Circumspecte

The current wave of African storytelling is largely driven by access to social media and citizen journalists who literally break the news as it happens. But there's still a lot of content yet to be created - especially in Ghana, Africa. BloggingGhana  has been at the forefront of social media and citizen journalism in Ghana since it's inception in 2009 by a group of 8 friends. Now, the organization has hundreds of active members who contribute to news, information on Ghana, Africa, from the ground up. After five years of meeting and working in cafes, auditoriums, schools, and so on, BloGH is finally coming home. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to BloGHome. With the launch of its #MoreStories fundraising drive, BloGH hopes to raise $10,000 to furnish its newly procured office in Accra (see below). Per it's Indiegogo fundraising page , BloGHome will include a training area for training students, civil society, government actors and organizations on using social media ...

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the African Union - formerly the Organization for African Unity - and while much of the attention might have been on the Chinese-built AU headquarters in Addis Ababa where Africa's leaders gathered for the AU Summit, there was certainly a lot of coffee shop talk in Cyberville as well. One of the many discussions I participated in yesterday was the Africa on the Blog Chat (#AOTBChat) on Twitter which questioned the AU's relevance today. The AU also updated its Facebook page with a reference to a tweet by George Ayittey - the Ghanaian economist of Cheetahs vs. Hippos fame who is very outspoken regarding his opinion of Africa's leaders: "Name one crisis the African Union has been able to resolve in the past decade. Scratching your head? Always appealing to the int'l community" - George Ayittey's tweet from May 18.

So I just finished voting in Ghana's first social media awards - an initiative of BloggingGhana - and I must say, it was such a tough decision. But that's a good thing. It means there's a ton of great content out there! What's more, I found out about some blogs I never knew existed and of course I immediately followed their owners via twitter. Congratulations to all participating blogs! Also, Circumspecte.com (Yes, this blog!) is a finalist under the "Best Citizen Journalism Blog" category. I've never actually described myself or this blog as "citizen journalism", so it's really humbling to be considered as such. Why? Because it means that all this writing - something I simply enjoy doing - counts for something. That in itself is enough. Thanks to all who've read, written to me, challenged, supported and egged me on. You can vote till March 8 at www.blogcampghana.com/voting  I couldn't have wished to be in better company....

Originally published on the blog Women Change Africa -- As the Ghana elections get closer, we thought it would be great to hear from one of our fabulous, smart and beautiful friends of WCA Ms. Jemila Abdulai. Jemila is a woman who is  definitely changing Africa. Amongst her many hats she wears, Jemila is a attaining her Masters in International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University, owns and operates a very highly read blog titled Circumspecte which focuses on various issues in Africa, and of course is part of the Ghana Decides team working to help engage youth in Ghana to get involved and vote pre and during elections.  We hope you enjoy and learn about Ghana's elections and women, and be inspired the way we were with Ms. Abdulai. Enjoy!   Like its predecessors, this election is important for young Ghanaian women. The obvious reason is that women form the majority of Ghanaian society and being excluded from the political process could result in polici...

Hi guys! This is a quick update on a campaign I've been helping Ghana Decides with for Ghana's upcoming December elections. It's called the Ghana Decides Tag - modeled after the actual game of tag and the "Ghana Tag" series on Youtube - and basically it's an opportunity for Ghanaians - at home and abroad - to share their views on what's important for them this election year. All you have to do is download the How-To guide from Ghana Decides , record yourself on video answering about five questions - and post the video online via youtube, facebook, twitter etc while tagging some of your friends to do their own videos! Camera shy? Do it with a group of friends or make an audio recording instead! The best part? You have full creative liberation! Just make sure to include the hashtags #GHDTag and #GhanaDecides and also cc @GhanaDecides so it's added to the GHDTag video playlist. I won't ramble on. Click here for a full description of t...

If you're an 18+ Ghanaian citizen currently living/studying/working abroad, kindly take a moment to complete this survey on Ghana Election 2012 and the Diasporan Ghanaian. Thanks :) -- Dear Fellow Ghanaian, So you probably heard about the GhanaDecides and iRegistered campaigns that BloggingGhana launched recently in partnership with STAR-Ghana . No? Well, you best get acquainted quick! It's the hottest thing in town,even Mashable.com picked up on it. Good thing I'm here to give you all the juicy details and some :) With the world gradually accepting the fact that tweets, hashtag events and Facebook are here to stay, many have found interesting and innovative ways to use social media, even in the political arena. The Obama '08 Presidential campaign, the Arab Spring and Senegal's #sunu2012 movement and elections are but some of the many ways that social media has contributed to political change. Now it's Ghana's turn. Come December 2012, Ghana w...

So. I normally don't write posts on all these social media tools and networks, because I can barely keep up. But Google has just unveiled it's latest competitor to Twitter and Facebook: Google Buzz ! Been trying it out, and I like it. One thing about Google is they always seem to look at convenience. Put chat in email, and everyone's signing up. Come up with your own version of twitter and put it in email ... and what? Everyone's signing up. I don't know what happened with Google Wave , but everything else seems to catch on. I've been saying this for a long time, and I will say it again. Google is taking over. Now with Buzz, here are some things I'm wondering about: - How will it affect Twitter...and to a lesser degree Facebook? - What will employers think about Google Buzz? More distraction for workers? - Will the productivity level of employees soar or reduce? - What about misdirected information...you know how you send an email to everyone in you...

Finally, finally, finally. I brought my notepad home with all the juicy info from an event I went to a couple of weeks ago: "Media as a Global Diplomat II: New Findings on the Science of Media and Conflict". It was organized by the US Institute of Peace, and boy, was it a blockbuster event! Great and inspiring people like Al-Jazeerah's Riz Khan (formerly of the BBC) and Jordan's Queen Noor were present, as were a whole bunch of amazing individuals. I really enjoyed the event cos I'm all about policy and media, and at one point in my life I figured I'd be a psychologist (until I had to take psych 100 at 8am and chickened out.) So anyways. Details. Essentially, some researchers from MIT (Rebecca Saxe, a neuroscientist), Harvard (Dean Jay Winsten) as well as media personnel like Riz Khan (Al-Jazeerah) and Michael Medavoy (a Hollywood film maker) spoke about how media influences global diplomacy and conflict. The researchers presented their findings on the ...