Showing posts with label Estonia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Estonia. Show all posts

Thursday, 28 December 2017

Mondo activities July–December 2017


Work with Journalists
During summer months, work with journalists was quieter. The main activity was joint trip to Afghanistan, for which we had chosen A. Lobjakas to take part. In June he went through a short security training conducted by Mondo's humanitarian and and security expert G. Teder. Additionally, he also took the UN online security course. The joint trip itself was a success and our participant was very pleased with the overall experience.

In autumn, we continued planning the joint study trip to Ghana, of which Latvian and Estonian journalists would take part. From Estonia, we chose H. Tammemäe, the head editor of Müürileht, to participate. She also took part of the autumn training in Helsinki arranged by VIKES. Müürileht is an alternative monthly newspaper, that can be subscribed to but is also distributed for free in some locations. Although it's print numbers are not very big, it has a very specific niche and it's readers are accustomed to reading longer and more thorough articles. There is also a tendency that the topics written about in Müürileht will become popular in other media channels after a few months.

Ghana study trip participants.


The grant competition winner and his colleague visited Mekong river delta in Vietnam in November to research sustainability issues there. A freelance journalist writing mostly for women's magazines, took a trip to Palestine to highlight issues of inequality and development. In the final days of December, a journalist and photographer will visit Bangladesh to research and write about the situation of Rohingyas in refugee camps.


Work with Policy-Makers
In July, we posted bulletins for members of the parliament and MFA officials. Along with the bulletin, invitations to the international roundtable and conference was also sent out to policy makers. The bulletin can be seen here: http://mondo.org.ee/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/mondo-arengupoliitika-teataja-el-eesistumine.pdf

We met and consulted with MFA officials and diplomats to be able to arrange the roundtable as best as possible. To facilitate information exchange between policy makers, we decided to make the roundtable into a two-day event: the first day being a closed, invitation-only roundtable and the second day being an open-to-public conference. The conference was attended by 105 people, the roundtable by 40 people. Both days took place in the conference centre of Swissotel Tallinn. Photos of both days can be seen here, background information and panelists of the conference can been seen here. A very helpful team of international and Estonian volunteers helped us to arrange the events, helping with everything from taking photos to welcoming people at the registering table. All event guests received thematic bulletins, agendas of the event, notebooks, and handicraft conference bags from either Afghanistan or Uganda. Both days were a success thanks to the wonderful participants, panelists, moderators, and their expertise. It was a great honor of receiving the presence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs who gave the key note address, and also of our high-level panelists.

In autumn, Mondo also arranged a study trip for policy makers to Ghana. An MFA official and a member of the Parliament's Foreign Affairs committee took part.

Work with general audience
In the summer, Mondo arranged an active social media campaign on the myths of development cooperation. The theme was "Real people. Real stories. Real aid.", video clips filmed in Estonia and photos taken in Mondo's partner communities were used to bring development cooperation closer and explain it through clear and concrete examples. The posts were seen 134,756 times.

We also actively advertised the conference "Development and Security: Which Comes First?" on social media, e-mail lists and our website.

In November and December, the second public campaign of this year was conducted. Together with the design and advertising company Velvet we decided to continue with the same "Hoolin" topic as we did for the spring SDG campaign. To make it more concrete, education was chosen as a main theme and the campaign main slogan was chosen as "Hoolin haridusest" or "I care about education". To bring the topic closer to the general audience, we decided to focus on the universal nature of education and the wish to be educated. To do so, a campaign ambassador – the actress Elina Reinold – and her son agreed to visit Ghana. A filmmaker went with them as they visited Richard, a young Ghanian boy who is receiving school support from Elina through Mondo. Photos of Elina and her son in together with Richard and his grandmother became the main visual of the campaign. The campaign was featured on outdoor bus-stop advertising systems, in several magazines, and in social media.





