Introduction

Rongo University College, though initially a middle level College for technical training, became a University College in 2012. It is located in Southern Nyanza, Migori County within the sugar Belt and Gold rich zone along the Kisii – Sirare road and near fishing areas along Lake Victoria.

It has six Schools, with a total population of 3146 students. One of the Schools – The School of Information, Communication and Media Studies (INFOCOMS), has been charged with developing degree programmes that embrace the technological world of information network. The programmes are market oriented and  tailored to meet international standards. It is also developing opportunities for collaborative research activities in which ICTs are used for development in communities in Migori County.

Indeed research oriented initiatives form key to our Rongo-Brighton Collaboration. For this purpose our School today is making strides in installing media resources for providing hands-on skills training for students – the skills vital for the success of this collaboration.

Why the Collaboration

The strength of any university today lies in its links with other universities worldwide for collaborative research, staff and student exchange, and industrial linkages. And for our purpose, Rongo University College, being an institution built deep into rural setting, is proud to have developed collaboration with Brighton University, a university of high repute for its media technology courses in the United Kingdom. Indeed the locale where Rongo University College is built has raised high expectation among the communities of how the university college can transform their socio-economic wellbeing. It is therefore imperative that technological courses s in the school should have a spill-over effect in the communities such as to fuel some economic viability.

Our university also stands to compete with other universities on performance rating. It is however, through collaborative initiatives like the one we now have with Brighton University that will give us avenues to borrow, at least for curriculum development, new courses from a well established university like Brighton. All that our school will gain in the collaboration will build upon the image of Rongo University College.

Last year in August, our students went to Nairobi and joined Brighton University students for a short stint of an inspiring four days workshop, and out of this an idea of developing a multimedia centre was mooted. Rongo University immediately took the idea seriously. The Media Studies section in our School immediately approached the university administration to kickstart the initiative by giving financial support to enable the school install some resources in the Multimedia Centre. The response was positive and the installation work is currently going on with our expectation that by the end of this year, the Centre will be adequately resourced and fully operational. The school also appreciates the donation from Brighton University towards resourcing of the Centre.

Working with the International Youth Council (IYC)

Our Rongo-Brighton collaboration is the brain child of the Chairperson – IYC Kenya, who has continued to be very instrumental in guiding the initial stages of our collaboration for developing initiatives that will reach the youth for economic viability and peace through the use of media. Since the trajectory is towards the disadvantaged communities targeting mostly the youth and women, our outreach activities and research initiatives will therefore focus on the youth along Lake Victoria.  And with this in mind, the school has identified various areas in Migori County where our activities will be based. In our discussion with the IYC chairperson, identified the following areas as the centres for our focus this year:

1. Mogori – Peace and Conflict resolution: for the youth who participate in intraethnic conflicts in Kuria district.
2. Nyandhiwa – Youth empowerment: for promoting sustainable development for the youth. This is an initiative that already has got support from the County Government, in which the county representative wants the youth to be engaged in agricultural activities to enhance their livelihood.

At present, the School already has one doctoral student researching on the intra-ethnic conflict among the Kuria communities in Migori County. His project strengthens the School’s commitment in issues affecting communities around our university college. Our undergraduate students have also shown interest in poverty situation among communities in Rongo where children and women engage in artisanal gold mining in dangerous conditions to eke a living. These students are presently writing their projects describing the conditions in these mining areas as part of their media course requirements.

This Year’s Collaboration Work.

Unlike last year when Rongo University College students joined Briton University students in Nairobi for a training workshop, this year, photography, video, audio production and editing training will be conducted in Rongo Campus. The training activities will culminate with field visits to enable our students apply what they will acquire through the training.

The visit will enable the students to see one Community Media Centre (CMC) at Nyandhiwa, where we have acquired one room equipped with ten computers. They will also visit Mogori where the Brighton university students will pay a courtesy call on the County Governor and hold a discussion on intraethic conflict reconciliation thereafter with a youth group. The Nyandhiwa CMC is expected to be eventually networked with the main multimedia centre at Rongo Campus such that expert information can be made available for the communities around Nyandhiwa. The information will focus on:

1. Peace
2. Agriculture
3. Fishing
4. Business
5.  Health related issues
6. Drug abuse

The CMCs will therefore exploit the information potential of media in driving and sustaining the activities of the communities for profitable gain and not simply boosting such activities for non-beneficial ends. A number of media resources will be used in the CMC, including photos, videos, info-graphics and other social media to reach the communities to promote sustainable development.

Conclusion

While CMCs will provide a large area for research and other outreach activities, the School intends to make use of its collaboration with Brighton University to enable it, through the use of media, to reach a significant number of youth in the County. The attempt will be to create awareness in the development activities and the use of the youth much is expected from it by the surrounding communities, therefore technological courses we develop must have potentials for profitable activities in order to positively transform their livelihoods and those of their communities.

have woken up at 6.30 and showered, I’m sitting in the garden watching the monkeys in the trees as I wait a) for breakfast and b) for the students to emerge. It’s the first serious day today. They worked hard yesterday prepping the workshops and everyone was tired by the end of the day. They get to experience daytime Nairobi traffic for the first time…not as bad as it gets but bad enough. We’ll be heading over to the UN building (security and all) for the first day of the workshop. It’s going to be a scorcher and I have to dress up for meetings with ‘important folk’ once the workshops are up and running 😦 .

