#PEACEHACKCAMP PROGRAM

Day 2: Don’t Worry, Be Scrappy!

The second day of the #PeaceHackCamp, 1 December, is when we start the hands-on activities. Everyone is welcome to become a #PeaceHackCamper!

09.00 – 10.00 Tea & Coffee welcome
10.00 – 10.30 Programme Introduction with live song ‘Crying for Peace’, directed by Otim Francis
10.30 – 13.00 #PeaceHackCamp Workshops in Women’s Union Halls

Parallel activities take place at the Women’s Union:

Holistic Women’s Empowerment 3-day workshop continues with Kudzai M Mubaiwa (Zimbabwe).

All the details are below.

Image by the r0g Agency, CC-by-SA 2.0

Open ICT for Agriculture and Community Empowerment

Using mobile phones to create Community Knowledge Bases is what this workshop will focus on. The #PeaceHackCamp welcomes Saidi Suleyman Hamza from Tanzania who will introduce the Sauti ya Wakulima (The voice of the farmers) app, based on an open source Android app called ojoVoz. The goal of this session is to learn to use and adapt this exciting mobile phone app in practice with local farming communities.

Saidi Suleyman Hamza explains:

Sauti ya Wakulima (The voice of the farmers) is a collaborative knowledge base created by farmers from the Chambezi region of the Bagamoyo District in Tanzania by gathering audiovisual evidence of their practices using smartphones to publish images and voice recordings on the Internet. Using a laptop computer and a 3G Internet connection to view images and hear voice recordings posted during the week, the farmers also pass the two available smartphones on to other participants, turning the phones into shared tools for communication. The smartphones are equipped with GPS modules and ojoVoz application, making it easy to send pictures and sounds to the Internet.

The farmers at Chambezi use these to document their daily practices, make reports about their observations regarding changes in climate and related issues, and interview other farmers, expanding their network of social relationships. The farmers struggle with insufficient infrastructure and unreliable markets for their products, facing the challenges of a changing local climate. However, they know that by sharing their knowledge on how to cope with these problems, they can become stronger and find ways to overcome them. They hope that, by communicating their observations they can participate in the design of new strategies for adaptation.

In addition, Open ICT in Agriculture (ICT4Ag) in South Sudan activities will take place, led by Amule Lupai (Yei) and Manyang Malook (Kuajok). Our guest from Kenya, Mugethi Gitau, will introduce ICT4Ag approaches. These revolve around the broad use of mobile phones and means to improving food security through individual practice.

Be sure to sign up on the schedule and to join us!

Code4All: Learning about coding, for everyone curious!

What is coding? Youth, educators and everyone curious is welcome to learn about Scratch, Afrimakers and working with sound with Lual Michael Mayen (Juba), peace coders, Ahmed Bastawy (icealex, Egypt) and Daryl Lukas (MakerHut, Zambia) and Juba University Students Coding and Apps with Eva Yayi Mawa (Juba).

Anyone can become an inventor and maker regardless of educational background or status. Creativity, ideas and a willingness to learn are all you need to get started. Come and learn how to invent your solutions to the challenges you face.

Media, Open Knowledge and Hands-On Making

This workshop has two main components: the Wikipedia capacity building one and the solar DIY panel building. Don’t forget to sign up and join us!

The South Sudan Wikipedia Peace Agents workshop aims to introduce Wikipedia, the world’s biggest free and open knowledge resource, to South Sudanese. The workshop will seek to address how Wikipedia can be used as an agent of peacebuilding. The Wikipedia Peace Agents is an open session for all interested to learn more about Wikipedia and how participants can use it to enlighten and empower themselves, their friends, families and communities. Participants will look at the potential of Wikipedia in conflicting resolution and literacy development, encouraging people to use it as a tool for peacebuilding especially amongst youth in South Sudan. It aims to raise critical and progressive development issues about South Sudan, encouraging citizens to start an initiative to build the first ‘SUSApedia’ open educational resource in the history of South Sudan.

