Blog Mentoring Project: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia.

A friend referred me to netsquared.org where I read about the Blog Mentoring Project. It is described thus:

Interested in developing the worldwide blogosphere? Like working with young people?We are looking for bloggers from around the world to be a blogging mentor for 1 week sometime in February, March, April or May 2006.The project, Young Caucasus Women, is a group blog for young women from the Caucasus region (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia). The young women will be given a topic to blog on each week, although they are welcome to blog on any topic throughout the week.We need bloggers to blog on a specific topic on Sunday, hence inspiring the young women's blog entries. The topic and week need to be determined at least month in advance.Then throughout the week, the adult mentor blogger would need to comment on the young women's blog postings.THAT'S IT - simple, yet a project with a lot of impact.You don't need any background in the region. Just be culturally sensitive, have a topic that would be of interest to international young women and have a blog. We'd love to have English language bloggers from around the world.

Background:
There are almost NO blogs written by national individuals living IN-COUNTRY in the Caucasus. Generally blogs are written by ex-pats or diasporas. The students participating in this project are high school aged foreign exchange students currently in the US. The hope is that they will continue blogging once they return home in the summer of 2006.

The immediate aims of the project are:
To highlight the similarities and learn about the differences between young women in these neighboring countries.
To promote citizen journalism in developing countries as an alternative to mainstream media.
To promote weblogs as a method of democratic expression.
To expose young women to journalism and technology.

Interested or know someone who is? Contact katy (at) katypearce (dot) org for more information.

That's as much as I know about it, but I'm definitely interested and have emailed Katy Pearce at that address. It sounds a fantastic idea, a really interesting and definitely worthwhile project.

Getting young women's voices heard is so vital and I can't wait to hear what these young women have to say!

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