Sara Moreira – Global Voices https://globalvoices.org Citizen media stories from around the world Sun, 05 Apr 2020 00:24:02 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.7 Citizen media stories from around the world Sara Moreira – Global Voices clean Sara Moreira – Global Voices webmaster@globalvoices.org webmaster@globalvoices.org (Sara Moreira – Global Voices) Creative Commons Attribution, see our Attribution Policy for details. Citizen media stories from around the world Sara Moreira – Global Voices http://img.globalvoicesonline.org/Logos/GV-Logo-Vertical/gv-logo-below-square-144.gif https://globalvoices.org Mobs, Memes, Meanings, and Minds: Meet Porto's Medialab for Citizenship https://globalvoices.org/2016/10/16/mobs-memes-meanings-and-minds-meet-portos-medialab-for-citizenship/ https://globalvoices.org/2016/10/16/mobs-memes-meanings-and-minds-meet-portos-medialab-for-citizenship/#respond Sun, 16 Oct 2016 10:15:12 +0000 https://globalvoices.org/?p=589794 futureplaces.org, ninth edition, October 18-22, Porto, Portugal. Free. Full program. Facebook page (and event). Twitter: @futureplacespt | #futureplaces

futureplaces.org, ninth edition, October 18-22, Porto, Portugal. Free. Full program. Facebook page (and event). Twitter: @futureplacespt | #futureplaces

The city of Porto, Portugal, is nearly ready for the ninth installment of “futureplaces”—a convention that combines citizen labs, performances, presentations, and debate. The five-day event gets underway on October 18.

Culture, society, technology, and scientific research are the main components of this “medialab for citizenship,” which the University of Porto has organized in partnership with the University of Texas at Austin since 2008. This year, futureplaces returns to serve again as a workshop for engagement between citizens and the media.

The event, curated by Heitor Alvelos, invites attendees to think, talk and act, in the present, about ways to imagine the future, with a reconciliatory look to the past.

The program spans a wide variety of materials, ranging from a documentary exhibition about student movements from the 1960s and 70s at the University of Porto, to creative acts and collaborative potential today (addressed specifically by keynote speaker Patricia Aufderheide).

This year's futureplaces also features the usual doctoral symposium on digital media, as well as the launch of the University of Porto's digital museum and the screening of the film “147 Pianos” by Dolores Wilber.

Throughout the five days of the event, Radio Manobras Futuras will highlight the ongoing citizen labs and other activities such as a water-fountain project, concerts, and video games.

The theme of the convention embodies the event's spirit of curiosity: “mmmm,” or “mobs, memes, meanings, and minds.”

Mobs: Current Challenges and Past Revolts

Activism is becoming difficult, enmeshed in its own simulation, confronted with what is often the opposite of its desired outcomes. Polarised models of intervention seem outdated: how can we now navigate?

Ao longo do futureplaces estão previstas três visitas guiadas à exposição, com testemunhos de pessoas que participaram nas lutas estudantis e que contribuíram com alguns dos documentos expostos.

Ephemera exhibition: Movimentos Estudantis na Universidade do Porto, 1968-1974. At UPTEC/PINC until Oct. 30

This year's futureplaces will look at the student revolts that took place a half a century ago under Portugal's dictatorship.

The exhibition “Student Movements in the University of Porto, 1968-1974” (curated by José Pacheco Pereira, in association with Ephemera, ID+, and Mira Forum), presents drawings, posters, pamphlets, and miscellaneous items documenting historical student movements and the ways in which clandestine information was disseminated in the last years of Estado Novo—the 40-year-long fascist regime that lasted until April 25, 1974.

The exhibition starts at Reitoria U.Porto (the original location of many student assemblies) on Tuesday afternoon, October 18, moving to the Creative Industries Center of the Science and Technology Park of University of Porto (UPTEC PINC), where the exhibition and most of the events take place.

Minds: Shared Research and Imagined Futures

At the same time as voices on the international political scene declare themselves ‘tired of experts’, science may well be an antidote to populism, the key to a healthier, more informed, more fulfilled daily existence.

Patricia Aufderheide, a communications professor at American University in Washington, D.C., and a founder of the Center for Media and Social Impact, will deliver a keynote speech, titled “Collaborative Creativity: How to Share the Challenge of Imagining the Future,” where she'll address issues that citizens are grappling with, like copyright and creativity.

Aufderheide's speech is part of the doctoral symposium, which is designed to bring together students and recent graduates of a joint doctoral program on digital media between the University of Texas at Austin and the universities of Porto, Nova de Lisboa, and Madeira. Participants will spend the whole day sharing presentations and having discussions about ongoing research.

Futureplaces will also welcome experts from a think tank who specialize in virtual reality, and feature some work developed by multimedia students at the University of Porto.

Meanings: Citizen Labs

In the exercise of rescuing meaning among such a media-saturated environment, can the individual build a template that is of use to others, or is this exercise solitary, irreducible?

Throughout the event, “Citizenlabs” will bring together geeks, experts, artists, curious people, and ordinary citizens in a series of “do-it-together” practical workshops. These labs will experiment with areas of knowledge as diverse as “farm hacking,” copyright, and intellectual property (“copywrong”).

"An arcane technology of manual printing, originally used in student revolts at U.Porto in the Sixties and Seventies, is resurrected and put to use" in the lab <strong>Memórias do Copiógrafo</strong>, 18 Oct. 14:00-17:00, @PhDDesign studio / UPTEC PINC

“An arcane technology of manual printing, originally used in student revolts at U.Porto in the sixties and seventies, is resurrected and put to use” in the lab Memórias do Copiógrafo, October 18, 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. @PhDDesign studio / UPTEC PINC

Taking on the “Student Movements” exhibition, the “Mementos for a Better Future” lab will challenges participants to imagine the artifacts on display almost a century from now.

Futureplaces-goers can also “map their personal geographies” and go on “hunts for logos,” where they search for places the University of Porto's name has been inscribed on walls and surfaces around the city.

In the last day, right after “± Grande Comício MaisMenos ±,” the work developed throughout the labs will be presented at The Academy of Citizens.

Memes: Present Epiphany and Future Elevation

How do we reconcile our age of instant random access to information, potentially amnesiac, with the very human call for wisdom? Is there a café somewhere where the Traditional Museum and Pokemon Go sit down for a chat?

The truly unusual scenes that have made past futureplaces events so memorable are on this year's program, as well.

Who doesn't recall 2015's "scientific-pop" concert or the lemon tree performance? Photo Luis Barbosa / futureplaces 2015 archive. Used with permission.

Who doesn't recall 2015's “scientific-pop” concert or the lemon tree performance? Photo Luis Barbosa / futureplaces 2015 archive. Used with permission.

Imagine an old, dusty warehouse in Chicago, with 200 musicians—pros and amateurs of all ages—playing 147 pianos at the same time. The unique concert is featured in a documentary by Dolores Wilber that will be screened on Thursday night at Passos Manuel, followed by a talk with the director.

