#GVMeeup in Dar es Salaam
Towards the end of last year, Swahili Lingua [1] had an opportunity to organize the first ever GV Meetup in Dar es Salaam. Hosted by KINU Innovation Hub [2], the meetup was held on November 2, 2015 from 12pm to 5:30 pm. Among the 18 lively participants were the university students, bloggers, researchers, a few technology and media personalities and people working with Non Government Organizations in Dar es Salaam.
The main agenda was to reach out and connect with potential volunteers for GV Swahili.
• Deogratias Simba [3] led a discussion on the role of citizen journalism in Tanzania which stirred a lot of interests among the participants. Interesting experiences on the situation and the use of social media to generate contents were shared.
• Constantine Manda, a blogger and a researcher at Twaweza.org [4] shared exciting strategies on creating local contents for Swahili audience. He provided an excellent link for the role played by our small growing Swahili Lingua team.
• After lunch, we were joined by our founding editor, Joe Tungaraza [5], all the way from Australia via skype. He provided background information on Global Voices –Lingua Project and pointed out why they decided to form a Swahili Lingua team back in 2008. Participants had chance to ask questions regarding the idea of Swahili Lingua.
• Zamda Ramadhani from the University of Dar es Salaam shared interesting tips on effective translation. Participants had opportunity to share their experiences on challenges they face in producing quality translations.
The Meetup ended with a conversation on how to volunteer for Global Voices –Swahili Lingua. In the end we had a few participants who were committed to start working with us.