To finish the campaign, an education and development cooperation themed public event was held in the Estonian National Museum in Tartu, under the name of "Hoolin haridusest" or "I care about education". After inspiring talks from Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Tõnis, Lukas Ilmar Raag, Marju Lauristin, Loone Ots, and Mondo's board members and partners, different artists performed and Syrian food and fair trade chocolate cake was eaten. 172 people registered their participation to the event.



Together with Müürileht a newspaper insert on global issues and development cooperation was published in December.

Monday, 25 December 2017

The documentary “Sparkling Rivers” in the festivals

ERR film Sparkling Rivers, writer Anna Gavronski, director Märten Vaher and cinematographer Meelis Kadastik, was selected to the official programme of Barcelona International Environmental Film Festival FICMA. It was 24th time the festival took place, which makes it the oldest environmental film festival in the world.  



We arrived in Barcelona on 7th of November. First news we got form the organisers were a bit concerning- they said that there is a chance that our film screening might be cancelled due to general strike. Fortunately, just after they had warned us, they received a phone call, that our film will be still shown on the big screen. We were very happy and thankful for the organisers for managing to preserve the screening. Besides that we went to meet the other filmmakers at the evening in the cinema and watched some short animation films.
pan> was selected to the official programme of Barcelona International Environmental Film Festival FICMA. It was 24th time the festival took place, which makes it the oldest environmental film festival in the world.  


The second day of our trip was a big day for us, because it was a day, when our film was screened. As it was on the same day as the general strike, we went to watch the protests during lunchtime. Later we heard that other filmmakers did the same. I think curiosity is embedded to all documentary filmmakers. In the evening, we watched some other films and then our film Sparkling Rivers was shown. After the screening people asked questions and it was interesting to see that our film moved people even though it was filmed in Georgia by Estonian filmmakers.

On our third day, we had filmmakers’ lunch, where we met a lot of people. It was a good place for changing contacts. To our surprise one of the crewmembers of Swedish film came to speak with us in fluent Estonian. It turned out that both of his parents were from Estonia that they thought him the language. After the lunch we went to watch the Swedish film, which was about soil.


In the evening we went to the festival closing event, which took place at a very nice natural science museum.


To our big surprise Sparkling Rivers won the award for the best short documentary, it was a great honour and made us very happy.

Besides Barcelona our film Sparkling Rivers was shown in October at the SunChild International Environmental Festival in Yerevan, Armenia. The festival is the first and only of its kind in the South Caucasus region. Our film was one of the 83 films chosen for the official section, it was selected from 1214 submitted films.

Premiere of the documentary “Sparkling Rivers”

ERR together with Mondo and the film-makers writer Anna Gavronski, director Märten Vaher  and cinematographer Meelis Kadastik organised public screening to the documentary.



On 7nd February 2017 the documentary “Sparkling Rivers” was premiered in Kinomaja cinema in Tallinn with 75 viewers.


 The Estonian Green Movement project coordinator Mihkel Annus speaks.




On the right: Estonian Green Movement project coordinator Mihkel Annus, author of film “Sparkling Rivers” Anna Gavronski, Estonian Roundtable for Development Cooperation renewable energy specialist Sigrid Solnik, Eesti Energia renewable energy specialist Innar Kaasik and neighbour of the biggest hydro in Estonia Margus Teemant. 

Briefly about the film.

Georgia is not only a country of wine and high mountains, but it has also more than 25.000 rivers. Running water is a richness that has been noticed by a lot of investors and made Georgia their desired destination. Even now 80 per cent of Georgian electricity comes from hydroelectricity power plants and in the near future there are plans to construct more than 100 new stations. For thousands of people it means they have to be resettled. Shady deals, unclear investors registered in tax havens, energy minister’s business interests in the hydro construction company and deaths by landslides during construction of one large hydro. Is that a fair price for Georgian people have to pay? Environmental activist Dato Chipashvili fights against these hundred million investment projects putting the interests of local people and transparency first.


After five-hour drive from Tbilisi we arrived at the Enguri dam, the world’s second highest dam of its kind. We were stunned, the concrete arch was gigantic, its height is 271.5 meters.