On Friday night, Arcade Room will occupy the basement with a gaming session whose audio will be routed live to the main auditorium as raw material for the Arcade Broom: a walk-in karaoke remix concert by Antifluffy.

A studio reconstruction of the sound recording of last year's closing concert, Gravitas, will also premiere on the last night of futureplaces. A note on the last piece of this year's edition sums up the motto of futureplaces: “an attempt to see and act further beyond the immediate digital allure,” an invitation to go “from rootedness to elevation.”

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Iberian Media Collectives Will Gather in Portugal to Debate Alternative News https://globalvoices.org/2016/02/24/iberian-media-collectives-will-gather-in-portugal-to-debate-alternative-news/ https://globalvoices.org/2016/02/24/iberian-media-collectives-will-gather-in-portugal-to-debate-alternative-news/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2016 13:36:01 +0000 https://globalvoices.org/?p=560656 An Alternative Information Meet-up is about to take place in Coimbra, Portugal, bringing together different media projects from the Iberian Peninsula for two days of collective debate and sharing of practices around information.

The Alternative Information Meet-up will take place in Coimbra on February 25-26, 2016. #InfoAltCoimbra

The Alternative Information Meet-up will take place in Coimbra on February 25-26, 2016. #InfoAltCoimbra

The meeting starts on February 25, 2015, with a round table featuring members of alternative media projects from Portugal (Indymedia.pt, Jornal Mapa, Portal Anarquista and Guilhotina.info) and Spain (Periódico Diagonal and Radio Vallekas from Madrid, and the Catalan newspaper La Directa).

The day after, a radio workshop offered by one of the visiting projects — Radio Vallekas, “a combative Madrid Neighboorhood” — will address online/FM broadcast emission, how to build a program and the importance of connection to the community and social movements.

The meeting is organized by Rede de Informação Alternativa, a network of alternative news outlets that has been recently established by a group of anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist collectives from Portugal, who “feel the need to promote a broad debate around the state of the media”:

Num mundo onde grande parte do fluxo de informação é dominado por uma televisão e uma imprensa nas mãos de grandes conglomerados de media, é urgente encontrar outras formas de comunicar e de fazer e transmitir informação. Sentimos a necessidade de desconstruir os discursos hegemónicos através de projectos de comunicação horizontais e independentes, comprometidos com as comunidades e as ruas, bem como com as lutas e os processos que aí se desenvolvem. Na mesma medida, concebemos projectos de informação que não estejam comprometidos com o discurso das grandes empresas, nem dos grandes grupos económicos, nem dos partidos políticos.

In a world where much of the information flow is dominated by the TV and the press which are in the hands of big media conglomerates, it is urgent that we find other ways to communicate and to make and transmit information. We feel the need to deconstruct the hegemonic discourses through horizontal and independent media projects, committed to the communities and the streets, as well as the struggles and processes that are therein developed. In the same measure, we design information projects that are not committed to the speech of the big companies, nor the major economic or political party groups.

The meet-up will take place at Ateneu de Coimbra. Participation in the Portuguese- and Spanish-language event is open and free — for those who can't physically make it, livestreaming might be available. Check out the Facebook event and the hashtag #InfoaltCoimbra on Twitter for updates.

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Why Doesn't It Rain in Guinea-Bissau Like It Used To? https://globalvoices.org/2015/12/04/why-doesnt-it-rain-in-guinea-bissau-like-it-used-to/ https://globalvoices.org/2015/12/04/why-doesnt-it-rain-in-guinea-bissau-like-it-used-to/#respond Fri, 04 Dec 2015 23:51:21 +0000 https://globalvoices.org/?p=548596 "Zé wants to know why"

“Zé wants to know why”, a short film by Bagabaga Studios

Rainfall decrease and sea level rise are threatening the soil fertility and the subsistence of the people of Guinea-Bissau, a recently released video by Bagabaga Studios reports.

At the end of August, a small community of 435 inhabitants located in a remote area of difficult access on the north coast of Guinea-Bissau called Elalab saw most of its rice crops destroyed by sea water. “For Felupes people — Elalab’s main ethnic group — this cereal represents wealth and autonomous livelihood,” the synopsis of the video explains.

A news report from the website O Democrata adds that “the floods broke the protective dikes that served as a barrier and prevented the entry of salt water in the areas of fresh water where the base of the diet of Guinean was cultivated and already grown.”

Bagabaga, a Portuguese digital media co-op, visited the region and spoke with one of the residents of Elalab village, Zé, who has “never heard of global warming but easily points out changes to the seasons and how it affects his everyday life.” Zé makes his living from fishing and rice production, and “doesn’t understand why all this is happening.” Thus he asks:

When we were young, the heat only arrived during the dry season. Now everything has changed. The rice fields have become saltier. Fish aren’t of size anymore. Even the acajou tree, that blessed all with shade, has died. During the days of our parents generation the salt water didn’t reach the village. After plowing the land, all the rice has died. Everything is ruined. Everything. That’s how life is unfolding. That’s how we’re struggling to survive. This is the punishment we’re facing at our home. In August, sea level has reached the highest in its history. It’s one of many villages in Guinea-Bissau threatened by extinction. People ask themselves: why did it once rain so much and now it doesn’t?

The short video was released in the same week that the 2015 Paris Climate Conference (COP21) began, bringing together decision-makers from 195 countries for 12 days to reach a binding agreement towards the reduction of worldwide carbon emissions.

Guinea-Bissau's President José Mário Vaz addressed the summit stressing that the small West African nation is one of the most vulnerable countries concerning the effect of sea level rise. A map of the impact of climate change by the Center for Global Development ranks Guinea-Bissau third in terms of overall vulnerability to sea level rise and eighth on overall vulnerability to agricultural productivity loss.

“The effects of climate change are being felt by people across Africa,” an article published by Global Voices partner 350.org, on August 28, explains. “Evidence shows that the change in temperature has affected the health, livelihoods, food productivity, water availability, and overall security of the African people.”

Read more here: 8 Ways Climate Change Is Already Affecting Africa

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Futureplaces: Porto Hosts Do-It-Together Medialab for Citizen Initiatives https://globalvoices.org/2015/10/12/futureplaces-medialab-citizenship-portugal/ https://globalvoices.org/2015/10/12/futureplaces-medialab-citizenship-portugal/#respond Mon, 12 Oct 2015 09:30:25 +0000 https://globalvoices.org/?p=542847 futureplaces.org | @futureplacespt | #futureplaces2015

futureplaces.org | @futureplacespt | #futureplaces2015

The momentum to build bridges between culture, society, technology, and scientific research in Portugal will transform into a flurry of productive activity in futureplaces, the event that turns the city of Porto into a “medialab for citizenship” every fall.

Now on its 8th edition, the challenge remains to “address the dynamics between new media and the socio-cultural fabric“ through a “multitude of workshops, projects, talks, creative events and think-tanks”, points out the website futureplaces.org.

Poster of #futureplaces2015

Poster of #futureplaces2015

The digital media festival, turned into a “medialab” in 2013, is organized by the University of Porto in partnership with the University of Texas in Austin since 2008.