After getting started, the facilitators will introduce Wikipedia and seek to brainstorm with participants on the way they see this support. Then, a more thorough exploration will follow, and participants will learn how it works. A particular focus will be on what Wikipedia can do for teachers and students or how we can develop Wikipedia pages for schools. Cultural differences in collaborative writing will also be addressed. The outcome is to introduce the Wikipedia Peace Agents initiative, those who are interested in creating and edit materials, articles or books published about South Sudan for more relevant and accurate information worldwide!

The Mobile Phone Solar Charger hands-on workshop with Timm Wille from Open Source Ecology will show how to build a simple solar power phone charger. Timm explains:

During the workshop, we will answer the following question: How can we enable ourselves to build peace, discover new abilities and share that knowledge with other people? With some new principals and a concrete example, we are going to explore the possibilities of sharing knowledge for free and building an own solar power station for charging mobile phones while the sun is shining. Bring your friends, some motivation to learn new stuff and if you can find some old broken electronics (especially old DVD players).

*Open Source Ecology: An organisation that is developing and building technologies and communities for a new way of economy. Sharing all processes and instructions for free and in a transparent way (Open Source) in order to help people to cooperate on DIY structures, production and innovation.

**Sustainable: Living and produce in a way, that all resources are managed circular in order to enable long-lasting and renewable solutions for multiple generations. Respect nature and the resources we’ve got.

6:00 – 9:00 pm Evening activities at the Aggrey Jaden Cultural Center

Day 3: Learn to code, #defyhatenow & education

All good things come to an end… Today is the last day of this year’s edition of the #PeaceHackCamp. Here’s what to expect!

Parallel activities take place at the Women’s Union:

09.00 – 10.00 Tea & Coffee and #PeaceHackCamp welcome with video ‘Where is Peace’ directed by Mawa Robert and Salaam Game (Android peace app) intro by Lual Michael Mayen

Holistic Women’s Empowerment 3-day workshop concludes with Kudzai M Mubaiwa (Zimbabwe).

10.00 – 17.30 Workshops continue parallel:

South Sudan Peace Code-a-thon

Curated by Lual Michael Mayen at the Code Room, the code-a-thon aims to gather South Sudanese coders harnessing ICTs for Peacebuilding solutions for all levels of mobile phone users, in all languages and across communities.

#defyhatenow! Social Media and Combating Online Violence in South Sudan

By James Bidal (CEPO, Juba) with Aphrodice Mutangana (Kigali) in the Main Hall

What is ‘social media’ and how is it used to bring people together? What happens when it becomes a channel for hate and intolerance – increasing conflict in countries such as South Sudan? How can people take action to stop hate speech using the medium for peace and innovation? James Bidal, author of the CEPO study on Twitter use in South Sudan joins social entrepreneur Aphrodice Mutangana from Rwanda to introduce what social media is and how it affects people who are online as well as those who have never used a computer. They will discuss how it is used to construct creative relationships, or how is can also destroy fragile communities anywhere. They will suggest some solutions from their practice about how all people can engage and benefit positively from using social media, and how anyone can #defyhatenow.

Image by Kapital Movie

Open Educational Resources: Mobile and Open ICT in Teacher Training 

Empowering Teachers Through ICTs for Peacebuilding in South Sudan, with Viola Abango (Wau) and Martín Restrepo (Medellin, Colombia) at the Maker Shop:

This hands-on workshop aims to raise the awareness about building the capacities of young people, teachers, community leaders and storytellers as agents for peace-building. It explores the connection between stories, basic technologies and the real world of an independent South Sudan – for the benefit of creating new forms of education development. We will look at co-creating open educational resources, using the methodology called ‘NARRATHON’, by ‘Editacuja Transmedia’ from Latin America and introducing the research of Viola Abango (Bahr el Ghazal University, Wau), on the role of Open ICT on teacher training in Post-conflict regions. How can these methodologies work in South Sudan? The workshop has 3 levels:

  1. DISCOVERY: what are Open Educational Resources and exploring their potential in South Sudan
  2. EXPERIMENT:  to know more about how OERs can be tools for peacebuilding/ How can this work
  3. INVENTION: participants will co-create their own learning experiences!

