VOA and Citizen Global Elevating Voices in the Congo, around the World
Voice of America has joined forces with Citizen Global, a cloud-based multimedia platform that provides easy tools for citizens around the world to contribute to and engage with VOA’s journalistic mission.
The public-private partnership between VOA and Citizen Global enhances VOA’s award-winning journalism with content generated by users online and on their mobile phones. The Citizen Global platform provides a suite of easy-to-use editing tools, allowing people in all corners of the globe to collaborate with each other on multimedia projects. Audiences around the world can become part of the conversation.
For an idea of how this works, check out the video below. In it, you will see a demo of VOA’s Congo Story, a project that takes on the massive epidemic of sexual violence in war-torn Congo.
With the Citizen Global platform, the Voice of America can host a vibrant conversation un-limited by geography: for example, NGOs working on these issues will have a place to upload media that describes their work (a number of NGOs working in Congo such as the Enough Project have already participated). Crowd sourcing, the use of social media and the responses of ordinary people will result in a wider dialogue about Congo’s crisis if not wider understanding and even action.