This year’s program, running from October 20 to 24, includes the universities’ joint doctoral symposium on digital media, and talks by the co-founder and former director of MIT Center for Future Civic Media, Chris Csikszentmihályi, and Paul Stacey, from Creative Commons, who will close the event with an interactive keynote titled “Global Citizens in a Global Commons“.

A “scientific-pop” workshop by researcher and musician Anabela Duarte (former Mler Ife Dada), Vox Express, will instigate a concert where song lyrics are made of academic abstracts and excerpts of PhD thesis.

Jono Podomore, a British producer, composer, musician and professor of music who has been at heart of the underground since the 80’s, will play a recital on the Theremin, one of the first fully electronic instruments ever, patented in 1928 and controlled without any physical contact by the performer.

The event also features an installation by renowned Portuguese artist MAISMENOS, ±REC(LAIM) THE FUTURE±, a “Hack a Farm” lab in a food garden, video games, and the opening of a urban ethnography exhibition and online participatory archive, Porto Pelo Porto (Porto by Porto), that documents historic representations of the name of the city.

The 8th edition is also going to mark the launch of an extensive multimedia archive that documents the past eight years of activities, and the debut of futureplaces audiolab, “a curated channel for futureplaces audio editions, past, present and future.”

futureplaces.org | @futureplacespt | #futureplaces2015

futureplaces.org | @futureplacespt | #futureplaces2015

Catharsis and emancipation

Curator and director of the PhD Program in Design, Heitor Alvelos, with critical views on the relationship between media and citizenship, wrote in an essay from last year’s edition (“Dissolution as Reinvention”) that “if all existence is to be mediated, then no tangible experience is possible.”

Futureplaces is an omen of post-digital emancipation. In an exclusive interview with Global Voices in 2013, the magnetic-taped mascot of the event, Antifluffy, warned that “people can get a much better deal out of what media is offering them,” and since its inception, one of the mottos of futureplaces has been for citizens to take media in their own hands.

Citizens and the media: a fertile engagement

New forms of cooperative approaches to the production of our material culture will be addressed in the opening keynote by Chris Csikszentmihályi, who has been recently appointed European Research Area Chairman of Human-Computer Interaction and Design Innovation at Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute (M-ITI). The technologist, humanist, designer, and artist started the Rootio project, a sociotechnical platform that mixes communities, telephony, networking, and radio to create new models of community information.

Together with experimental music, grassroots media is part of the soul of futureplaces. Community radio Manobras Futuras will be there and, once again this year, a series of interviews with researchers and PhD students will bring science closer to citizenship through Radio Science, a program where academic research projects are translated for the ordinary citizen.

Participants are also invited to contribute to what might sound like unusual “coverage” in present days: documenting futureplaces with no photography, no video, and no sound. Sketchbook diaries with illustration, drawing, collage, and written words become the new old media of the futureplaces experience.

Citizen Labs: where experts and citizens converge

A video mosaic from a futureplaces citizen lab on narratives from Porto's historical center - "Museum of Ransom" was interviewed for Rising Voices in 2013.

A video mosaic from a futureplaces citizen lab on narratives from Porto's historical center – “Museum of Ransom” was interviewed for Rising Voices in 2013.

There is also a wealth of Citizen Labs offered by artists and researchers, whose titles provide some clues on the multitude of media contexts being addressed, such as A Lexicon for the Future, Image Symphony, Networked Practices or Rescuing Oral Memory, dedicated to mini-documentary filmmaking in historic neighborhoods of Porto.

The results of all labs will be shared on the last day of the festival, in The Academy of Citizens, an afternoon of teaching on the social and cultural construction fueled by futureplaces. Far from being designed simply to entertain, futureplaces rehearses new forms of action in everyday life, aiming at providing first steps for longer routes whose fruits only the future can reveal.

These are just a few glimpses of the activities. The full program is available at futureplaces.org. All activities are free.

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Spreading the Seed of Permaculture from Timor-Leste to the Tropical World https://globalvoices.org/2015/04/03/spreading-the-seed-of-permaculture-from-timor-leste-to-the-tropical-world/ https://globalvoices.org/2015/04/03/spreading-the-seed-of-permaculture-from-timor-leste-to-the-tropical-world/#comments Fri, 03 Apr 2015 09:22:56 +0000 http://globalvoicesonline.org/?p=516329 Visit the project's website and crowdfunding campaign. Follow the Permaculture Guidebook on Twitter (@permaguidebook) and Instagram.

Visit the project's website and crowdfunding campaign. Follow the Permaculture Guidebook on Twitter (@permaguidebook) and Instagram.

More than a decade of permaculture implementation in Timor-Leste is leading to a unique guidebook specific to worldwide tropical climates — that is, if an ongoing crowdfunding campaign succeeds. The practical reference guide — A Tropical Permaculture Guidebook — aims at “assisting subsistence farmers in tropical areas worldwide to gain community, health, economic, environment & development benefits”.

“We need to support farmers in every country to connect with each other and share their knowledge with each other about sustainable agriculture and traditional knowledge”, says Timorese environmental activist and musician Eugenio “Ego” Lemos in an interview with the website Focus on Global South. The founder of the first national organization dedicated to permaculture — Permatil — which is leading the effort to publish the Tropical Permaculture Guidebook, explains why it is important to spread this seed:

We have to claim back our traditional knowledge, protect our lands, seeds, genetic resources and water, and win back our rights of what we want to eat and grow.  The world is now facing food and economic crises because those with capital control our world. But we need to change this. If we allow capital to rule the world, it will create disasters and this planet will not live long.  We need to reunite the world.

Permaculture: concept, ethics and principles

“Generally, permaculture is the design of sustainable communities”, summarizes the Tropical Guidebook crowdfunding page, adding that it “includes organic agriculture, housing, animal husbandry, forestry, waste management, environmental care and more, and is specific to each environment and population where it is implemented.”

The origin of the term, coined by Australian environmentalists Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in 1978, is a contraction of the phrase “permanent agriculture”, later extended to “permanent culture”. Among dozens of definitions, Mollison puts it forward as:

… a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system.

Permaculture Ethics and Design Principles. Central to permaculture are three ethics – earth care, people care and fair share - which guide the use of the 12 design principles, ensuring that they are used in appropriate ways. Poster by permaculturprinciples.com (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Permaculture Ethics and Design Principles: “Central to permaculture are three ethics – earth care, people care and fair share – which guide the use of the 12 design principles, ensuring that they are used in appropriate ways”. Poster by permacultureprinciples.com (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Feed the seed

For renowned Australian permaculture author, trainer and practitioner Rosemary Morrow (one of the advisers who joined Permatil's quest for the tropical edition of the permaculture guidebook), “one of the problems in disseminating permaculture information is lack of suitable and relevant resources particularly for the tropic regions.” Something that Permatil and partners want to fix with the exclusive international edition of the Tropical Permaculture Guidebook:

Design and implementation of swales and terraces (top) and bamboo watering pipes (bottom) in Timor-Leste for more efficient water and soil management over time in tropical regions.

