New Media for Social Change: Winner is Help Map - Russian Fires Project

11.04.2011 | 19:22

 The winner of the New Media for Social Change section of the One World Film Festival goes to Russia - to the Help map - Russian Fires Project. The results were announced during the Media Revolutions Evening on Thursday. Help Map project is response from the Russian blogging community, who no longer wanted to just sit and watch their government?s inaction in providing assistance to communities affected by extensive fires in the summer of 2010. Using Ushahidi mapping technology, they created a Help Map, which helped establish links between individuals as well as groups affected by the fires and citizens in the locality who offered help and assistance, but didn?t know where they should go to provide it in time or where to effectively target their efforts.

Jury's statement:

The jury had a very difficult task choosing the winning projects submitted to the competition. We learned about outstanding and inspirational projects and efforts. We wish we could award more of those, but there will be only one overall winner.

The jury came to unique collective decision to award a project that fulfills all the competition criteria.

It is a project that proves, that Information and communication technology in the hands of dedicated people can contribute to a positive change. This project connected people, who would otherwise
have remained unconnected in the time of hardship. Online activity and networks, modern technology with traditional channels together with "offline" action formed a seamless effort that mobilised the
community to act. The team organized volunteers around a free software developed in Africa to assist local community in their own country and introduced a concept that has a potential to be further developed by similar initiatives and communities around the world.

See the gallery of projects.

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