Establishment of a CMC for the Pastoral Population in Ngorongoro District

The project aims at establishing and operate a sustainable and comprehensive Community Multimedia Centre (CMC) serving the pastoral community in 14 villages in Ngorongoro district, where 70,000 people live, forming a media platform meeting local development needs. The aim is to increase the diversity of media in the country, and ensure access to information to the community and from the community to the Tanzanian leaders. This proposal seeks support to acquire equipment and provide initial training to the personnel who will operate the station. The Ngorongoro district is highly remote and only accessible by road to a small town of Loliondo; therefore, the Masai pastoral population is extremely marginalized. The Masai do not have access to information that they can use to manage their daily lives. And being pastoralists, they are prone to changes in the livestock market, are not aware of the coming changes in climate or how to protect themselves from infectious and deadly diseases. In many cases, they do not participate in policy formulation or implementation, only learning about these when they have been passed. Also, the government has no way of ensuring that campaigns for eradication of diseases, economic policies and laws are being implemented and what is the response of the people. RAMAT is proposing to establish a Community Multimedia Centre to work as a channel providing information, creating awareness on livelihood and alerting the people on outbreaks and about government policies and laws. Above all, the radio will be used to promote good governance and enhance accountability of the community in environmental management, education and community resources. The project's immediate objectives are a self-sustaining community multimedia centre capable of engaging community members in 15 villages in the Ngorongoro district in facilitating self-expression, sharing and accessing knowledge will be established within a 12-month period from the project inception; and 10 volunteer centre operators, radio producers and multimedia centre operators working in Loliondo, will acquire skills and knowledge for digital editing techniques after having participated in a 2-week training course.

Location and contacts
Project contacts: 
Mr. Yannick Ndoinyo, Executive Director, ramatfound@yahoo.co.uk;
Project place: 
Ololosokwan village

Project country:

Project region:

Project details
Year when project approved: 
2010
IPDC Bureau meeting nº: 
54

Implementation status :

Project evaluated:

Project scope:

IPDC Priority:

Beneficiary
Beneficiary name: 
IrkiRamat Foundation (RAMAT)
Beneficiary address: 
P.O.Box 16, Loliondo, Arusha

Beneficiary country:

Beneficiary phone: 
2.55787e+011
Budget
Approved budget: 
US$24 000.00
Budget code: 
354URT5092

Source of funds:

UNESCO
Responsible UNESCO Regional advisers: 
Mr. Al Amin Yusuph,

UNESO Field Office:

Follow-up and achievments
Summary of the project implementation: 
Community awareness activities are ongoing, involving the village leadership, the Maasai women groups and other citizens. The Ololosokwan village has allocated a new plot of land free of charge for the Community radio as a result of the community awareness campaigns. A working relationship has been established between IrkiRamat Foundation, the Implementing partners of the Community radio project with the Community Media Network of Tanzania (COMNETA). The IrkiRamat Foundation is now a member of the Community Media Network of Tanzania. Due to its membership of the Community Media Network, the IrkiRamat Foundation has benefited through two capacity building Programmes delivered through the National Community Media Network. A site survey has been conducted to get appropriate prediction coverage based on various hosting options for the transmitter and quotations have been sought, awaiting purchase due to the ongoing partnership negotiations with Airtel. If the partnership is approved, the type of equipment will have to be adapted in order to install the transmitter at a different site, based on Airtel's GSM cell-site locations. Partnerships have also been sought with Oxfam and Airtel. Oxfam is constructing brand new premises for the Community Radio. The Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority requires all broadcasting stations to be hosted in robust premises, the specifications which the mud-walled IrkiRamat Foundation premises did not provide, as a result partnerships to get premises support has been secured and the construction of the new premises is at the roofing stages. Envisaged partnership with Airtel will involve support to host the transmitter and the antenna, provision of 3G or GPRS internet access and provision of mobile Banking facilities and selling of airtime for the Maasai Community.
Documents
Full project description: 
Tanzania - Establishment of a CMC for the Pastoral Population in the Ngorongoro District.pdf
Full implementation report: 
Tanzania - Establishment of a CMC for the Maasai.pdf