Design and implementation of swales and terraces (top) and bamboo watering pipes (bottom) in Timor-Leste for more efficient water and soil management over time in tropical regions.

In essence we are hoping to produce a practical educational resource that will provide the same benefits in Africa, SE Asia, Polynesia, Melanesia, the Caribbean and the tropical Americas that we have seen in Timor-Leste. Most importantly, to provide knowledge, techniques and skills that will reduce the severity of global climate change and provide adaptation and resilience to climate change impacts.

The guidebook will build upon a first edition, published in 2006, upgrading, improving and generalizing it for use in all tropical regions. 

The international edition, by the original writers Lachlan McKenzie and Ego Lemos in collaboration with Permatil, the xpand Foundation and Disruptive Media, will be available in hard copy and online for free download, chapter by chapter, thus “[enabling] more people across the developing world to lay down some sustainable roots, build knowledge and food security”:

A success of the first guidebook was that Permatil wanted to provide simple but complete knowledge with a focus on practical techniques backed up by detailed illustrations, which enabled everyone, including semi-literate and illiterate users, to glean information from it. The information is aimed at strengthening and building communities from the ground up and almost all of the techniques are able to be duplicated by anyone no matter their economic and social circumstance.

Check out the video of the crowdfunding campaign by WithOneSeed, due on April 4, 2015. The project will be continuing to accept donations on the website www.permacultureguidebook.org

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Are You a European ‘Expat’ Under 40? ‘Generation E’ Wants to Hear Your Story https://globalvoices.org/2014/09/08/generatione-european-expat-youth-migration/ https://globalvoices.org/2014/09/08/generatione-european-expat-youth-migration/#respond Mon, 08 Sep 2014 07:54:30 +0000 http://globalvoicesonline.org/?p=488648 "Why Generation E? E stands for Europe, Expat, Erasmus, Exodus, Escape. We start from the -slightly romantic- assumption that the young European 'expats' are laying the foundations of the future European social fabric."

“Why Generation E? E stands for Europe, Expat, Erasmus, Exodus, Escape. We start from the -slightly romantic- assumption that the young European ‘expats’ are laying the foundations of the future European social fabric.”

Disclaimer: The author of this post is working on the GenerationE.eu project.

Every day hundreds of young people from the south of Europe pack their belongings and head to a different country in the European Union in search of better opportunities. The trend is growing across the peripheries — Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain in particular — where the ongoing economic crisis and high unemployment rates have opened the way for the departure of hundreds of thousands of people of working age in the last four years.

We herein call them “Generation E”: they are European ‘expats’ under 40 taking on the EU's fundamental right of free movement to build a future within Europe, but not in their homeland. Their migration flows in the continent, though, are difficult to track. There are many estimates and fragmented data sets among the involved countries, but no accurate transnational maps and statistics.

GenerationE

GenerationE

Enter “Generation E“, a cross-border data investigation on young European migrants. The independent project, funded by journalismfund.eu, aims to shed a light on the existing data and to collect contributions from young Europeans abroad.

Through a crowdsourcing campaign launched by an international team of journalists on September 8, 2014, young European ‘expats’ from Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain are invited to share their personal stories of crossing the imaginary boundaries of the Old Continent to reinvent day-to-day life in another country. 

An intra-European exodus?

The phenomenon is complex to monitor and underrated in terms of size and relevance. A study by the Superior Council of Scientific Investigations (CSIC) of Spain — a country that officially lost roughly 102,000 young adults 20 to 40 years old between 2010 and 2013 — notes that national sources “substantially underestimate emigration”:

Es más probable que la cifra se acerque a las 700.000 personas entre 2008 y 2012 que a las 225.000 estimadas por fuentes oficiales.

It is more likely that the [total] number [of emigrants] is closer to 700,000 people between 2008 and 2012 than the official sources’ estimate of 225,000.

135,000 young adults have officially left Italy since 2010 but official statistics do not take into account those who do not formally change their residence. “Estimates circulating speak of at least twice the number of expatriates”, reports Italian journalist Jacopo Ottaviani, coordinator of Generation E project, on Il Fatto Quotidiano. He himself is one of the official.

Nel Regno Unito, il primo paese destinazione per gli italiani in fuga, il console italiano a Londra Massimiliano Mazzanti ha notato che gli italiani «ufficialmente iscritti all’Aire sono in tutto 220mila, mentre le stime sono di oltre mezzo milione a livello Paese e di 250mila nella capitale». Non a caso il sindaco della City Boris Johnson ha accolto in aprile il premier Renzi dandogli il benvenuto nella «sesta città italiana». Come se una città come Genova fosse stata trapiantata tra i quartieri di Londra.

In the UK, the first country destination for Italians on the run, the Italian consul in London Massimiliano Mazzanti noted that Italians “officially registered in AIRE [the register of Italians living abroad] are around 220,000, while the estimates are over half a million at the country level and 250,000 in the capital”. Not surprisingly, the mayor of the city, Boris Johnson, welcomed Prime Minister Renzi in April into the “Sixth Italian city”. As if a city like Genoa had been transplanted between the districts of London.

Portugal, a country of less than 10.5 million people, has 2.3 million emigrants (20.8 percent), occupying second place by percentage of population among the member states of the European Union that emigrate the most, only behind Malta. In the last four years, around 107,000 young adults — between 20 and 40 years old — officially left in a permanent manner, roughly as many as those who emigrated for temporary jobs and stays. 

Migration estimates from Greece, the country where the youth unemployment rates reach some of the higher numbers (close to 60 percent in 2013), are also not exhaustive – if any. Contacted by the reporting team in Athens, the Hellenic Statistical Authority stated that they do not record Greek emigration flows.

Stories of Generation E, crowdsourced

As Greek expat in London Sofia Gkiousou states on the New Diaspora blog “the choice or compulsion to go abroad is a very personal matter for each person, affecting their actual life.” What triggers a decision to leave? Is there an intention to return or is it elsewhere that they want to stay? What difficulties do the young European diaspora face today? What are the hopes that feed their future?

Widening the spectrum of the so-called “Generation Y” (of “those born between 1980 and 1994-99“, best described by Portuguese journalist Ana Cristina Pereira), “Generation E” proposes to go back to 1974 and bring to light stories of today's migrants who were born in the first 20 years after the collapse of the dictatorships in Portugal, Greece and Spain. 

The results of the project will be published in the end of October by Il Fatto Quotidiano (Italy), El Confidencial (Spain), RadioBubble (Greece) and P3/Público (Portugal), and include highlights from crowdsourced stories, a deep data investigation (visualized with maps and interactive charts), and interviews with researchers and decision-makers from Europe.

If you are under 40 and left Portugal, Italy, Greece or Spain in recent years, tell us your story. If you have friends who belong to the “Generation E”, invite them to share some of their joys and plans, hopes and fears. Can do so through the official website (available in Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Spanish and English), Facebook page and group as well as under the hashtag #GenerationE on Twitter. Submit your story!

