Peace Proposal

Photo from: Google

Link Up for The Philippines

Katie Martino

Project: 

The “Link Up for The Philippines” project is meant to tell the story behind individual Filipinos that gives them an emotional aspect that cannot be overlooked, even to people who are born and raised to be biased against them.   

Since “link parties” are popular in the blogosphere, the plan for this project is for Filipinos who have been hurt, whose family has been hurt, or who just have a story to tell about terrorism/anti-peace acts to create a blog.  The blog they create will tell their story in any way they want it to be told, and link their blog to linkupforthephilippines.blogspot.com, which will be the central point for all bloggers to posts their blog posts.  

Goals:

1. Prevent terrorism in the Philippines.

2. Educate Filipinos (journalists and citizens).

3. Narrow the gap between people with a voice and “the voiceless.”

Components:

1. Focus groups. Gather 3 groups of 5-10 including: 

I. People who are willing to help

II. People who feel hopeless about peace resolutions 

III. People who have ideas about peaceful resolutions 

IV. People who don’t know much about peace journalism.  

Have these people share ideas about the link project.  This is a chance to gain knowledge and ideas that I may not have thought of on my own.  Having 3 different groups will ensure that all of possible ideas have been gathered.

2. 3, 2 hour training sessions. Gather groups of Filipino journalists who are willing to learn the aspects of peace journalism. Since one of the goals of this project is to educate Filipinos, this step is a main component.  The training sessions are not meant to make the journalists feel empowered by writing peacefully.

The training sessions will include the following:

I. Teach the 17 points of peace journalism. 

II. Teach journalists how to create a blog, if they do not know how already.  Since this project is solely based around the blogosphere, it is important for the journalists to know proper Internet etiquette.

III. Have each journalist write their own story in a peaceful way, using the 17 steps and post it on their blog.  This will give the journalists a chance to not only practice peace journalism, but practice using the blog.

3. Media exposure.  Propose the “Link Up for The Philippines” project to journalists and bloggers to see if they would be willing to do write ups for the project.

4. Social media.  Social media will target a younger audience and help the project go viral.  

I. “Link Up for The Philippines” is the main website focused around the project. 

II. Facebook.

III. Twitter.

IV. Pinterest.

5. Word of Mouth. Telling a friend who will tell another friend, etc.

Participants:

• For the link party: Particularly Filipinos and Chinese citizens who have been affected by terrorism/anti-peace acts who have:

I.  A story to tell 

II. A blog

• For the journalists: The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP).

Photo from: NUJP

 

Timeline (in this order):

1. Create the website.  This step has already been completed. 

2. Create link party page.  Also completed. 

3. Begin focus groups. Nothing can be accomplished until everyone is on the same page.  Start with the focus groups and get ideas and input on the project. 

4. Update the website.  After focus groups have been conducted, more ideas will have surfaced and at this point, this site should be updated to include these ideas.  

5. Begin training sessions. Start training NUJP.  

6. Begin media exposure. Once journalists have been properly trained about peace journalism, they can then begin media exposure on the project.

7. Feature a journalist on Link Up for the Philippines. To gain more exposure for the project and capture people’s emotions, feature one of the best journalists (from the training sessions) stories on the website.

8. Begin using social media. Now that people have started linking up to the website, we have featured a story, and the website is fully functioning, it is time to begin telling people about it.  

9. Begin using word of mouth. Word of mouth can be used at this point to gain more exposure for the project.

10. Continue to update the website. Now that everything has been accomplished, it is important to continue to update the website so the project will continue to grow.

Conclusion/Evaluation:

Since I have not completed this project thoroughly, I can only hypothesize the results.  The goal of the project was:  to prevent terrorism in the Philippines, educate Filipinos (journalists and citizens), and narrow the gap between people with a voice and “the voiceless,” so hopefully at this point in time, all of these things will be accomplished. 

How this has been accomplished:

1. Prevent terrorism in the Philippines:  by educating journalists in training sessions, allowing individuals to tell their story and have it heard, and spreading their word, people will no longer feel that they need to turn to violence to fix their problems.

2. Educate Filipinos (journalists and citizens): by holding training sessions and teaching journalists that it is possible to write in a peaceful manner, journalists in the Philippines will become educated.  At this point, their writing will be enhanced and in turn, educate their readers.

3. Narrow the gap between people with a voice and “the voiceless”: by allowing people to tell their stories and have it heard, “the voiceless” will be able to connect to the people who already have a voice, creating a relationship between the two.