Our guide Dato Chipashvili from an NGO called Green Alternative explained, how in his opinion the old dam could be made more effective.


The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has agreed to provide US$200 million for Georgia's 280-MW Nenskra hydropower plant. On the other hand, people from Nakra village are afraid that their homes will be flushed away by a mud river.


We had been asking for an interview with the minister of energy Kakha Kaladze.

The film Sparkling Rivers was selected to the official programme of Barcelona International Environmental Film Festival FICMA and won the award for the best short documentary.

Besides Barcelona our film Sparkling Rivers was shown in October at the SunChild International Environmental Festival in Yerevan, Armenia. The festival is the first and only of its kind in the South Caucasus region. Our film was one of the 83 films chosen for the official section, it was selected from 1214 submitted films.

Tuesday, 4 July 2017

Mondo activities April–June 2017

Work with General Audience
In April we met with all the partners of the SDG campaign "#hoolin" and the video competition winners were announced. After receiving the SDG-themed exhibition from the festival, we decided to make a re-print as the photos were quite damaged from weather and wear from the guerilla pop-up gallery.

A new exhibition was printed on more durable material and from the beginning of June it was shown in the public hall (used often also by policy-makers and NGO workers for events) of the local EU Commission Representation.

Diana, the main character of one of the films made during M4D also visited Latvia to participate in a screening arranged by Green Liberty.

A meeting with the advertising company Velvet was held to discuss the campaign to be held in autumn. Additionally, the World Village Festival was attended in Helsinki to get to know communication and dissemination activities of other NGOs.

Two guerilla actions were also held during spring: global topics quiz during Seto Folk and working with refugees living in Estonia to introduce Syrian and Palestinian dishes to the wider audience during the opening festivities of the Estonian Presidency 2017.













Work with Policy-Makers
To prepare for the policy-makers joint trip to Philippines (organised by PIN), we met with mr Rainer Vakra, a social democrat MP.
During these months, work also continued on preparing the roundtable and conference in September.

In the beginning of May, an inspiring event for general audience and policy makers was held near Mondo's office in Telliskivi – an education seminar called "Education Quality = Sustainable World?". The main topic of the event was global education in the framework of SDGs. Photos of the event can be seen here.
Panelists were given gifts of baskets woven by women in Ghana.

On the topic of SDG 4 (Quality and Global Education) a bulletin for policy makers was also edited and printed: http://www.mondo.org.ee/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/teataja_1_2017_veeb.pdf

For the beginning of Estonia's EU presidency, a second bulletin on EU development policies was also published for policy makers. The bulletin can be seen here: http://mondo.org.ee/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/mondo-arengupoliitika-teataja-el-eesistumine.pdf

In May, the Parliamentary Bureau asked for Mondo's input to send out an information e-mail to all the members of the Parliament celebrating the Parliament's African Day. We encouraged the Bureau to introduce the documentary films made by ERR as a part of M4D. The e-mail was sent to all members of the parliament.




Also in May, the representatives of The Commission's Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DG DEVCO) visited Mondo's office along with MFA officials:







Work with Journalists
After a public competetion, a journalist from Postimees (K. Meresma) was chosen to take part of the training to journalists arranged by VIKES. We also met with her to discuss possible future plans and activities after the training.
A journalist (A. Lobjakas) was selected to participate in the joint study trip to Afghanistan arranged by BAAG and the several meetings were held with him.

As a continuation of last year's training directed to journalists, this year we teamed together with the training section of Postimees to arrange an internal seminar for their employees. The seminar took place on the 25th of May under the title of "Press Freedom and Corruption". The main star of the event was Mexican journalist and media expert Elva Narcia, who has worked internationally from Norway and South Sudan to Afghanistan and Ethiopia. 7 journalists attended the discussion with Elva.