This project is being developed with support by Journalismfund.eu.
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This Protest Blasted FIFA's Brazil Headquarters With Inconvenient World Cup Truths https://globalvoices.org/2014/07/02/world-cup-protest-at-fifa-brazil-headquarters-in-rio-de-janeiro/ https://globalvoices.org/2014/07/02/world-cup-protest-at-fifa-brazil-headquarters-in-rio-de-janeiro/#comments Wed, 02 Jul 2014 13:29:06 +0000 http://globalvoicesonline.org/?p=478338 Facade of the luxury Hotel Copacabana Palace in Rio de janeiro, June 30, 2014. Photo by Coletivo Projetaçao on Facebook.

The facade of the luxury Hotel Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro, June 29, 2014. Photo by Coletivo Projetação, shared on Facebook.

Famous luxury hotel Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio de Janeiro — the headquarters of FIFA in Brazil — became a canvas for messages of protest against the World Cup on June 29, 2014. Activists projected facts and figures about the consequences of hosting the mega sports event for Brazilians, such as forced evictions to make way for infrastructure construction.

Coletivo Projetação (a combination of the Portuguese words project, projection and action), a collective that occupies public spaces as a form of political expression, claimed responsibility for the protest. The collective has carried out several similar actions in the last few months in other cities of Brazil and abroad. Visit their Facebook page and the website Projetacao.org for more photos.

The collective projected on the wall some figures of Cup-related evictions in Rio de Janeiro.

The collective projected figures of Cup-related evictions in Rio de Janeiro.

"Brazilian investment, Fifa profit". Pictures were shared on Facebook and Twitter under the hashtag #projetaçodacopa

“Brazilian investment, FIFA profit”. Photos were shared on Facebook and Twitter under the hashtag #projetaçodacopa.

The Brazilian flag reads "bread and circus" instead of "order and progress".

The Brazilian flag reads “bread and circus” instead of “order and progress”.

Copacabana Palace Hotel is considered South America's premier hotel.

Copacabana Palace Hotel is considered South America's premier hotel.

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Learn How to Protect Your Email Communication in Less Than 30 Minutes https://globalvoices.org/2014/07/01/emailselfdefense-pgp-encryption-guide/ https://globalvoices.org/2014/07/01/emailselfdefense-pgp-encryption-guide/#comments Tue, 01 Jul 2014 00:11:36 +0000 http://globalvoicesonline.org/?p=478213 #EmailSelfDefense infographic by Journalism++ for the Free Software Foundation (CC BY 4.0)

#EmailSelfDefense infographic by Journalism++ for the Free Software Foundation (CC BY 4.0)

Email Self-Defense, a beginner's guide to email encryption by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), was released in six new languages [frdejprupttr] on June 30, 2014. More languages are underway.

Even if you have nothing to hide, using encryption helps protect the privacy of people you communicate with, and makes life difficult for bulk surveillance systems. If you do have something important to hide, you're in good company; these are the same tools that Edward Snowden used to share his famous secrets about the NSA.

"Edward, a friendly email bot helps Email Self-Defense users test their new encryption systems."

Edward, a friendly email bot, helps Email Self-Defense users test their new encryption systems.

FSF's guide was originally launched as part of the Reset The Net campaign on June 5, 2014 — a global day of action against bulk surveillance that marked the first anniversary of Edward Snowden's revelations about the US National Security Agency's (NSA) massive and indiscriminate global spying machine.

Email Self-Defense is only one important piece of the solution to bulk surveillance,” FSF states:

While we learn email encryption tools, we also need to push politically to reign in surveillance, build a safer Internet, and force governments and companies to reduce the amount of data they collect about us in the first place. We hope translated versions of Email Self-Defense can be the entry into this multifaceted movement for people all around the world.

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From Our World Cup Archive: How Brazil Fooled the World With a Meme https://globalvoices.org/2014/06/11/from-our-world-cup-archive-how-brazil-fooled-the-world-with-a-meme/ https://globalvoices.org/2014/06/11/from-our-world-cup-archive-how-brazil-fooled-the-world-with-a-meme/#comments Wed, 11 Jun 2014 15:53:15 +0000 http://globalvoicesonline.org/?p=475036 The most widespread image of the joke. Unknown author

The most widespread image of the joke. Unknown author

Remember “Cala Boca Galvão”, the Internet meme that became a worldwide joke when millions of Twitter users started telling a famous Brazilian sports narrator and broadcaster, Galvão Bueno, to shut up, during the 2010 World Cup opening ceremony?

Almost instantly it was a worldwide trending topic on Twitter and people from all over the world were trying to understand what was going on.

People armed with Brazilian humour stepped up to elaborate with a fake urgent call to help save a supposedly endangered species of bird (the “galvão”), and asked people to retweet “Cala Boca Galvão” as loud as possible. This video created in June 2010 about the fictional bird that needs to be saved from the World Cup has more than 2.2 million views.  

Mainstream media outlets helped spread the hoax that was later described by The New York Times as “one of history’s most successful cyberpranks”, and clarified this in its blog The Lede.

Read the story by Raphael Tsavkko Garcia from our archive: Brazil: The ‘Cala Boca Galvão’ Phenomenon.

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Civil Society Resumes Watchdog for Guinea-Bissau's Presidential Run-Off https://globalvoices.org/2014/05/14/guinea-bissau-bissauvote-presidential-run-off/ https://globalvoices.org/2014/05/14/guinea-bissau-bissauvote-presidential-run-off/#comments Wed, 14 May 2014 15:37:30 +0000 http://globalvoicesonline.org/?p=470755 Getting set for Guinea-Bissau's presidential run-off on May 18, 2014, the Group of Civil Society Organizations for the Elections (GOSCE) resumed its monitoring activities of the electoral process on May 14. 

Live updates from the ground can be followed in the website bissauvote.com, which provides a map of reports that are being collected by a network of about 400 citizen observers spread around the country. A press release [pdf] for the second round informs:

Os monitores irão enviar dados via SMS sobre o desenrolar da campanha eleitoral, a cobertura dos meios de comunicação, em particular da rádio, meio de comunicação privilegiado na Guiné-Bissau, as actividades de educação cívica eleitoral e sobre o processo de votação nas oito regiões e no Sector Autónomo de Bissau.

Monitors will send data via SMS about the ongoing electoral campaign, media coverage (radio in particular, the most privileged media in Guinea-Bissau), civic electoral education activities, and the voting process in the eight regions of the Autonomous Sector of Bissau.

The first round of the elections, on April 13, which saw a turn-out of more than 80 percent, was also monitored by GOSCE (a coalition of 15 national organizations), in partnership with non-governmental organization One World and with the support of the European Union, Global Voices reported

The run-off is being held between José Mário Vaz, from the historical PAIGC party, and Nuno Nabiam, running as an independent. The final vote takes place more than two years after the military coup d'etat that interrupted Guinea-Bissau's 2012 elections, a few days before the presidential run-off.

