Feral Jundi

    This is awesome, and I am really glad to see this technology continuing to be used in interesting and new ways.  Tim from Free Range International gave me the heads up, and this is me enthusiastically spreading the word!

    I talked about this stuff before during the last conflict in Gaza and about using SMS for COIN operations (not that this is military related, but it is still good for the war effort and getting the people enthused), and it is always cool to see what others are doing with the various technologies out there.

    So with that said, I give you Alive in Afghanistan.  Just go to the site and navigate through all the interesting reportage coming from the field.  Now remember, this stuff is being sent in by all sorts of folks with phones or who have access to computers.  I am sure the SMS option will be the most popular do to the remoteness of some polling stations. I could be wrong, but that would seem more logical.  And I hope to see many Afghanis voting in this sucker, despite the threats from the Taliban. –Matt

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Alive in Afghanistan

Alive in Afghanistan is an independent, non-partisan project, formed in response to the huge success of Alive in Baghdad and Alive in Gaza and the result of the hard work and collaboration of many partners and individuals. Alive in Afghanistan empowers Afghan citizens to participate in society by reporting on their political process. Alive in Afghanistan is launching in time for the August 20th presidential elections so that people across Afghanistan can report fairly on the elections and related events through SMS, email, and the web.

We recognize that, given limitations of access to technology, it may be a limited subset of the privileged who will be able to use Alive in Afghanistan’s open system to report on the election. Despite the limitation we feel that, as long as recognition is given, the potential impact of the project is still such that we should go forward, doing our best to provide access to all.

We have partnered with Pajhwok Afghan News in order to combine citizen reporting with focused, concise reports from professional journalists throughout Afghanistan.

Frequently Asked Questions

People have a lot of questions about what we’re doing, and we’ll keep adding to the FAQ to keep it current. In order to help you better navigate, we’ve made FAQ sections:

1. Questions about Alive in Afghanistan2. Questions about Reporting3. How to Get Involved

Questions about Alive in Afghanistan

What is Alive in Afghanistan ?

Alive in Afghanistan is an independent, non-partisan project, formed in response to the huge success of Alive in Baghdad and Alive in Gaza and the result of the hard work and collaboration of many partners and individuals. Alive in Afghanistan empowers Afghan citizens to participate in society by reporting on their political process. Alive in Afghanistan is launching in time for the August 20th presidential elections so that people across Afghanistan can report fairly on the elections and related events through SMS, email, and the web.

Who is behind Alive in Afghanistan?

Alive in Afghanistan is an independent, unaffiliated, non-partisan, all-volunteer project, and the result of the hard work and collaboration of many partners and individuals. Please see our Partnership and Alive in Afghanistan Team pages to learn more.

Who funds Alive in Afghanistan?

Alive in Afghanistan is funded out of our own pockets. The project is all volunteer and all in-kind. We’ve pooled personal funds for purchases for things like URLs and promotional materials. Deployment help and Server space has been donated by our partner eMoksha. You can find more information about these partners on our Partnership page.

Do you have a relationship with any accredited monitoring associations?

Alive in Afghanistan is not affiliated with any of the accredited domestic or international monitoring organizations working in Afghanistan this 2009 election season. We may feature content from these official monitors as it becomes available to the public.

What is the technology behind the Alive in Afghanistan platform?

Alive in Afghanistan offers a platform for crowd-sourced information gathering, based on the open-source Ushahidi platform and the non-profit FrontlineSMS application. Alive in Afghanistan is technically managed by eMoksha, and collaborates with Pahjwok Afghan News to develop reporting on the ground.

What happens after the elections?

Alive in Afghanistan hopes to use momentum generated by our coverage of the August 20 Presidential Elections to build a groundswell of awareness and support. In the post-election period we will be reframing the usage of our tools to provide the citizens of Afghanistan with a reporting tool to measure the status of infrastructure around the country as well as report violence and other crime. By creating a centralized location where information about the ever-changing climate of the conflict in the country, we hope to support Afghanistan’s progress toward a free and stable nation.

How do you make money?

We don’t.

Questions about Reporting

Why should I report?

• Because you can. It’s easy and anyone with a mobile phone or internet connection can do it.

• Because you can share your experience with the world.

• Because you can help improve accountability and transparency.

• What’s your reason?

How do I report?

You can report in any one of the following four ways:

1. Send an SMS to  The SMS is normal price on Alfa and MTC.2. Report directly on the web at AliveInAfghanistan.org3. Send an email to report@aliveinafghanistan.org4. Send a tweet with to @aliveinafghanistan or with the hashtag #afghan09

For more details, check our our page on How to Report.

I just sent my report. What happens now?

Once you’ve reported an issue it will go live on Alive in Afghanistan in our unedited feed. An Alive in Afghanistan team member will map your report alongside official reports from election monitoring groups, news media reports, and reports from civil society groups.

All reports will be displayed on the website and made available to various news media and citizens’ networks. We are counting on our partners and individual citizens to utilize this information for further investigation or (appropriate) action.

Can I get feedback on the issue I’ve reported?

Unfortunately not at this point. Ideally we would report back to you about resolutions on issues you’ve reported, but we’re not set up to do that. Right now, we are focusing on the first step of collecting your feedback and building awareness about issues. Of course, if we do get a report of resolution from an organization or partner, we will report it on our website.

Someone has already reported what I wanted to report. Should I report it again?

Yes! Please do. More reports about an event give it more credibility and encourages people to take action.

How do you verify the credibility of the reports? How do you deal with abuse?

Alive in Afghanistan will attempt to verify reports but makes no claims to the accuracy of a given event; as a neutral platform it publishes all material reports without editorial or censorship. The project merely seeks to contextualize reports against various sources of information, such as reports from other citizens and the news media, official observation groups, and images and videos, in order to provide users with tools for understanding. As with any public reporting system we rely on the honor code. For more information, please see our page on the issues of reporting, abuse, and our policies.

I’m concerned about my privacy and safety. Can the report be traced back to me?

No. We take your privacy concerns very seriously and your personal information (name, phone number, etc.) will never be published with your report.

How to Get Involved

How can I help?

So you like what we’re doing here? Think you could do it better? Alive in Afghanistan would love to have your input and participation!

Step 1: Use It.The first thing we need is your participation. Send us a report. Tell us what is happening in your village, on your street, in your neighborhood. You can SMS, go online, send an email, or use Twitter to tell us. Send pictures, audio, and video. Don’t know how? Read our guide on How to Report.

Step 2: Recruit other Users.Tell everyone you know. Get 10 people to save the Alive in Afghanistan number in their phones. Get them to tell everyone they know. Join the Alive in Afghanistan community on Facebook, at Twitter (@aliveinafghanistan), and subscribe to our blog. If you have a blog, website, or Twitter account, we’d love you to write or tweet about Alive in Afghanistan, and display our banners (200X200 and 150X150) to help get the word out.

Step 3: VolunteerIf you have a skill that you think would help us – from public relations to PHP – we’d love your help. Send us an email at info@aliveinafghanistan.org and we’ll write back right away.

Website here.