18/11

The winners of WSYA '11 - Create Your Culture

The 4th category in the WSYA is "Create Your Culture" and here are the winner projects 2011:

Create Your Culture

Mashallah News
Mashallah News is a novel platform to cover major cities between the Moroccan coast and the Iranian shores, featuring collective, independent, grass-root, dynamic and cross-cultural approaches.

The website was launched in November 2010 with an initial coverage of six main cities in the region, and now covers fourteen different capitals and major urban areas. It is run by a collective of young journalists, graphic designers, photographers, and translators who come from diverse backgrounds and are either born in the region or chose to make it their home. In contrast to mainstream news coverage of the Middle East which is largely focused on geopolitics, war, conflict and international power politics, thus creating a too narrow and false conception of everyday life, Mashallah News offers a different picture which enriches and challenges prevailing images.
Mashallah News aims to display what is playfully called disOriented information about urban life in places like Istanbul, Jeddah, Cairo, Tehran, Ramallah, Beirut and beyond, in stories that have important societal implications. The website covers items such as unexpected social phenomena, original personal stories, reports from marginal areas and interviews with creative and subversive minds. Run by a core team of four editors and one graphic designer, as well as teams of contributors from across the region, Mashallah News gathers people with diverse experiences and skills in the fields of journalism, photography, research, art, and graphic design to share less-told stories and inspiring work from a region in transformation. Creative get-togethers, workshops and a print version with ‘the best of’ stories are in the works, to extend the emerging alternative public sphere even further.

Website:http://mashallahnews.com/
Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mashallah-News/206408106074243

Play My Jamz
Playmyjamz is a web application to strategically promote less privileged artists and their songs for free in the ever-changing and sometimes ruthless music industry. It encourages the upcoming artist to be focused and stay away from crime. Structural disadvantages, poverty and corruption make it virtually impossible for anyone with talent who has successfully recorded songs to promote these songs. The Playmyjamz application allows users to upload their favourite songs from the site, together with the musician’s profile and pictures, so that people can get to know them. Musicians invite their families and friends, together with the online base community, to nominate their songs for special recognition. The top nominated artists are interviewed in a free monthly magazine and on the radio.

Website:http://www.playmyjamz.com/
Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/pages/Play-my-Jamz/272970884299

The Global Experience
The Global Experience is a non-governmental organization and worldwide community dedicated to promote intercultural understanding. The network acts globally by giving people a platform for intercultural exchange and local initiatives supporting various educational, environmental and developmental projects in partner countries.Starting with a group of five students in Germany in 2005, The Global Experience works today with an international staff of 44 young volunteers in 17 nations. Moreover, local student groups in Colombia, Poland, Vietnam, Namibia, Belgium and Zimbabwe have worked in schools to promote intercultural learning and give young people access to global learning material by using new media. Making new friends and sharing ideas or getting feedback when working on common projects is part of the specific appeal of the network, as well as gaining insights into the influence of media or stereotypes that do not represent the life of other cultures. Several thousand registered members from over 150 countries use the The Global Experience opens forum to share insights about daily life and their local cultures with photo and video reports. The forum provides members with a unique opportunity to get to know the world from another perspective just one click away. Importantly, regardless of age, gender, color, or culture – each participant is both a student and a teacher.

Website:http://www.theglobalexperience.org/