Category: global voices

Blogging for a Cause: Global Voices Advocacy

ZemantaZemanta, a Firefox extension that automatically suggests related tags, links, photos and articles for your blog posts and e-mails, is running a competition to encourage blogging for worthwhile causes. The five blogs that get the most votes will each win $3,000.

I vote for Global Voices Advocacy because of the phenomenal work its bloggers do to protect freedom of expression and free access to information online. GV Advocacy (or Advox, as it’s also known) is connected to Global Voices Online, a project for which I’ve been writing about the blogren for two years.

Global Voices Advocacy - Defending free speech online

In addition to reporting on issues like blogger arrests and Internet censorship, Advox works on a number of projects to help bloggers and other online activists — definitely worth my vote.

Interested in supporting Advox? The deadline for the competition is June 6, 2009, and you must include the following sentence in your post:

This blog post is part of Zemanta’s “Blogging For a Cause” campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.

GV Uganda: President’s wife appointed to cabinet

My next piece is up at Global Voices:

February’s cabinet reshuffle has Ugandan bloggers making 2011 election predictions.

Among the new appointments President Yoweri Museveni made was the posting of his wife Janet as state minister for Karamoja, a region in northeastern Uganda that has been plagued by conflict and extreme poverty for decades.

While some bloggers think the high-profile appointment could bring much-needed attention to the region, others are more skeptical.

Read more »

Global Voices Uganda: The Literary Blogren

My next piece is up at Global Voices Online:

Uganda’s bloggers are increasingly using their blogs as forums for literary expression, and online poems, short stories and multi-part novellas are becoming increasingly popular.

Carsozy is one of the blogren’s most prolific creative writers. His series, The Devil’s Bonfire, is the story of Simon Katende, a young Kampalan who leaves the city to visit his grandfather and gets mixed up in things he doesn’t understand:

He was halfway to the bar when he saw her, his entire body froze and his mouth opened in shock, the glass slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground.

Read more »

Featured in the piece are Carsozy, Jon Gosier and Gay Uganda.

Miami V(o)ice(s)


Global Voices team members Lova, Jeremy, Lokman and Jillian.
Not pictured: Amira, Eddie, Georgia, Ivan, Leonard and Solana.

I got back from Miami today after four days of passionate conversations about the authenticity of travel (and travel writing) and whether or not Mates of State actually sing a cover of These Days and what to name our cheese babies. I was also lucky to share breakfast sandwiches, beaches, swimming, a sweet backyard pool and a bright green stuffed ferret that looked more like a jalapeño pepper than an animal with some of the best housemates I’ve ever had south of the Mason-Dixon line.

(I also went to We Media Miami 2009, which you can read about here and here. A huge thanks goes to them for sponsoring part of our costs to attend the conference, which challenged the way I think and communicate about new media as a member of the “Dream Generation.”)

Jeremy wrote earlier about how blessed he feels to be working with Global Voices, and I want to echo his love for the organization and the amazing people that constitute it. I am so happy to have found this community, and jumping back into writing for them has made me happy in a way few things apart from the blogren do.

To my Global Voices housemates: A big giant Florida cheers! And I’m still pulling for the next GV summit to be held in Lawrence, Kansas.

Global Voices Uganda: Fire destroys Owino Market

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything for Global Voices, but this week’s fire at Owino Market prompted enough of a blogger response (and I’ve been sufficiently inspired by my week in Miami with ten other GV-ers) that I had to post a round-up:

A massive fire gutted Kampala’s Owino Market early Wednesday morning, seriously injuring five people and destroying thousands of stalls. As many as 25,000 traders, mostly women, are estimated to have suffered losses.

Owino, also known as the Nakivubo Park Yard and St. Balikuddembe Market, is Kampala’s largest market and has been at the center of several controversies involving leasing rights. Recent plans to build a new bus terminal at the Nakivubo Stadium next door have sparked anger among vendors, who will lose their space if the development proceeds as planned.

Uganda’s Daily Monitor is reporting that the fire started at a hole in the wall separating the market from the stadium, and many victims are accusing the bus company that wants to build the terminal of arson. Some bloggers agree.

Read more »

Featured in this post are Even Steven, Ariaka, Ugandan Insomniac and Spartakuss.