1. Write To Them meeting in Belgrade

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    Last weekend Tony Bowden met up with Darius (WTT in Lithuania), Jaroslav (WTT in Slovakia) and Danko (upcoming WTT in Serbia) to discuss the processes and best practices around the international collaboration on cloning of the Write To Them website. Danko, the Serbian project’s representative, whom I hope to introduce soon in more detail,  has agreed to use the common platform built by the Lithuanian team. As Darius stated:

    “That of course means that Lithuanian WTT will have to be internationalised”

    Jaroslav will meet with KohoVolit.eu team soon to discuss similar proces soon, so I hope to tell you more about it as well.

    I have also learned that the meeting in Belgrade, at least in its form, will be repeated on a fairly regular basis to ensure the best possible channel for discussion and common developments. Once again quoting Darius:

    “The meeting was great, very productive and I look forward for future meetings like this”.

  2. Building a Social Media Network and Platform for Debate and Advocacy of Freedom of Expression in Ukraine

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    In December 2010 Tony Bowden travelled to Kiev to take part in a one day workshop for NGOs, journalists, state officials and social media activists. I have asked one of the organisers, Boyko Boev from ARTICLE19 to let us know more about the event and MySociety’s contribution to it.

    “Entitled Building a Social Media Network and Platform for Debate and Advocacy of Freedom of Expression in Ukraine the workshop was designed to share experience on advocacy via social media in Ukraine and abroad, point to the opportunities for online campaigns for freedom of expression, and explore ideas for a policy paper on the use of social media for protection of freedom of expression in Ukraine.”

    The workshop presented work of various London based ARTICLE19 programmes introducing various aspects of advocacy work both on national, as well as international level – their challenges and opportunities. The local input was provided by Vitaliy Moroz from Internews who talked about the use of social media in Ukraine.

    Tony was asked to present MySociety projects:

    “Tony’s presentation fitted nicely with the presentations on social media advocacy demonstrating how Internet can become instrumental for social oversight over public institutions and online tools bring about transparency of public management and improvement of public services.”

    When asked for more feedback on Tony’s input, Boyko responded:

    “It was great to have Tony  on board as his presentation brought in another perspective to our workshop. The Ukrainian participants were very active and at the moment I am seeking ways to engage them in freedom of expression advocacy. It means that I should think of a project on this subject. The idea is to use social media/online resource for information sharing and campaigning for freedom of expression and media freedom in Ukraine.”

    If you want to get involved or happen to know already running advocacy projects in Ukraine do let us know!