YoBloCo - Youth Blogging Competition 2013/14

The Youth Blogging Competiton for 2013/14 was launched on 8th October 2013 and the requirements were you had to have a blog which had to be updated with content over a period of 4 months with regards to Agriculture.

Some of the themes one could write on included:
Challenges, success and issues faced by Youth in agriculture and related activities;
Climate change, environmental conservation, natural resource management;
Agri-business (marketing, commercialization, processing, etc.);
Agricultural production and Food security;
Agriculture value chains and agricultural policy;
Actions, policies and strategies related to youth involvement in agriculture;
ICT use in the agricultural sector (how can ICTs promote agriculture or how can ICT support innovation in agricultural value chains, ICT and agriculture policies, ICT and extension services etc.);
How are ICTs improving (or can improve) youth opportunities in rural areas;
Agro-tourism;
Contribution of Diaspora in ACP Agriculture;
The role and importance of Family Farming and Smallholder Farming in alleviating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment, and achieving sustainable development, in particular in rural areas. (see Note 4 below);
Any other agriculture related theme or issue

I guess the theme that caught my attention was the one with ICT :D

Having worked for a great part of my formal employment years in the Oil Palm Research Sector, I have developed an affinity with Agriculture Issues.
Mind you - I am not one to plough the land - but I love to eat anything that is grown off the land :-)

With the internet being an issue, and also juggling time and the duration of the competition, I started anyway creating the blog, registering and not knowing if I would actually be able to keep it going for the next 4 months.

And well its a good thing I did.

Fast-forward a couple of months into the competition, my blog was featured along with 14 other young women during the ICT Girls day on the 24th April -- http://ardyis.cta.int/fr/activites/autres-activites/item/230-15-promisin...

That got me excited and so I continue to update my blog with whatever news I could. It was my first real blog that I have kept and I started to learn tips and ways of how to improve and add features to a Wordpress site. Its still very basic, but the use of Categories and Tags that can really play a big role when someone does a search for key terms on Google.

The results came out, and 12 finalists were chosen - I wasn't one of them - but was excited all the same, since in our Pacific Region there were only a handful of us. A great number of the participants/bloggers were all based in Africa, so being a part of it and putting some of our issues, challenges and achievements was great and it needed people to vote for our blogs to get us up in the finalists - I didn't really promote my blog much but all good - got a good number of votes :)

My blog focuses on women - and its called: PNG Women|Agriculture|ICT|Development (http://agriculture.caitservicespng.com)
and those are the topics that I write about. I even have a link to the \"Women Weave the Web\" Campaign.

Well the greatest highlight of the competition was or is -- receiving news that I have been selected to attend the Prize Giving Ceremony in... (drumroll) Nairobi, Kenya... in Africa!! You can read the post: http://agriculture.caitservicespng.com/fin4ag-conference-2014/

Its been a couple of weeks since I received that email but I'm still bedazzled! I'm so excited and nervous as I've never been past the equator to the North side and never been to the other side of the world from Papua New Guinea. I also will be the only participant from the Pacific Side and hope that there will be some others who will go as attendees of the fin4ag conference.

Africa's always been one of those 'continents' on the bucket list -- and my kids and I favour Madagascar Series and so, they were very excited too, wishing they could come.

I hope that I can be able to meet up with some of the World Pulse sisters based in Kenya, specifically located in Nairobi.

Thank you for the internet that we can get to read about Kenya and ready ourselves for the journey.

Oh and the flight travel takes me to Hong Kong and to a place I never knew existed - Doha before going to Nairobi.

I'll be updating my blog with the travel and with a week to go - hope that I can be able to get myself a good digital camera - a Canon EOS preferably but will see how it goes :)

This is a result of being able to have access to the internet - as I only know about this competition through a mailing list that I am subscribed to.

I encourage others to participate in the next blogging competition -- just like World Pulse, it is another channel to be heard and possibly bring change and wonderful progress to the development of our women, people and communities.