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Commuters Don't Love Mozambique's Haphazard ‘My Love’ Trucks https://globalvoices.org/2014/05/12/commuters-dont-love-mozambiques-haphazard-my-love-trucks/ https://globalvoices.org/2014/05/12/commuters-dont-love-mozambiques-haphazard-my-love-trucks/#comments Mon, 12 May 2014 15:25:46 +0000 http://globalvoicesonline.org/?p=470406 Transport crisis in the city of Maputo

People rush for a truck in the city of Maputo.

[All links lead to Portuguese-language pages unless otherwise noted.]

There is a terrible transport crisis in the Mozambican city of Maputo, marked by daily traffic jams and long queues during rush hour. Due to a limited fleet of vehicles and poor road conditions, Maputo Public Transport (TPM), the public company that operates urban transport in the metropolitan area, is not able to meet the needs of many neighborhoods.

With the system in Maputo struggling to transport people where they need to go, private semi-collective vehicles known as the “Chapa 100″ fill in many of the gaps.

But now they aren't the only vehicles on the road. After a years-long absence, the “My Love” trucks, so dubbed because people are forced to travel very close together, have recently reappeared.

Many of these open air trucks are poorly maintained, pack in a large number of people especially during rush hour, don't have schedules and often don't follow a fixed route.

"My Love" driving around Maputo.

A “My Love” driving around Maputo.

Blogger, sociologist and professor Carlos Serra wrote about the return of “My Love” on citizen media platform Olho do Cidadão (Eye of the Citizen):

Numa fila longa em pleno pico de trânsito, a meio de um Sábado, observo uma viatura de caixa aberta apinhada de pessoas. Pensando, todos estes anos depois, tinha alguma expectativa de que viéssemos a melhorar o nosso sistema de transporte urbano. Na realidade, trata-se de um regresso, afinal chegaram a ser as rainhas da estrada no princípio dos anos noventa, antes que um instrumento legal condicionasse o transporte de passageiros a determinadas características básicas, facto que originou a proliferação das carrinhas minibus (as “chapa 100”). Mas hoje, regressaram à estrada e, devido à fantástica capacidade criativa dos moçambicanos, ganharam a designação de “MY LOVE”, porque lá em cima os passageiros viajam bem apertadinhos e agarrados uns aos outros como forma de evitarem cair borda fora.

In a long line at the height of traffic midday Saturday, I watch an open truck crammed with people. Thinking, all these years later I had some expectation that we would have improved our urban transport system. In reality, it's a step backward – after all, they were once king of the road in the early 1990s before a legal instrument required that the transport of passengers meet certain basic characteristics, a fact that led to the proliferation of minibus vans (the “Chapa 100″). But today, they have returned to the road, and due to the fantastic creative abilities of Mozambicans, they have earned the nickname “MY LOVE” because on top of it, passengers travel squeezed together and clinging to each other to avoid falling overboard.

A long line of people wait for transport in Maputo.

A long line of people wait for transport in Maputo.

Population growth

One of the factors behind the shortage of transport is the high population growth in Maputo. The Statistical Profile of the Municipality of Maputo (pdf), presented by the city council in 2010, estimated a population of 1,233,424 residents in 2013, compared to 1,094,315 in 2007.

The uptick is the result of migration from other parts of Maputo province to the city, especially to the outskirts where housing is being expanded. According to the National Statistics Institute (INE), the population of Maputo province has grown by 50 percent between 1997 and 2007. The vast majority of services and markets are concentrated in the city of Maputo, which increases the flow of people who come in and out of the capital on public transport.

Pointing to a series of recommendations for the “dilemma of public transport and road traffic in the city of Maputo,” an article published on the website Mozmaníacos in March 2013 stated that:

Em Fevereiro de 2008 a frota dos Transportes Públicos de Maputo (TPM) contava com apenas 32 autocarros para uma população de 1.7 milhão de habitantes (Maputo e Matola). Actualmente [in 2013] os TPM contam com 105 autocarros afectos aos transportes colectivos de passageiros na cidade de Maputo para um número cada vez mais crescente de utentes destes serviços.

In February 2008 the fleet of Maputo's Public Transport (TPM) only had 32 buses for a population of 1.7 million inhabitants (Maputo and Matola). Currently [in 2013] TPM has 105 coaches and buses in Maputo for an ever-increasing number of users of these services.

"My Love" go everywhere, even to suburban areas.

“My Love” go everywhere, even to suburban areas.

To alleviate the situation, the city council of Maputo is planning to implement an “exclusive transportation corridor” for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) on National Highway No. 1 – the main access to capital – to begin service in 2016 “in order to solve the traffic management and organization of the urban public transport system.”

Waiting for a place in a "Chapa 100".

Waiting for a place in a “Chapa 100″.

The city has seen strikes in 2008 and 2010 due to the rising price of transport, coupled with the rising prices of basic goods and fuel. And since January 2014, there have been constant interruptions of transport. The drivers demand improvements in the condition of access routes and roads and ask for an increase in fares, saying that the current ones are unsustainable for today's reality.

A publication by Canalmoz newspaper on Facebook highlighted some of the complaints:

Os transportadores dizem que o mau estado da via está a contribuir para a degradação dos carros. Os automobilistas questionam para onde vai o dinheiro que é pago ao município em taxas, se as estradas estão esburacadas. Em adição a isso queixam-se também pelo facto de o Governo ter priorizado a inspecção de viaturas para recolher dinheiro, no lugar de reparar as estradas.

Transporters say that the bad condition of the roads is contributing to the degradation of the cars. Motorists question where the money that is paid to the city in taxes goes, if the roads are full of potholes. In addition to this, they also bemoan the fact that the government has prioritized the inspection of vehicles to collect money, instead of repairing the roads.

The government's Master Plan (pdf) for Mobility and Transportation in the Metropolitan area of ​​Maputo (2013-2035) details the eventual creation of a Metropolitan Authority of Maputo Transport. 

In the meantime, Maputo's civil society isn't waiting around for authorities to improve the situation. The nonprofit organization Ruth (Uthende Network), an initiative to influence the political process and public policy with a particular focus on urban centers and transport issues, recently launched a campaign for “better mobility, better quality of life in the region greater Maputo”. Ruth also published a Citizen Manifesto (pdf) which advocates for the creation of such a transport authority.

The organization participated in the marches of International Labor Day, May 1, and summarized what workers and students who use urban passenger transport in the metropolitan area of ​​Maputo have to say as follows: “I do not want you anymore, ‘my Love’!”

All photos used in this post are from the original author, Dércio Tsandzana.
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Brazil Scores Before “the Internet World Cup” Begins: Marco Civil Approved by the Senate https://globalvoices.org/2014/04/23/brazil-marcocivil-netmundial2014-senate-approves-bill/ https://globalvoices.org/2014/04/23/brazil-marcocivil-netmundial2014-senate-approves-bill/#comments Wed, 23 Apr 2014 11:27:59 +0000 http://globalvoicesonline.org/?p=467684 Update (23 April 2014, 15:15 GMT): President Dilma has sanctioned the bill in the NetMundial event. Marco Civil is now a law in Brazil. Livestream: blog.planalto.gov.br

In the eve of the global Internet governance event hosted in Brazil, NETmundial, the Brazilian Senate approved the one-of-kind bill of rights for Internet users, known as “Marco Civil”. The final sanction is now in the hands of President Dilma Rousseff. According to a press release [pt] by the Senate, the quick approval, without amendments, was motivated by the interest that “the bill becomes law during NETmundial,” which starts today April 23, 2014, in São Paulo.

