Working on Project TOTO in Tanzania, this blogger found out that what works in the West might not be quite right for everyone.
ActionAid Australia faced a problem. After four decades of being known as Austcare, how could the organisation promote its new identity – part of ActionAid International – with a limited budget? It was decided social media was the answer.
Research showed that potential donors wanted to see where their money was going – especially given the overload of packaged messages from aid organisations and the general background of the global financial crisis.
“People wanted to see and ‘feel’ real aspects of charitable work, not dry factual reports and marketing speak,” says consultant Fi Bendall from Bendalls Group, which was engaged to manage the launch. “The strategy started to focus on a single-minded proposition, ‘Real Content from Real People’, which manifested into ‘Give Poverty a Voice’.”
The plan was to send 10 Australian bloggers across the world and have them set up blog outreach posts so people in poverty-stricken communities could tell their stories and show the value of ActionAid’s work. I was chosen as the first of these bloggers; Tanzania as the destination.
Bloggers chose the name for our venture, Project TOTO, nominally “the overseas training operation” but, of course, a reference to a certain 1980s pop song by Toto.
The goals were ambitious for just eight days in a country. Visit field projects to experience conditions first-hand and blog about them. Introduce two ActionAid International Tanzania staffers to blogging, set up their blogs and get their first posts online. Provide phone interviews and photographs for Australian media.
Accompanied by ActionAid campaigns manager Lena Aahlby, I was also to learn how Western investment in the mining industry is affecting local communities – everything from pollution and other environmental problems to simmering land rights issues and potential corruption.
Amongst all that, it was hoped that the buzz of social media would cause a surge of interest in ActionAid and, in turn, a surge in donations.
But the best laid plans, etc…
On Saturday, June 27, after a 25-hour, three-flight journey from Sydney via Bangkok and Nairobi, I arrived at Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam, and was immediately taken to a light aircraft for a fourth flight to Zanzibar, off the coast. There I discovered that PowerPoint rules the world. As a muezzin called the faithful to evening prayers at the mosque outside, I struggled through a blur of jet lag and humidity to absorb the history and bureaucratic structure of ActionAid’s work.
Sunday was for field trips to a soap-making project providing work for people living with HIV/AIDS in historic Stone Town; to a women’s clove-based craft project in Mahonda village, funded through micro-finance; and a brand new ActionAid-funded school in Kilimani village, a bare concrete shell without chairs or desks, let alone electricity, at the edge of a cluster of mud-brick huts.
Everything was carefully stage-managed; everyone was in their Sunday best. I later discovered it’s a well-rehearsed performance for visitors from donor countries, especially families visiting the children they sponsor.
Monday kicked off the training, starting off with “What is a blog?”
It progressed slowly. Every concept was new. What is a “comment”? What is “moderation”? What are “tags”? What’s the difference between “tag” used to classify a post and a “tag” in HTML? Should I even mention the word “avatar”?
Tuesday was originally scheduled for training, too, but we were offered a tour of the Australian-owned Golden Pride gold mine near Nzega in northern Tanzania – an opportunity too good to miss. We were also sent a photographer, who we’d have to collect from Mwanza, Tanzania’s second-largest city, another half-day’s drive further north on Lake Victoria.
Two days’ drive there. Two days back. It was a blur, filled with a hundred stories to tell another time.
Finally, after a marathon Saturday back in the Dar es Salaam office and a power failure lasting hours, the training was completed. Abdul Kajumulo and Albert Jimwaga’s first blog posts went live. Our work was done.
In hindsight, we tried to do too much. We’ve learnt that we need clearer aims.
Training is best done in an office, uninterrupted, with a decent internet connection. When you’re introducing blogging to a culture where previously only the country manager has been allowed to speak, it takes time to adopt to new ways. But it’s boring to blog about, let alone gain media coverage.
Writing meaningfully about a new culture requires plenty of contact time – real communication, not a quick show-and-tell – and time to reflect and write. We learnt that without advertising word spreads slowly. As consultant Laurel Papworth puts it, when it comes to social media: “Everything happens in the long tail of rippled content, rather than the short head of traditional campaign activity.”
There was no sudden burst of website traffic, no surge in donations. Importantly, we learnt that the real challenges aren’t always technical, but cultural.
The social media explosion was a consequence of always-on broadband, where bloggers could blog and commentators could comment in near real-time conversation. While Tanzania has good 3G mobile coverage across much of the country, it’s still seen as expensive. Mobile phones are everywhere, but they’re mostly used for sending SMS to arrange a meeting.
Most importantly, we were reminded that blogging, like all social media, is a conversation. So the key questions for any organisation are: “Who are you talking with?”, “What are you talking about?” and “How will you attract and build that community?”
Sydney’s plan was for the Tanzanian bloggers to speak with their Western donors. But perhaps networking aid workers with their peers in other countries and other organisations is just as valuable.
This initial trip to Tanzania planted some seeds. ActionAid is about to select the second outreach blogger, and decide their destination.
Stilgherrian is a freelance writer, broadcaster and consultant based in Sydney. His posts on Project TOTO provide more background and discussion.
