A multimedia initiative at the BBC is aimed at generating content from rural audiences in Nigeria.
BBC Hausa calls the project “Your News in Your Palms.”
“Listeners in six Northern Nigerian villages will be using the mobile phones provided to them by BBC Hausa to send to a dedicated BBC Hausa phone number their views and reports about themselves and developments in their communities,” the organization stated.
“The initiative also encourages them to use the BBC Hausa mobile phones to send pictures to the BBC. A selection of these images will be published on the BBC Hausa Web site and the BBC Hausa page on the social networking site, Facebook.”
Organizers hope to expand the initiative beyond the original northern villages to more of Northern Nigeria, Niger and the Hausa-speaking areas of Northern Cameroon and Northern Ghana. Executive Jamilah Tangaza stated in the announcement, “There has been a technological as well as a cultural shift in the way our audiences get and share their news.”