“Marco Civil could have a revolutionary effect on the current Internet policy environment,” Global Voices Advocacy editor Ellery Biddle wrote after the approval of the bill in the lower house of Congress, on March 25. Brazil is reaching a turning point while leading a pioneer role in the definition of Internet policies. The participatory process that was carried out for the creation and discussion of the bill -“driven by the public interest, as opposed to the interests of businesses or government” – surely adds perspective to the global multistakeholder meeting on the future of internet governance that will bring together government representatives, policy makers and civil society groups from around the world on April 23-24. 

Venezuelan lawyer and writer Marianne Diaz (@mariannedh), who is in São Paulo to cover the event, describes NETmundial as “the Internet World Cup” in a preview article for Advox.org. The games have just started. 

NETmundial counts on 33 remote participation hubs in 23 countries and will be livestreamed from the website NETmundial.br. Follow @NETmundial2014 on Twitter and the hashtag #NETmundial2014 for updates.

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East Timorese Protect Land Rights Against Australian Cement Plant Deal https://globalvoices.org/2014/04/21/east-timor-land-rights-australia-cement-plant-deal/ https://globalvoices.org/2014/04/21/east-timor-land-rights-australia-cement-plant-deal/#respond Mon, 21 Apr 2014 13:13:50 +0000 http://globalvoicesonline.org/?p=467420 The announcement of a new cement plant project by an Australian company in Baucau, northeast of East Timor, has led local community groups to set up a non-governmental organization “to protect and preserve the communities’ rights to their culture, development and traditional land rights.”

According to the community organization, Kapeliwa, the government of East Timor gave the largest construction company in Western Australia, BGC, permission to construct [tet] a cement plant with the annual capacity of 1.5 million tons in Baucau, as well as a license to extract limestone for 100 years. The construction project was awarded to the South Korean company POSCO E&C, from East Timor’s TL Cement (“a special purpose corporation wholly owned by BGC”), in December 2013.

Kapeliwa was publicly launched on April 19, 2014, by a group of intellectuals from Kaisido, Parlamento, Lialailesu and Osowa – four villages located in the northeast coast of Timor-Leste, Baucau district. The four villages, situated near the airport of the country's second city, are part of the administrative area of Suco Tirilolo, where the minority ethno-lingusitic community Uaima'a live.

In the first public meeting with the community members and leaders of the four villages, the group's founders presented the “potential positive and negative impact of the proposed cement factory in and on Uaima'a land known as Kaisido.” The group claims that there is lack of information about this project and that there hasn't been a proper viability study for the development.

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The Africanized Experience of Lisbon https://globalvoices.org/2014/04/20/the-africanized-experience-of-lisbon/ https://globalvoices.org/2014/04/20/the-africanized-experience-of-lisbon/#comments Sun, 20 Apr 2014 10:19:21 +0000 http://globalvoicesonline.org/?p=467314 The media and racial stereotypes [pt], through the perspective and experience of two specialists in the area of the study of race, both Afroportuguese, born in Lisbon, Portugal. is the topic of a new podcast. An interview with Grada Kilomba, academic of Santomean origin at the Humboldt University Berlin, translated into Portuguese in the first program of Radio AfroLis, touches on the nature of racism in Europe.

The role of the media, of black and white in the struggle against racism is also analyzed in this program by the researcher in the area of religious studies and white studies, Elisabete Cátia Suzana, University of Uppsala (Sweden).

Radio Afrolis presents itself as an “africanized experience of Lisbon” that intends to “reveal facets of an emerging black consciousness in Portugal”

Para alguns afrodescendentes a cidade de Lisboa é claramente a sua cidade. Para outros Lisboa é uma cidade como outra qualquer, apesar de terem nascido ou de sempre terem vivido nela. Outros há que rejeitam Lisboa porque sentem que não é o seu lugar.

No caso dos afrodescendentes negros, a questão da pertença relaciona-se com a sua fraca representação nos media, assim como em espaços sociais diversificados, mas principalmente, com o racismo. E surge a questão: Eu como negro ou negra, africano, africana devo/ posso/quero assumir-me como lisboeta? E serão precisamente as inúmeras combinações de respostas que vamos apresentar nos episódios do nossos podcast.

Acompanhem-nos por serem afrodescententes, por interesse na temática, pela vontade de conhecer outras vivências de Lisboa, ou até mesmo por quererem acrescentar algo à discussão!

For some of African descent the city of Lisbon is clearly their city. For others Lisbon is a city like any other, in spite of being born there or having always lived there. Others reject Lisbon because they feel it is not their place.

In the case of African-descended black people, the question of belonging relates to their poor representation in the media, as well as in other kinds of social spaces, but principally, it relates to racism. The question arises: as a black person, African, should I/can I/do I want to assert by identity as a Lisbonite? It will be precisely the numerous combinations of responses that we will present in the episodes of our podcast.

Follow along as African-descended Portuguese, or because you are interested in the topic, wanting to get to know other experiences of Lisbon, or even because you'd like to add something to the discussion!

Follow on FacebookSoundcloud and the blog radioafrolis.com.

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Voters Turn Out En Masse in Guinea-Bissau's First Post-Coup Elections https://globalvoices.org/2014/04/18/guinea-bissau-elections-turn-out-coup-bissauvote/ https://globalvoices.org/2014/04/18/guinea-bissau-elections-turn-out-coup-bissauvote/#comments Fri, 18 Apr 2014 13:46:26 +0000 http://globalvoicesonline.org/?p=466848
Fila de eleitores na Avenida Amílcar Cabral, Bissau. "#africa #guine #bissau #estado #povo #democracia #eleições #participação #voto #cidadania #guineenses vão eleger hoje um novo presidente e governo depois de 2 anos de transição política resultante de um golpe de estado." Foto de Miguel Barros (debarros2013) no Instagram

Queue of voters in Amílcar Cabral Avenue, Bissau. “#guineans will elect today [April 13, 2014] a new president and government after two years of political transition resulting from a coup d'etat. #africa #guine #bissau #estado #povo #democracia #eleições #participação #voto #cidadania” Photo by Miguel de Barros (debarros2013) on Instagram

Exactly two years and one day after a military coup d'etat interrupted Guinea-Bissau's 2012 presidential elections, Guineans cast their vote to democratically elect their political representatives. 

More than 80 percent of the population participated in the general elections on April 13, 2014, in which 13 candidates were running for president and 15 political parties were running for the National Assembly to form a new government. The official lists of candidates [pdf, pt] are available on the website of the National Election Commission (CNE).

statement [pt] by the CNE right after the polling stations closed said “without clear data, that these general elections have had the biggest turnout of voters ever.”

