Butterfly Works

Thursday, April 15, 2010

The aim of Building Bridges is to raise awareness and reward citizens involved in peacemaking and to encourage Kenyans to start new peace building initiatives.

Just Launched: Building Bridges will recognise and reward peacemakers and peace projects across Kenya as a way of strengthening the peace building capacity of Kenyan citizens.



The campaign supports people from all backgrounds to make a change. Building Bridges, in partnership with Media Focus on Africa Foundation and Butterfly Works, is raising awareness and support for the winning initiatives and individuals through an interactive online platform www.buildingbridges.co.ke The campaign will run for three months and the winning individuals and organisations will receive cash prizes.

Building Bridges is open to all Kenyans engaged in peace building and peacemaking activities, including organising peace gatherings, community discussions, creative and sportive activities or even holding festivities and doing pro bono work to ensure peace in areas. Building Bridges is putting them all on the map and rewarding the most promising projects.

Individuals stand to win Ksh. 50,000/= and organisations can win Ksh. 100,000/= to Ksh. 150,000/= to support their peace building cause. You can register by:
Send an SMS to shortcode 5447 (on Safaricom and Zain, no extra cost) or E-mail: act@buildingbridges.co.ke or via Mail: P.O. Box 660-00606, Nairobi, Kenya
You can also follow the campaign on Twitter and become a Fan on Facebook






Prizes
All registered peace initiatives will be recognised and have their efforts promoted on our online mapping platform. In addition, a jury will select the winners of our cash prizes. Building Bridges offers three cash prize awards. The results of the competition will be publicised through an advert in The Standard newspaper, and winners will receive their prizes during a prize-giving event in Nairobi.

Building Bridges: The Mapping Tool
The campaign website provides various ways of linking individuals and organisations. The mapping tool gives an overview of Registered Peace Building Activities throughout the country. It makes use of Ushahidi’s crowd-sourcing information system. The search functionality includes selection on location, fields of expertise and type of activity. Through ‘Yellow Pages’ one can find the contact details of professional operating organisations for information or assistance.

Promotion & Timelines
The campaign will launch on April 12th with a promotional advertisement in The Standard newspaper. Registration will run for three months, after which the jury will select the winners. Print material and existing Radio and TV programmes are used to promote the campaign, notably the soap opera series ‘The Team’ on Citizen TV (http://www.theteamkenya.com) and the ‘Sambaza Peace’ project 20,000 flyers and 2,000 posters will be distributed throughout the country through partner organisations. People who find it difficult to participate due to e.g. illiteracy or limited access to media will be assisted by facilitators from NairoBits

Blogs
Thanks to the Afrinnovator, Ushahidi, TechMasai and Moses Kemibaro blogs for covering the Campaign and helping spread the word:

Previously we implemented the ‘Unsung Peace Heroes’ campaign in 2008/09 aimed at identifying and recognizing those who played a positive role during and immediately after the post elections chaos in Kenya http://peaceheroes.ushahidi.com






For more information online: http://buildingbridges.co.ke