The last M4D grant competition was held for experienced journalists. We received 10 very thorough and interesting project ideas. The jury selected L. Tankler and I. Soopan as the winners. The duo proposed an interesting multimedia investigation of the issues social and sustainability issues in the delta of Mekong river in Vietnam.




Wednesday, 5 April 2017

Mondo activities January–March 2017

Planning and Implementation: Uganda Study Trip
In December 2016 the M4D steering group gave very positive feedback on the study trips conducted by VIKES. Additionally, it was discussed that the surplus budget from previous years could be used to conduct extra study trips. Mondo proposed to conduct a study trip to Uganda (as we had the experience from August 2016 of arranging a study trip for two young Estonian journalists and one competition winner) and the steering group agreed. In January, partners sent Mondo information about the journalists that would take part of the study trip from their countries. Three partners from NMSs (House of Europe from Lithuania, Green Liberty from Latvia and PMVRO from Slovakia) decided to participate in this action and as PIN from Czech Republic was unable to participate, it gave the opportunity for Green Liberty to choose two journalists to participate.

To prepare for the study trip, Mondo cooperated closely with VIKES to learn from their previous experiences in all practical matters, from budget to motivating the journalists to dig deeper in their preparation process. It was highly helpful that project partners had used Google Drive for previous study trips, as it gave easy access to valuable insights in the preparation process. Additionally the information stored in SurveyMonkey feedback surveys sent out to previous participants was of great help. In Kampala and also during preparation work, Esther Nakazzi – a Ugandan journalist and fixer – was of great help.

To help partners find the most suitable participants and prepare more efficiently, Mondo sent a selection of possible topics that could be covered in Uganda and a preparation timetable to partners. All preparation with partners and participants was done via e-mails, Skype meetings and again through Google Drive.

The participants from each country were the following:

  • Dannar Leitmaa, Estonia. Journalist at Eesti Ekspress and Raadio 2. 
  • Sandra Kropa, Latvia. Latvian Public Broadcasting Radio and TV journalist
  • Goda Jurevičiūtė, Lithuania. Journalist at daily newspaper Lietuvos žinios.
  • Anna Ūdre, Latvia. Freelance journalist, working with Delfi.lv.
  • Pavol Štrba, Slovakia. Journalist at daily SME.

The study trip took place in the beginning of March (5.03–15.03). During the study trip, the group had the chance to visit the following organisations and places:
  • Refugee Law Project, a Ugandan NGO working with refugee rights.
  • Femrite, a publishing house and group of Ugandan writers (mostly female).
  • AFIEGO (Africa Institute for Energy Governance​), an NGO working with energy issues and human rights.
  • YARID (Young African Refugees for Integral Development​), an NGO working mostly with urban Congolese refugees and their rights.
  • Hope North, a secondary school founded during the civil war by former child soldier Sam Okello to support communities escaping violence in the north. 
  • Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement: field office of the OPM (Office of the Prime Minister), UNHCR field office, Health Centre Panyadoli III (coordinated by the Real Medicine Foundation).
  • BRAC Uganda and it's activities in Bweyale. BRAC is an international NGO working closely with communities (through community health workers and other similar approaches) to empower the poor and alleviate poverty.
  • Uganda Wildlife Autority's (UWA) field office in Murchison Falls National Park. Topics discussed ranged from poaching to working with the community and the effects of climate change.
  • UNHCR Kampala Office.
  • Outbox, a co-working space for Ugandan start-ups.
  • Kampala Disabled Initiatives (KDI) sewing workshop.
    The group also visited "Wakaliwood" – a low budget action film production in Wakaliga, Kampala. The contact with Wakaliwood was introduced by one of the participants, who also stayed two days longer in Uganda. That participant also had the possibility to visit:
  • Chess class in Kampala School for the Physically Handicapped, headed by Robert Katende (coach of Phiona Mutesi, known from the Disney biopic "Queen of Katwe").
  • SMUG, a local NGO working for the human rights of LGBTQ community members.

