Chicago here she comes for 2009 BlogHer Conference.

Early this year, Archiwiz alongside other fatanstic bloggers nominated me for BlogHer International Activists Scholarship and I was chosen! It felt good to know that one's work/contribution is appreciated and recognised. And I am grateful to those who nominated me. Yes, I am.

The conference will take place in Chicago, Illinois this Month from July 23rd to 26th to be precise and all arrangement has being made for my trip by BlogHer team. Standtall has the privilege of visiting the United State of America for the first time and with a 2 year business visa.

I will have the opportunity of meeting 4 other female activists from Bolivia, Bahrain, India and Malawi respectively. I am so excited to have my work and passion listened to and questions asked while I will be able to learn from other activists and hope for future collaborations. I am preparing and hoping for this conference to have an unforgettable impact on me.

Here is a few information as posted on BlogHer webpage on the activists that will be participating in this huge and famous conference with me:

Pilirani Semu-Banda, Malawi, publisher at http://pilirani.blogspot.com
Blog Mission: According to Pilirani's nominator, this blog's mission is: "To bring awareness and change to Malawi's social and economical problems. Some development projects have been kick-started based on stories published on the blog, including the improvement of monitoring programs to get rid of child labour in the tobacco industry and an increase of treatment to women suffering from fistula."

Annie Zaidi, India, publisher at http://www.anniezaidi.com
Blog Mission: The self-stated mission of this blog is "to use writing to force people to rethink positions or examine established ideas, and to break stereotypes about certain communities or groups based on gender, religion or race. It takes, by and large, a non-judgmental stance on most issues, and it seeks to raise questions as part of a genuine attempt at understanding human society and its structures. This is a crucial aspect of journalism, but an aspect that is increasingly overshadowed by the necessity of creating drama around each piece of news, and the mad scramble for exclusivity and one-upmanship between media organisations."

Cristina Quisbert, Bolivia, publisher at http://boliviaon.blogspot.com
Blog Mission: According to Cristina's nominator: "The mission of this blog is to strive to show indigenous communities as a source of pride. There are a lot of misconceptions about indigenous people, and Cristina shows a more personal side and uses her own voice to represent other members of indigenous communities in the Bolivian Altiplano. Cristina is a bridge blogger, allowing fellow Bolivians who may not identify themselves as a member of an indgenous community, to interact and learn about indigenous communities in another region of the country. By also writing a blog in English, she is able to reach a much wider audience and show another side of life in El Alto, Bolivia."

Esra'a Alshafei Bahrain, publisher at www.mideastyouth.com will not be attending for this year again as she had other engagement which should could not but attend to hence her inability to attend the conference. She might attend next year.

On to something else, my blog featured in Tell Magazine and the article was written by Lolade Adewuyi. I was informed by a friend a week after the article was written by a friend. Thank God I found it online. The journalist though a blogger himself did not mention he wrote about my blog. Thanks for finding my blog news worthy Lolade.