view.
Fatima from the United Arab Emirates has been working with me to tell her story of sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather. Here’s the last blog post about it.
It was broadcast at the top of the Outlook programme and featured on the front pages of BBC News online as an audio slideshow of her photos and the BBC World Service front page (now in the highlights).
It also was included in the highlights of the week for the BBC multimedia team.
It was been generating comment on forums outside the BBC including here and here.
I have also had a few personal emails about its content. It certainly is a disturbing account which has been therapeutic for Fatima. This is what she says of working with Your Story on this ..
I really felt so much better after the report, I think recording my voice and writing all these things down made me feel lighter. Now it has given me the chance to be able to concentrate on other things besides the abuse and just start a new project. There is something therapeutic about hearing the sadness of my own voice.
In addition to Fatima herself speaking, she also recorded her lawyer who explained how she won her case for asylum in the States – a rare occurrence. Also, Fatima’s friend – who has helped her so much, recorded her thoughts. I’m posting these two interviews on this blog as I think it adds very much to what Fatima is saying.
Listen to Fatima’s lawyer here – 5 mins 8 secs
Listen to Fatima’s friend in the USA here.
(please note these two audio files are hosted on external sites – the BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.)
Brentside High School, London
The BBC is handing the airwaves over to school children today. They are setting the news agenda across some TV and radio programmes, including for tonight’s World Have Your Say.
We will be linking up kids from London, Johannesburg, Nairobi and the US . Brentside High School kids came up with questions for discussion like,
Does sex education encourage teenage sex?
Is the portrayal of teenagers in the media fair?
Should children follow their own dreams or live their parents’ dreams?
Your Story is getting reports from young people around the world.
Mayra Avellar Neves was 15 years old when she organised a protest in a Rio de Janeiro favela. She organised a 300 children strong peace march – to get police out of the favela during school hours.
Now Mayra is 17 and fights for childrens’ rights. She got the Childrens Peace Prize from Desmond Tutu last year.
She’s recording a piece right now for Your Story, talking to local children about their lives.
There must be many brave kids out there who are, against the odds, trying to make the world a better place. Hopefully I can get some of these kids the recognition they deserve by getting their stories out there, and who better to tell those stories than the kids themselves. If you know any good stories like this, get in touch!
Photo by Kemorphosis
I want to find a cocaine user who will interview other drug users they know – about the drug wars raging in Mexico.
Drug rehab centres near the US-Mexico border are a good place to start, so I’ve contacted a couple of them for help on this. I’m also in touch with this guy who posted a photo of himself smoking meth on flickr.
But of course, most people don’t like to admit they’ve taken cocaine or other drugs, to people they don’t know. Have you ever taken drugs? Would you be willing to admit so, on this blog?
Hillary Clinton meets Felipe Calderon in Mexico
Hillary Clinton has been talking about the insatiable demand in the US for drugs and that this means there is a shared responsibility when it comes to dealing with the trade and the violence that comes with it.
But do the people who buy cocaine feel this responsibility? If not, then what, if anything, can be done to change this attitude?
And are addicts really to blame for the drug trade, when their reasons for using may stem from a need to anaesthetise pain in their lives?
Maybe there is someone trying to put a direct and personal message across to western drug users, linking the demand for drugs with the violence they’ve experienced themselves in Mexico. If you know of someone doing this, I’d be interested in hooking up with them.
The message in western schools currently says a flat “no to drugs”, maybe it needs to say “please say no to drugs because the cartels are threatening to kill my family”.
Perhaps that is too big a connection to make in peoples’ minds. Maybe drug users cannot think past their hard week in the office and having a good time in the club. It is after all, a far cry from the streets of Ciudad Juarez.
G20 Finance Ministers Mar 09 - Photo by Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images
I’ve been here at BBC World Service News, on the 3rd floor of Bush House, for about four years now.
During this time, high profile meetings involving heads of state and finance ministers – like the G20 summit - come around every year. Learn more about what the G20 heads of state will be talking about this week, here.
