
A one-day workshop on Social Media for Empowerment was organised by Digital Empowerment Foundation in partnership with Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) and in collaboration with a local NGO, Hutto Welfare Society, on 6th October, 2015 at Hotel PYBSS, Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh.
The workshop witnessed a good number of students, professionals in the private and Govt. sectors, media representatives and senior citizens. Attending the workshop as special Guest was Mrs. Jarjum Ete, a social activist. She expressed her enthusiasm about networking with people on social media and highlighted the importance of using social media in the right way. She also opined that communication on Social Media with unclear messages can lead to miscommunication at times and thus, appealed to the crowd to be responsible individuals while using social media.
Programme Coordinator, South Asia, Mr. Subodh Aggarwal, spoke about the activities of FNF and mentioned that with similar workshops and programmes like this, we can exchange positive ideas for economic cooperation, human rights and good governance.
Miss Higio Zarngam, Executive Member at Hutto Welfare Society shared about the Government’s perspective with regards to Social Media in Arunachal Pradesh. This was followed by an interactive session on Basics of Social Media facilitated by Miss Avesta Choudhary, Communications Officer, Digital Empowerment Foundation.
As a representative from YouthNet, Nagaland, Nune Chase ,talked about Social Media for Empowerment Workshop held on 31st March, 2015, in Kohima. As a result of the workshop, YoutNet started a campaign called H2O- a rain water harvesting project to help create a sustainable mode of development to counter water scarcity issue in Kohima. She also spoke about how YouthNet is promoting “ONE INDIA STRONG INDIA”, a campaign to build an India of friendship, peace and tolerance, and make hatred and racism history. With more than 13 thousand supporters on Facebook across the country, she suggested collaboration with the delegates in the workshop to promote this campaign in Arunachal Pradesh.
Mr. Sunny Sharma, Founder of Foetron, shared on the Best Practices in Social Media. He encouraged the audience to come together and share ideas for the development of the state. He mentioned that lack of infrastructure or government schemes should not stop us from initiating projects or programs.
Miss Milo Ankha, candidly shared how blogging and Instagram helped her find her identity when she was at a crossroad. Then we had a riveting session on Social Media and Entrepreneurship by Mr. Rishabh Chandra, founder of Script Technology. He showed how the private sector/entrepreneurs can benefit by using Social Media to promote businesses in a cost effective way.