After the study trip, a survey was conducted among participants. The results were:
  • Out of 4 of the participants gave maximum points (labelled as "Great success") to the study trip overall, 1 participant chose "Rather exceeded my expectations" as their rating. 
  • All five noted that they would be highly likely to recommend the trip to a colleague.
  • Most of the feedback from the participants was positive, a very tight schedule was noted as one of the downsides.


Other Journalist Study TripsFrom January to March, the following study trips also took place:

  • A journalist and operator from the nature show "Osoon" visited Ghana.
  • The grant receiver from December 2016 and a photographer visited Southeast Asia to portray issues connected to palm oil.
Discussions with the journalists after their study trips reflected that they learned many new things and were overall satisfied with the opportunity that M4D project had made possible.




Planning and Implementation: SDG Awareness Campaign
To raise awareness on the SDGs and generally on sustainable development, Mondo cooperated with several organisations in Estonia to create a joint campaign. The campaign was coordinated by Tallinn Music Week (TMW). Besides Mondo and TMW, the following organisations took part of the campaign:

  • The Ministry of Environment
  • Embassy of Sweden
  • European Commission Representation in Estonia
  • Environmental Investment Centre of Estonia
  • The media company Eesti Meedia
  • Nordea Bank
  • The telecommunications company Telia
The campaign centred on Estonian singers and musicians who spoke about their ways of contributing to the SDGs. The campaign consisted of street posters, newspaper ads, radio ads, online activities (videos, banners, web portal hoolin.ee), a video competition for youth, and the displaying of an SDG-themed photo exhibition made of the photos taken by journalist participants of M4D project. Campaign ads were also reproduced in Russian. Sustainable development was also featured in materials produced for Tallinn Music Week (such as timetables, catalogues, etc) and in the media coverage of the festival.
  • There were 50 posters in Tallinn during 27.03-02.04.2017. The visuals were seen at least once by 255,033 people. The newspaper ads had an estimated reach of 176,400 readers.
  • Online banners were displayed 1,578,664 times and received 1228 clicks.
  • 23 people took part of the video competition.
  • The videos received 74,190 views in Facebook and Youtube.




















Distribution of posters:



Additional activities
For activities coming up during the year, we had several planning meetings:

  • Planning meetings about the upcoming conference on the topic of development and security.
  • Planning meetings with ERR about future activities in 2017.
  • Planning meeting for a thematic newspaper edition of Müürileht.
In January, Mondo produced SDG-themed sticky notes as a part of raising awareness about SDGs in Estonia.

Also, a youth event on the topic of SDGs and the UN was held in February. Youth from all over Estonia gathered in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss and listen to panelists on the topics of SDGs and the UN Security Council. 70 youths from 11 schools participated, 6 foreign diplomats residing in Estonia and 4 officials from the MFA and State Chancellery also took part.


 




Sunday, 15 January 2017

Premiere of the documentary “Three Jewels”

ERR together with Mondo and the writer-director Gerli Nõmm organised public screening to the documentary. 


On 22nd November 2016 the documentary “Three Jewels” was premiered in Kinomaja cinema in Tallinn with 55 viewers.


Sound director Indrek Soe, translator Nguon Somalya, writer-director Gerli Nõmm and cinematographer Martin Tennokene

Briefly about the film:
The documentary "Three Jewels" takes us to Buddhist Cambodia to tell us the stories of three women from different generations. They come from the same village and their common passion is traditional singing but fate has treated them differently.

The main hero Srey Oun is 35 years old, single and given up her dream of going to the capital to study traditional music - in order to help her parents cope with hard work in the country.

25-year-old Srey Pov on the other hand has got everything she ever dreamed of - she is a famous singer and has her own business in the capital Phnom Penh. She is able to support her family without any concerns.

Blind bard Koeut Ran who survived the Khmer Rouge genocide has dedicated her life to teaching dharma song and now can proudly see her former students spreading ancient knowledge.


