Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." On December 10, 1948 the United Nations adopted The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Today in 2010, more than 60 years later, we are dealing with entire groups of people who don't have access to factual news and information in order to better their lives, community and country and make a positive impact in this world.

Corporate media censors people's opinions and appeases sponsors rather than disseminating information in the public interest. We ask the United Nations to consider the destructive consequences that corporate media consolidation has on universal communication and the solutions to every problem the UN seeks to solve in their Millennium Development Goals. It is crucial that people are empowered to fully express themselves through all communication mediums. Right now most mainstream sources of news and information have the sole purpose of entertaining and advertising to the public.

Our communication mediums are vital and precious forums of dialogue that everyone needs to access, in order to serve the public interest. We also see the control of repressive governments who do not allow journalists the freedom to investigate and report as equally destructive to human communication. In Iran, Burma, North Korea and many other countries, repressive regimes do not allow journalists to freely investigate and report human rights abuses.

The full extent of the abuses are unknown due to a stranglehold on journalism. The people of the world need universal, uncensored access to the internet as well as the liberty to impart information through it. According to Internet World Stats only 26.6% of the world's population use the internet. According to Internet for Everyone, in America "only 35% of homes with less than $50,000 in annual income have a high-speed internet connection. Moreover, nearly 20 million Americans live in areas that are not served by a single broadband provider; tens of millions more live in places where there is just a single provider of high-speed Internet service." We, the undersigned and under-heard, petition the United Nations to take a closer look at Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and critically analyze the state of communication in our world.

We hope that the United Nations will re-evaluate their commitment to and advocate for the importance of Article 19, so that people everywhere can truly exercise their right to have their voices resonate throughout the world ...

Statement of Purpose : Communication media and computer training project

Children and young people are often limited opportunities for them to learn about the world outside their rural villages or even to keep in touch with the traditions, religions, I.T and current affairs in their own region. They are not part of the informal communication network that keep adults update, and in poor communities newspapers, radio,TV,Computers,Internet Statement of Purpose:
Café are scarce.
Communication media and production centre need to be grown into a complete information centre, with a recording studio, transmission facilities, literatures, computers, IT courses and plan to link to the WWW.It has proved an excellent way of helping them gather and exchange information among themselves and to become articulate enough to present it to others. It has brought to technology within reach of the poor and voiceless that is essential to the functioning of democratic processes.
Computers have made a strong impression on the youth and adults. Access to computers means learning how they work, what they can do and they can bring new worlds of knowledge in to the world/village. Villagers had heard about computers but had not seen them. A few youth always used to talk about computers and what they did with them. Most of the youth used to feel inferior. They had not even seen a computers, TV, video and far away from satellite television. They are also afraid of touching it. It is also needed to organize child and youth camps introduced to programmed making and computers. These interventions have helped bridge the gap between rural and urban youth and have given young people the confidence and ability to speak out express themselves.
Young people face the future without the in formations or financial and technical resources necessary to deal with information age.
Today, there are more school dropout and young people leaving high schools with low levels of literacy. Parents in resource-poor households are often unable to see whyy children should go to school when they are needed at home.  

Action Plan :

Young people want to seve the community by developing good projects and pragrammes closely involved in planning and implementing the new developments. Working on the programmed has given an outlet for their talents. Members will work voluntarily.
Ordinary people are victims of media power and are treated more and more as objects rather than subjects. This is particularly true forindigenous minorities, women and children. We should democratize theproject. There is a wide range of traditional media, rooted in localcultures, which need to be further developed, like the vigorous popular literature movement which need to be cultivated.
Some new communication technologies, such as video production, desktoppublishing, computer networks provide further opportunities for the empowerment of tribes. Films, videos audiotapes are useful particularly useful for illiterate people and for those who have no written books., newspapers and where there is great that political events may prevent theprinting and distribute the literatures .
Much of public communication takes place in languages, which are not the mother tongues of the majority people. This tends to relegate theimportance of indigenous languages and dialects, which are rooted onpeople cultures. This situation has to be remedied in order to involveall people in the project process and promote cultural integrity, library, computers, journalism and communication courses and renewal.
People will achieve greater control over their communication, which willgive them opportunities express their own concerns, voice their own thinking and enable them to control their own learning process.
The whole project should be geared to bring the gospel to the peoplehelped, to plant social justice, human rights to enable them to raisethe finances to support illiterate, marginalized and rural people.
From this project many results can be expected for the present as wellas for the future. The people in the hills need not to go down to Rangoon to get publications, media related facilities. They can helpeach other in both ways we are heading for communication.
Women are fully involved in defining the problem, designing and trying out solutions, evaluating and sharing the results of the project and areplaying roles as managers, IT  professional,publishers, editors, journalists, writers who are respectful of.
These improvements will give us the capacity for continuing to emotionally and physically nourish people with printed materials. Weshall see to monitor the project, together with the people. Overseafunding agencies have commissioned independent evaluation reports on aspects of the computer course training center project.