Urnas de voto para as eleições presidenciais e legislativas de 2014 na Guiné Bissau. Foto de anafilipa2011 no Instagram

Ballot boxes for the 2014 presidential and parliamentary elections in Guinea-Bissau. Photo by Filipa Larcher (anafilipa2011) on Instagram

“By turning out in unprecedented large numbers, in a peaceful and orderly fashion, the people of Guinea-Bissau have shown their unequivocal desire for the return to constitutional order in their country”, reacted Nobel Peacemaker José Ramos Horta, the special representative of the United Nations Integrated Peace-Building Office (UNIOGBIS) for Guinea-Bissau and former president of East Timor:

The elections that we have just witnessed, on 13 April 2014, have the potential of being imprinted in the history of the country as the turning point from the painful and chronic political instability that has plagued the country since its independence, to a period of peace, stability and development.

anafilipa2011 - contagem de votos

Polling station in Guinea-Bissau on April 13, 2014. Photo by Filipa Larcher (anafilipa2011) on Instagram.

Political and military instability have indeed been a constant feature in Guinea Bissau, a country which has never seen an elected president reach the end of his mandate since its independence 40 years ago. On April 12, 2012, a few days before the presidential run-off, a military coup plunged the country into a crisis with lasting negative impacts at all levels of society.

The general elections of 2014 aimed to put an end to the Period of instability created by the coup, which installed a “transitional government” in power, mediated by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

"#africa #guine #bissau #eleições #voto #participação #democracia #cidadania #povo faz a escolha - Nerida Varela, socióloga e monitora do Grupo das Organizações da Sociedade civil para as Eleições, depois de ter votado. Para acompanhar as eleições ver: bissauvote.com." Foto de debarros2013 no Instagram

“#africa #guine #bissau #eleições #voto #participação #democracia #cidadania #povo (people) make their choice. Nerida Varela, sociologist and monitor of the Group of Civil Society Organizations for the Elections, after casting her vote.” Photo by Miguel de Barros (debarros2013) on Instagram

Domestic electoral observers

The elections saw the increasing involvement of citizens and civil society organizations in the democratic process and its monitoring. New technologies for communication and collaboration also played an important role. 

Recognizing the importance of the “full participation of citizens in the functioning of democracy”, a coalition of 15 national organizations – the Grupo das Organizações da Sociedade Civil para as Eleições (Group of Civil Society Organizations for the Elections, GOSCE) – joined forces to run a domestic electoral watchdog by monitoring the pre-electoral period until the day of elections.

Screenshot do website www.bissauvote.com

Screenshot of the website www.bissauvote.com

From April 9 to 13, GOSCE mobilized a network of about 400 citizen observers throughout the territory, ready to observe, collect and send via SMS data about the electoral campaign, media coverage, civic education activities, and the voting process itself, including turnout and the functioning of polling stations. 

The website bissauvote.com, created by GOSCE in partnership with non-governmental organization One World and with the support of the European Union Delegation, provides a map of reports and a search engine by region and topic, as well as statistical reports. 

The findings of the civic monitoring throughout the pre-electoral period have been summarized in a report [pdf, pt] that highlights the tone of the speeches by the candidates during the campaign; gender participation; presence of security forces and the independence of the media in the electoral coverage. 

"#africa #guine #bissau #democracia #eleicoes #participacao #voto #sala de operacoes do grupo da sociedade civil responsavel pela monitorizacao do processo eleitoral (www.bissauvote.com)." Foto de debarros2013 no Instagram

“Control tower of the civil society group responsible for the monitoring of the electoral process – www.bissauvote.com.” Photo by Miguel de Barros (debarros2013) on Instagram

In a statement [pt] released after the voting day, GOSCE noted that although there had been reports of “84 incidents throughout the national territory, most of them related with situations of incompatibility of registered voters with the lists of voters”, the elections went well overall and were “generally peaceful”.  The preliminary conclusions taken by the information that was collected throughout the process point out: 

1. A campanha eleitoral, em particular os comícios realizados por partidos políticos e candidatos presidenciais, decorreram de forma pacífica sem registos significativos de incidentes de ordem político-partidária. De um modo geral, os discursos dos candidatos e partidos transmitiram uma mensagem pacífica e focalizada nas suas agendas políticas.

2. O esforço de equidade e imparcialidade dos meios do comunicação monitorizados – nomeadamente as rádios privadas e comunitárias – privilegiando a neutralidade no tratamento dos candidatos e partidos políticos.

3. A complementaridade das acções de educação cívica promovidas pela Sociedade Civil e pela Comissão Nacional de Eleições, permitindo o maior esclarecimento dos cidadãos eleitores relativamente ao processo eleitoral.

1. The electoral campaign, particularly the rallies carried out by political parties and presidential candidates, were held peacefully without significant incidents related with parties or politics. In general, the speeches of candidates and parties transmitted a peaceful message and were focused on their political agendas.

2. The effort of fairness and impartiality of the monitored media – including private and community radios – favored neutrality in the treatment of candidates and political parties.

3. The complementarity of civic education activities organized by civil society and the National Election Commission allowed for greater clarification of the electoral process for voters.

Foto de Filipa Archer, por anafilipa2011 no Instagram.

Citizen casting his vote in Guinea-Bissau on April 13, 2014. Photo by Filipa Larcher (anafilipa2011) on Instagram.

The electoral results [pt], announced on April 16, confirm a run-off to be held in May between the two presidential candidates that got the most votes: José Mário Vaz (41 percent) from the historical PAIGC party, and Nuno Nabiam (25 percent), running as an independent backed by the military.

For parliament, PAIGC got the majority of seats (55 out of 102), thus the next prime minister will be the leader of that party's parliamentary list, Domingos Simoes Pereira. The Party for Social Renewal (PRS) came in second, taking 41 seats of the National Assembly.

But “elections are only the first stage of a long-term effort to solve problems that have undermined progress for years”, stresses a briefing that has been recently published by the International Crisis Group, titled “Guinea-Bissau: Elections, But Then What?“.

The study enumerates the main challenges that the next elected government will have to face, highlighting that “given the country’s fragility, the political stakes in play, a suspicious military and a weak economy, real transformation will only be possible with strong international involvement, political and financial.” It adds that the country, “where participation in government has been the main method for acquiring wealth”, needs to balance the redistribution of power and resources, as well as “political and military will for reform”:

The new government will have to call into question the privileges enjoyed by senior military officers and carefully resume the security sector reforms that prompted the army to stage the coup.

anafilipa2011 lista eleitores perfil

Citizen and list of voters, Guinea-Bissau, April 13, 2014. Photo by Filipa Larcher (anafilipa2011) on Instagram.

The photos that appear in this post by Filipa Larcher (anafilipa2011) and Miguel de Barros (debarros2013) were used with their permission.
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isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2020-16
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for March/April 2020
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-152.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.16 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.1-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/