Last but not least, a special session of planting for peace will take place, supported by the Aggrey Jaden Cultural Centre, with Dina Doki and William Deng Koor. They explain:

Our Nation spends a considerable amount of planning for war as means to solve a conflict. We believe it is more effective to plan for peace in South Sudan. Planting for Peace is a programmed to support more informed and effective policies on peace/security and stability. Our project supports the capacity of civil society across the country to analyse and plan for issues related to peace or engage in more constructed discussion with decision makers. We plants for peace to ensure national security in each region of south Sudan. This is a needed capability for today to ensure the future of  our nation. Key Aims: Establishing peace through training farmers to produce enough crops in all regions of South Sudan. To eradicate poverty in all regions of South Sudan.

6:00 – 9:00 pm Evening activities at the Aggrey Jaden Cultural Center

Evenings Get Together

Every evening during the #PeaceHackCamp, we will gather at the Aggrey Jaden Culture Centre.

Check the evening programme out and join us!

Monday 30th November 2015

18:00 – 21:00 #PeaceHackCamp Meet & Greet for all participants
Welcome by Ras Lojuron Jaden, founder of Aggrey Jaden Cultural Center
Special guest performance Ni Sisi ‘it’s us’ a youth peace anthem penned to help stem violence in the run-up to Kenya’s elections, by Calvince Ochieng (Kibera)

Tuesday 1st December 2015

18.00 – 19.30 South Sudan Peacebuilder Pecha Kucha* hosts Kapital / Aggrey Jaden
featuring leading South Sudanese innovators including:

  • Youth Peacemaker Network (Whitaker Peace Foundation) David Dagu
  • UNESCO Youth Mobile Apps Project with Lydia Gachungi
  • CNHPR Peace Mobilizers with Peter Kuot
  • Confident Children out of Conflict
  • INTERNEWS, Rafiq Copeland
  • Planting for Peace, Deng Koor (Wau)
  • Sawa Shabab – Dut Peter
  • UNFAO

19.30 – 21.00 Aggrey Jaden Lion Band with Cesar Mayen, Bosco, Asef Kafi, Madit Acamrap

Wednesday, 2nd December 2015

18:30 – 21:00 Acts for Peace Concerts and tree tagging

3 Days to Empower Women

Throughout the whole #PeaceHackCamp, a dedicated Holistic Women’s Empowerment workshop will take place led by Kudzai M. Mubaiwa, a guest from Zimbabwe. The three-day workshop embraces technology, peacebuilding and economic empowerment for women of all ages:

The Holistic Women’s Empowerment Workshop uses participatory activities that seek to inspire, motivate and educate women for their entire well-being. The workshop assists women in finding common ground appealing to personal and community aspirations and enables women to see the greater good by merging enterprise development, digital tools and community peacebuilding aspects into one.

Drawing on women’s ability to build communities by recognizing their skills, acquiring new skills and teaching others to enable empowerment and build networks in their communities. Using new media and social technologies, there is a focus on sharing role models and discussing examples from the participants, to facilitate group dynamics and economic development as essential aspects of peacebuilding. Everything in the workshop will be replicable in the women’s own spaces and communities. Mechanisms for tracking progress and staying accountable are included.

All activities will take place at the Women’s Union, starting at 1 pm and ending at 5 pm:

Holistic Women's Empowerment Workshop Sched.

Check out the schedule for details!

The #PeaceHackCamp Starts Today!

The #PeaceHackCamp is officially starting today. Here are the details to guide you in today’s activities. Sign in the schedule to tell us you are coming!

Daytime Venue: Central Equatoria Women’s Union (Hai Neem)

12:00 pm #PeaceHackCamp Doors Open: Tea and Snack welcome featuring the Bright Star dancers!