Essential Needed:

Building for office with full facilities, schools, clinics, nursery
Computers 100 complete sets
Funds for international travels, courses, training, further studies
Printing machines, generators, paper work machines, vehicles, rural development
Revolving funds  

Military-ruled Myanmar, which is under US and European Union sanctions.It will hold its first election in two decades this year. It has not yet announced a date.Critics say the poll is a sham designed to legitimise the junta's half-century grip on power.

We will raise concerns about election preparations in Myanmar/Burma, hoping to underscore that the country's military leaders must be held accountable for the lack of real democratic reform.

Things are needed to move in a positive direction and opposition party want to engage the government in a constructive way rather than condemnation even before  elections take place.

There is about 2000 political prisoners are being held in Burma, which makes it impossible for a meaningful election to take place in Burma.

Civil society needed to play an essential role in identifying and eradicating the injustices that have separated our nation from the principles on which it was founded. It was civil society, after all, that gave us the abolitionists who fought the evils of slavery, the suffragettes who campaigned for women's rights, the freedom marchers who demanded racial equality, the unions that championed the rights of labor, the conservationists who worked to protect our planet and climate.

I do begin my professional life in civil society. The CBO I worked for, the Tribal Media Group, helped expand democracy, press freedom, community development projects, and educational opportunities for poor children and children with disabilities, and tried to address the challenges faced by young people in prison.I think often about the role of journalists. Journalists are under tremendous pressure.

Now, I would be the first to say that our work did not transform our nation or remake our government overnight. But when that kind of activism is multiplied across an entire country through the work of hundreds, even thousands of NGOs,CBOs, it does produce real and lasting positive change.

Democracies don't fear their own people. They recognize that citizens must be free to come together to advocate and agitate, to remind those entrusted with governance that they derive their authority from the governed. Restrictions on these rights only demonstrate the fear of illegitimate rulers, the cowardice of those who deny their citizens the protections they deserve. An attack on civic activism and civil society is an attack on democracy.

We will be working with other organizations, such as the UN, World Bank, WAN,  AMARC, AI, and UCIP, CIVICUS, World Civic Forum and others, to do more to defend the freedom of association. .  We need to make sure words are matched by actions.

The world we live in is needed to open, more secure, and more prosperous through the solidarity movement to improve conditions in our own country, and who stand for freedom and democracy.

Song Za Kam

The widespread belief outside Burma that there is no civil society in the country  was never  absolutely true  and is even less so today unless civil society is perceived  in a strictly political sense.(ICG 2002)

People who care and comment on the nature of current day civil society in Burma differ on many points. Civil Society is poorly understood.

The overall goals of Tribal Media Group is to understanding of the work Civil Society organizations and ultimately     lead to meaningful changes in the lives of poor and marginalized people in Burma.

Economy and social sectors are signs of distress.

Local civil Society Organizations could play an increasingly important role in addressing the basic needs and rights of the people in Burma, both in short - and long-terms. Most villages organized social events and welfare initiatives. The strong patronage system and hierarchy in society probably limited the number and type of organizations to every basic community-based social and religious group.

The military regime quickly imposed restrictions on many individual freedoms and civil society organizations found themselves threatened. Some of severe restriction on society appeared to soften somewhat, participatory forms of community organization appeared to be more tolerated and local and international NGO’s were allowed to work at community level.

In fact, development workers have commented on the noticeably higher level of gov’t tolerance at community level that in Asia and else where.

NGO’s  are allow increased access to sensitive border areas and to part of the country       where  they could not previously work. Many NGO’s have formed out of each of the major religious. Civil Society is alive in Burma today.

Community Based group should pay more attention to the issue of independence .Their credibility in Burma and throughout the world rest on this. CB  group and other civil society participants should increase the contacts among themselves to increase mutual understanding. They should also explore further some opportunities to increase information sharing, networking and joint projects. Donors, Foundations should support capacity building through funding and training efforts to strengthen programmatic, administrative and managerial society.

A major  topic of inquiry  should include poverty , human right, media freedom in Burma. Community group interact with the poorest of the poor would be valuable. The contrast between population density and level of giving suggests another increasing area for future study.

People in Burma have many more weaknesses in other areas than in Asia. They have-not launched any successful national campaign leading to significant policy changes. They have not fought vigorously for protecting the rights of suffering people, whether the suffering was caused by government action or reaction or exploitation by business or other causes. They have-not struggled and grown through their unity against oppression.

Together they, we could also gradually raise awareness with the poor people about the role of civil society.

Song Za Kam

Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is being held in the notorious Insein jail in Rangoon, after being charged with violating the terms of her house arrest.

Her latest period of house arrest was extended last year - a move which  analysts say is illegal even under the junta's own rules. It is due to expire on 27 May.

The Burmese regime is clearly intent on finding any pretext, no matter how tenuous, to extend [Aung San Suu Kyi’s] unlawful detention. The real injustice, the real illegality, is that she is still detained in the first place. If the 2010 elections are to have any semblance of credibility, she and all political prisoners must be freed to participate.