By Yasmin Fansa

With the introduction of Sharek961, the citizens of Lebanon can now act as monitors and reporters wherever they are, helping to promote transparency and accountability in the country. Sharek961 gives Lebanese citizens the opportunity to send in eyewitness reports on all issues or episodes regarding the upcoming elections from every area in Lebanon through a medium of their choice: e-mail (report@sharek.org), SMS (Tel# 7118 9118), or the web (www.sharek961.org).
The intent of the project is to improve the reliability of the elections through the participation of all citizens. Sharek961 calls on all Lebanese to send in any information, be it the illegal distribution of cash or the event of a political rally, to be made open and accessible to all media outlets, organizations, and election monitoring groups through the website.
Sharek961 is based on an open source project called Ushahidi that started in Kenya in order to gather crisis information. It has since been used in a variety of contexts, from gathering crisis information from the public to vote monitoring in India.

Published in the newspaper distributed with Al-Akhbar and An-Nahar on Thursday June 4th, 2009