You can watch the documentary “Three Jewels

Saturday, 14 January 2017

Premiere of the documentaries in Tallinn

ERR together with Mondo organised public screenings to the documentaries. On 30th October 2016 the films "Estonian Village in Ghana" and “Market Economy” were premiered in Sõprus cinema in Tallinn, with 50 viewers. 

Johanna Helin board member of NGO Mondo ushered in the film evening.


Anna Gavronski ERR journalist interviewed the filmmakers writer Meelis Süld and director Kalle Käesel. She is also author of the documentary "Sparkling Rivers” of the series "Our World".

The documentary "Estonian Village in Ghana" focuses on doing Diana Tamm the voluntary NGO Mondo on North Ghana and the local way of life.




Briefly about the films:
1. Film about Ghana “Estonian Village in Ghana” writer Meelis Süld and director Kalle Käesel. „We are too poor to help others!“ This is a common excuse for refusing help to others. When looking at the world with open eyes and open mind we can see that we don't always need loads of gold to help. Even a little contribution, good advice and some contacts can be enough. Estonian activists, business women and volunteers decided to help a village in northern Ghana combining the locals' handicraft skills, the Estonians' business knowledge and the Western market - it turned out that woven baskets made by Ghanaian village women are popular in Estonia; butter made of shea tree seeds from African savannas often referred to as "African women's gold" can find market in the USA. Will the activities launched in a small Ghanan village grow and give the local people proper income? It is up to the persistence of the helpers but also up to the steps of the local people on their way to entrepreneurship.

Anna Gavronski, director Mihkel Ulk and writer Kristo Elias.

2. Film about Ethiopia “Market Economy” writer Kristo Elias and director Mihkel Ulk. Abebe and Ashenafi are usual 10-year-old boys who were sent by their parents to Addis Abeba, the capital of Ethiopia, to work as boot polishers to prevent their families from starving. Abtu is an orphan and a hot blooded errand boy and work is the last thing he wants to think about. Bertukan is a mother of three who carries heavy loads to make some money. Mulugeta is a well-educated tourist guide who is above all others thanks to knowing the English language. All these Ethiopians are united by the biggest market in Africa, endless and colorful Mercato. The documentary "Market Economy" observes 5 a working day of 5 ordinary people in one of the poorest countries of the world where even filming was an extraordinary challenge. 


Gallery: Premiere of the television documentaries "Our World":
You can watch the documentary “Estonian Village in Ghana
and the documentary "Market Economy" http://etv.err.ee/v/da4f0221-3d46-4431-9314-facb38e4f243

Premiere of the documentary “Market Economy”

ERR together with Mondo and the film-makers writer Kristo Elias, director Mihkel Ulk and cinematographer Madis Reimund organised public screening to the documentary.


On 29th October 2016 the documentary “Market Economy” was premiered in Artis cinema in Tallinn - 155 persons participating.


Briefly about the film:
Abebe and Ashenafi are usual 10-year-old boys who were sent by their parents to Addis Abeba, the capital of Ethiopia, to work as boot polishers to prevent their families from starving.


They work every day on the streets to earn a living and to help their parents. You could see that they are among the lowest members of society and they do not have a chance to break out of it.


Abtu is an orphan and a hot blooded errand boy and work is the last thing he wants to think about.

Bertukan is a mother of three who carries heavy loads to make some money.
Another very interesting group of people were wood carrying ladies, who gather eucalyptus branches in the mountains surrounding the city and from state forest and carry their heavy loads to Addis Ababa wood market. It is physically very hard work, which would be challenging even to men. Besides carrying wood they raise their children and in the meantime breastfeed their infants. The sights we saw were very sad and unjust as many life situations in Ethiopia are today.


Mulugeta is a well-educated tourist guide who is above all others thanks to knowing the English language.
All these Ethiopians are united by the biggest market in Africa, endless and colorful Mercato. The documentary "Market Economy" observes 5 a working day of 5 ordinary people in one of the poorest countries of the world where even filming was an extraordinary challenge.

The documentary "Market Economy" in cinema Artis gallery: