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****** ******, a young photo-journalist, returns to Indianapolis to launch an exciting initiative — “The Burma Youth Program: Democracy 2.0″ … most exciting of all, we in Central can play an essential role in this project to help transform Burma.

When: Friday October 19, 3:00-5:00 PM

Where: Central Indiana Community Foundation 615 N. Alabama St. Indianapolis 46204 (corner of Alabama and North streets)

****** ****** is a photo-journalist and activist from Indianapolis (who wishes to remain nameless). I first met her eight years ago when she and other young reporters went places such as Russia and Brazil to cover the condition of kids for Y-
Press. Lately her work has gotten even more interesting. This year she led a team from the Center for Building Peace International to Burmese refugee camps to document the lives of children. (You can see a preliminary report from her team at http://www.cpbintl.org/burma/BYP_Prelim_Report_2007.pdf ). Her “Democracy 2.0″ project goes even further: it seeks to connect the refugee camps and other parts of Burma electronically to exile populations across the border and in the West as well as to other groups. It’s a great idea: the world will be able to follow what is happening in Burma even when the rulers might not like the world’s attention; schools in refugee camps will be able to partner with students in the US; and we in the West can become a lot smarter about developments in this neglected yet important country. If you would like to read a description of this project, send me an email at john@sipr.org and I will zap you a copy.

What makes this project even more exciting is that we in Central Indiana can be part of it. In recent weeks, many Hoosiers have been surprised by the many connections between Indiana and Burma. We have one of the largest populations of Burmese in the US. Burmese dissidents in Bloomington have led the effort to draft a democratic constitution. And ****** ****** is just one of many groups of artists, activists, and journalists from Indiana who have been working to help solve the challenges faced by Burma. (See below for more information about another of these initiatives.)

As *****’s project takes off, we will have even more opportunities to help. Imagine dozens of inexpensive and sturdy video cameras being distributed to youth in Burma’s refugee camps (and elsewhere). Groups in Indiana will be vital to edit and disseminate the stories … and our growing Burmese populations will be essential for providing the cultural context and background for these stories. This is the real potential of “Democracy 2.0″: connecting local initiatives here with local initiatives on the other side of the world to solve global problems.

So please come to the Central Indiana Community Foundation at 3:00 Friday afternoon to talk with ***** and others who want to make an important contribution to helping Burma. It should be a fascinating discussion.

In addition to seeing images and video from ****** ******’s investigative work in Burma, we may be fortunate enough to see a work in progress by another Indianapolis initiative to help Burma, the Sold Project. This is a group of young people who are making a documentary about sex slavery in Burma and Thailand. A powerful topic. Friday evening at the Harrison Center for the Arts the Sold Project has a benefit concert where they will play the new trailer for their movie. Perhaps we can get members of the Sold Project team to join us at the Central Indiana Community Foundation … they are a critical part of Central Indiana’s potential to help Burma’s transformation. For more information about the Sold Project, visit their website: www.thesoldproject.com.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 3:40 am and is filed under Uncategorized, Events, Democracy, Foreign policy, Violence, Crossing borders, Law & justice, Journalism, Human and civil rights, Education, GLOCAL-ization, Citizen Diplomacy, Taking action, Kids, Provocate Event, Buddhism, burma. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.