1:00 pm Official Opening: introductory remarks by Lagu Stephen Samuel (#PeaceHackCamp director), Deborah Ensor (Chief of Staff, Internews South Sudan), Ambassador Johannes Lehne (Federal Republic of Germany), Ambassador Mary Catherine Phee (United States of America), Live song performance ‘Crying for Peace’, directed by Otim Francis, Hon. Minister Rebecca Joshua Okwaci (Telecommunications and Postal Services, Republic of South Sudan)

2:00 pm ICT & Video Activism graduates Mbisimo Emmanuel and Evelyne Otto presenting:

  • video ‘Where is Peace’ (10 min), directed by Emmanuel Lobijo;
  • poem ‘Good Sanitation’ by Galea Jennifer;
  • poem Hungry for Peace’ by John Bior Ajang.

(Learn more about the artists)

3:00-5:30 pm Democratic Peace Forum

The Democratic Peace Forum brings ambassadors, representatives of fairly stable African Countries such as Kenya, Ghana, (post-genocide) Rwanda, Tanzania and stakeholders from South Sudan for a dialogue on what favours peace and stability in those countries. Chaired by Prof. Nelson Leben Moro, the panel will seek to answer some of these questions: Are there social and cultural factors that help support peace? How do people perceive peace in post-conflict countries where stability has been achieved? What is, and how does good governance secure stability?

Chair: Prof. Leben Nelson Moro, moderation: Edmund Yakani (CEPO)
Panellists: Martin Restrepo (Colombia), Fr. J. Ukumu (Uganda), Aphrodice Mutangana (Rwanda), Elvis Chi Nwosu (Norway)

6:00 – 9:00 pm Evening activities at the Aggrey Jaden Cultural Center

Activities during the #PeaceHackCamp, day 0, at the Aggrey Jaden Culture Centre. Image by K. Lado
Activities during the #PeaceHackCamp, day 0, at the Aggrey Jaden Culture Centre. Image by K. Lado

(Find even more details on the schedule!)

The Aggrey Jaden Culture Centre

Peace through arts, peace through technology, peace through innovations: this is what the Aggrey Jaden Culture and Cinema Centre works towards. The Centre is named after Aggrey Jaden, a politician known as an early promoter of an independent South Sudan.

Welcome! Credit: the Centre

In the run-up to the #PeaceHackCamp, the Aggrey Jaden Centre team has been hard at work preparing the place for the first ever such event in South Sudan, efforts that the whole team is extremely grateful for:

Preparing the Aggrey Jaden Culture Center for the #PeaceHackCamp 2015. Photo credit: Hakim George.
Preparing the Aggrey Jaden Culture Centre for the #PeaceHackCamp 2015. Photo credit: Hakim George.

During the #PeaceHackCamp 2015, the Aggrey Jaden Culture Centre will host a wide range of diverse activities featuring live song performance, Pecha Kucha demonstrations, and many others. Check out the schedule and let us know that you are joining us!

Visit and ‘Like’ the Centre’s Facebook page to follow up with their updates!

Coming to Aggrey Jaden is easy: refer to the map below. The programme of all evening activities is also available: Evening Get Together.

aggrey_jaden_map

The Women’s Union

The Women’s Union is the #PeaceHackCamp daytime venue.

Image by r0g_agency on Flickr, CC-by-SA 2.0

This is where the major part of the activities will take place: read more about them and make sure to attend the 3-day Holistic Women’s Empowerment Workshop!

Coming to the Central Equatoria Women’s Union is easy: have a look at the map below (click the image to view full size).

CEWU_map

Getting the #PeaceHackCamp message out

Held on 17 Nov 2015, the press conference gathered a range of journalists from mainstream and citizen media to introduce them to the idea of hacking for peace.

The press conference opened with a welcome by Kapital Movie’s public relations officer, Akwero Lily. Former and current graduates followed with their ICT stories. Also, staff from the Aggrey Jaden Cultural Center joined: as you have certainly seen it on our schedule, all #PeaceHackCamp evening gatherings happen at the Aggrey Jaden Center. Kapital Movie’s executive director, Lagu Stephen, then detailed the upcoming program.

Couldn’t attend our press conference? Here are the highlights!