I’m really looking forward to see how the guys deal with the challenges of today……I’m sure they’ll be posting later on full of themselves 🙂

Today we planned our agenda for tomorrow, saturday and sunday. We decided on day one to begin with some ice breakers and introductions so we could teach them in an informal and fun way. Our ice breaker is “what makes you happy” we will throw a ball around and ask the question so we can get to know each other better. We will then get into smaller groups in order to mind map, storyboard and teach them more about types of shoots as well as roles. Then we will teach them about the equipment and b-roll. We will end tommorrows session with them talking about 5 potential interview questions, this will help them figure out how their film will flow. I am exited to get to know all of the students and watch them learn our skills.

After flying into Zurich airport everyone was on a high, I couldn’t wait to grab some food and get some alcohol, that wet down the pan when everything was closed! The 12 hour stopover wasn’t as bad as I thought, time was pasted by circus performance, storytelling and drinking games- minus the drink. The plane was great, loads of food, drink and movies to go around. After cramming into a mini-bus we arrived at the campsite, it’s better than I imagined. After drinking in the garden and then wrestling with the mosquito nets I finally got to sleep.

Today as a group we drafted up agendas for both the video and audio workshops in preparation for the community based training workshops happening in the UN building tomorrow. Preparing the audio workshop was not as straightforward as I would have liked. Firstly I couldn’t switch on the dictaphones, (which by the way need batteries to be operated!) after that hurdle I couldn’t grasp how to construct a storyboard for audio. This made me apprehensive as I wanted to be succinct in helping with the storyboards tomorrow. I finally grasped this. For the second half of today I’ve spent a bulk of time- with Angela- going over the audacity software. We created a short podcast, edited it to make sure we knew the ins and outs of it. This practice was best to learn as ive become more confident in using the software.

the journey to Kenya was a rocky one. After 15 hours waiting for our connection flight from Zurich to Nairobi the charitable gestures started early after a woman fell down down the escalator and I jumped into action by pressing the stop button and helping her back up. I then also had some hardships on the plane as Taylor (who isn’t vegetarian) took the last vegetarian meal on the plane resulting with me having to just eat my second cheese and bread meal of the day. We finally arrived at the campsite where we relaxed for the rest of the evening at the pub on the site I also did my second heroic deed of the day by getting a gecko out of the bedroom. The second day of Kenya we got straight into work after breakfast, after a few hours we had managed to create a plan of what we were going to teach the students tomorrow at the United Nations building in Nairobi. When Peter came back from his coffee date in town we carried on with our plan, finalising what we wanted to do tomorrow we decided to leave the compound to explore the local supermarket, And here we are now deciding wether to have a communal nap or not.

Out of any airport to be spending a few hours in order to catch a transfer flight, Zurich airport appears like one of the most glamourous locations. This illusion was quickly shattered however when we realized that all the shops, bars, resteraunts (including Burger King)  shut very soon after our arrival and that we would be spending the night hungry on uncomfortable seats in an airport lounge. After the initial few hours were spent using the wide space hula hopping, doing yoga and telling each other our most intimate secrets, the hours following that were filled with frustration and moans about our lack of sleep and the discomfort caused by the waiting lounge. Regardless, we made it onto the plane where Swiss Air provided an excellent service with a wide selection of films and tv shows (Absolutely Fabolous!!!) and probably the best plane food I’ve ever had, and 7 hours  later we arrived in Nairobi.  We all squeezed into a very small van and  arrived at our final destination for the night, Hartebeest camphouse where we celebrated our arrival with a few cold drinks in their beautiful back garden.  The night was spent entangled in a mosquito net before we awoke early to start our day of planning. The planning process yet longwinded was also very useful as it gave us an idea of what to expect and what is expected from us. Here service-based learning is put into reality amongst our own community, for me at least, as I learnt more ways to effectively storyboard. After a trip to a Kenyan supermarket for our lunch break, we finalised tomorrows programme with Willice and are (hopefully) now all set for the workshops we will be facilitating throughout the next couple days.

We all arrived in Nairobi last night all very tired and very smelly! We had a 12 hour stop over in Switzerland which was interesting to say the least. It’s was my birthday on the day we left so when we arrived at Switzerland we ran all over the airport looking for a place to get a birthday drink. Unfortunately everywhere was ‘just closing’ even the food places. We were forced to wait around for 12 hours to catch our connecting flight, so we all sat in the airport and got to know each other a lot better. The plane journey to Nairobi was actually very nice ad I managed to get a few hours of sleep. When we all arrived we moved into our rooms and had a few drinks to wind down after the journey and then all went to bed. The real challenge of the evening was the mosquito nets! Struggling to stay under the nets while sleeping was the biggest challenge yet! We all finally got to bed with an early wake up.
We have spent day two preparing for the first workshops in the United Nations. We have spent the entire day preparing and mapping out how we are going to present the workshop to the students. It’s all really exciting and I now can’t wait to get to tomorrow and get started. Today we also had our first outing to the supermarket where I found some Romancy Cream biscuits that I always have when I visit South Africa. Everyone is very tired but excited to get everything rolling tomorrow.

We arrived in Kenya last night after a long journey. The 12 hour stop over in Switzerland felt like aaaages but we made the most of it and it was good team building! (Apart from a lot of moaning). It was so nice waking up to sunshine today 🙂 we have been planning the video and audio workshop that we are doing for the next 2 and a half days. I think it will be challenging because of the short time span but we are well organised and prepared so hopefully things will run smoothly. The assests of community-based learning have been implemented today with the planning and training each other for tomorrows workshop. I am really excited to meet the students tomorrow and find out their ideas for the documentary.