Most of the time these meetings are covered in a very straightforward and dare I say it, sometimes dull fashion. Analytical interviews with experts and ministers, although an important part of our coverage, can sometimes be an arduous listen. They are after all a collection of grey suits in a room (see photo).
So I was very pleased to hear that there will be an injection of colour this time round.
Blogger, Cheryl Contee just emailed me. Cheryl worked with Your Story as part of our Obama Inauguration coverage. She blogs at jackandjillpolitics.com – she’s an African-American woman, tech-savvy, smart and engaging.
She told me about G20voice.org. Oxfam are inviting 50 influential bloggers, to the G20 summit happening here in London this week and Cheryl is one of the bloggers they picked.
The G20voice.org website reads …
The UK Government recognises the growing importance of bloggers debating the issues around the G20 Summit and have allocated space and passes within the Summit venue.
The list of bloggers, will include 15 from the developing world, some focused on poverty, others on climate change. All are pretty high profile and eclectic people. You can see the selected bloggers and their latest posts here.
I think there’s potential to do something exciting here in how citizen journalism can add to our coverage of this G20 summit. I’ll keep you updated on this blog with what we plan to do.
Dear mom - I love you really.
This is a terrible thing to admit, but I remember as a child always being a bit embarrassed by my mom.
She mostly wears traditional Indian salwaar kameez and she would always take very smelly (but tasty) spicy Indian packed lunches for us to eat. Both these things would draw unfriendly looks from the white locals and it always made me feel self-conscious.
I think I’ll always feel like an outsider. Do you know what I mean?
I’m working on getting some citizen journalism on racism in time for the follow up to the Durban world racism conference. It’s happening in Geneva on April 20th.
Photo by Leonid Dzhepko
I’m hoping that the digital recorder I have just re-sent to my Nigerian guy – Dariya – in Ukraine will finally get there. The Ukrainian postal service has been a little slow (understatement) so I’ve had to try again to send it using an expensive courier service. Fingers crossed it gets there.
Dariya is going to give his perspective on life as a black man living in Ukraine. There have been reports of racially motivated murders there, which he contacted me about.
I know from personal experience that racism is not perpetrated by white people alone of course. But is racism from black people less of an issue, most people of colour are talking from experience, after all.
This leads me thinking about whether we should look at our own racist attitudes. Do we all harbour racist thoughts?
Photo by Andy Ciordia
My friend used to work as a madam in a place that had “high class” call girls offering sex at a premium price. I know all kinds of people!
It operated out of a gleaming high rise glass building in an area of London called the Docklands, where many rich city workers live.
She used to tell me stories about the pop stars and sporting personalities who used to turn up, the champagne they offered at the door and the money being made by the beautiful women who worked there.
A luxury suite in a New Zealand brothel
It’s a similar picture to what New Zealand women are saying has happened to prostitution over there. That it’s attracting a better class of clientele now, which they put down to the fact that their profession has been decriminalised.
But that’s hardly the norm is it?
The reality for most prostitutes is not a luxury suite but the cold hard streets. As this report from South Africa details - women working in the sex trade suffer drug problems, and fear violence and disease. This, for me, is where the real story is and I’m looking for a citizen journo who has personal experience of this life, to report it.
I had a quick look around myself and found Debbie Toughey in Durban, Kathleen Mitchell in Ohio, Anju Pawar who is a social worker with the ASHA project in Mumbai and Somaly Mam in Cambodia.
If you want to suggest someone, you can contact me by adding your comment to this post.
I bought the Diamonds and Pearls album by the (artist formerly known as) Prince when I was about 15 years old. The little guy really did have talent. His music was a “sign of the times” – and one of the things I’m working on right now, could also be seen as a sign – of Obama’s new America.
It’s a musical event happening tomorrow night that is bringing together the Historic Colored Musicians Club and a local symphony orchestra. Also sharing the stage are Old School B Boys and the American lounge singer Lance Diamond.
It all started when Sue contacted me because of a chance encounter she’d had with an American soldier stationed in Iraq. We got talking and I found out about this concert she was working on.
I’ve just come off the phone from Michael Billoni from the Food Bank of New York they are benefiting from the concert. He was saying how they are seeing a significant increase in the number of families who are working but coming to the food bank because their wages don’t stretch far enough.
He also says that they were glad that Michelle Obama went to a soup kitchen in Washington recently.
Michael told me that her message for people to donate their time and money has seen more people coming to volunteer at his organisation.
See the World Have Your Say debate on this.
This is what I’m talking about as a sign of Obama’s America. Do you think that there is a greater spirit of collaboration going on? Are you feeling any more charitable lately? I gave actually 50 quid to a blind charity last week (this is not my characteristic behaviour!)
Also listen out for interviews with musicians and food bank guy on the World Today programme tomorrow night (UK time).
Photo by Sylwia Duda
This job of mine involves the ability to nudge …and nudge often. I think I need one of those tools on Facebook where I can poke people!
I’ve just emailed two “Your Story” citizen journalists in Uganda. They belong to the Women of Uganda Network. They helped me make a piece about poverty last year and have a digital recorder I sent them.
I haven’t heard from them so I’ve given them a nudge as I saw this article about Uganda’s melting ice.
Another reason for looking into the problem of melting ice is because I had an email from Rafn Erlendsson in Iceland who is worried about the Snaefells glacier in his home country. As I was looking around for info on this glacier, I found this article on how Iceland are shipping their melting ice water to the middle east rather than letting it flow straight into the ocean. Interesting but probably expensive – have you drank any of this water?
The Ugandan story came out of the recent conference in Copenhagen - covered by my colleague Matt Mcgrath. I was looking around for a young person – maybe a child or teenager – who had a burning desire to be a citizen journalist for us, to cover environmental issues but I haven’t come across anyone yet – if you know someone who might fit the bill, let me know.
Monbiot’s blog is saying that climate change isn’t the right phrase anymore.
In the meantime, I am asking my Ugandan citizen journos to look into doing something on how much ordinary people in Uganda – especially poor people and farmers actually care about this issue. And whether they feel they can do anything about it.
What do you reckon it will take for people to feel a responsibility? I have a confession to make – I don’t recycle anything.
I’ve been getting really into twitter.
The media are said to be going a bit too mad over twitter. It is true. Watch this clip from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - it’s so totally hilarious.
After watching this, I added tweetcongress to my twitter following list and a couple of senators.
The reason why I like it is because once you start seeing people are following you and you start following the people that you are interested in, it gets addictive! It only got scary once when I got a message to say 10 Downing Street were following me! And I got a bit excited when I found MC Hammer!
From a journalistic point of view I’m finding it really useful. I’m getting information – news articles and other links – and seeing online conversations going on, that I would not be tapped into otherwise. The twitter search box allows you to type in anything you’re interested in looking for – for example I was looking for info on Obama’s inauguration when I was researching our trip to Washington. See what Your Story did for the inauguration here.
Also for breaking news. When the Mumbai attacks happened, this email came round my department from a BBC colleague -
Every few seconds the people of Mumbai are writing their views on Twitter – a doctor pleading for blood, a Muslim who believes the killers were martyrs, an inhabitant of Nariman House, a frightened Indian Muslim — it is all here. They all have emails and they all want to speak to the outside world. You can’t afford not to use it.
I have to agree.
The head of Global News, Richard Sambrook uses twitter a lot and he got a message from Peter Horrocks – who is about to join BBC World Service management – he released the names of two people who had got jobs via twitter by mistake. So there is room for error!
I went on a BBC course last week called “Capturing Conversations”. It was about looking for things being said online about a subject you are interested in. They told me about icerocket – which is a different search tool, twist that maps trends and hot words on twitter, and twitterful – you download it and it makes your twitter updates cascade down on your screen. Looks nice.
So, are you converted yet?
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