The Village Diary took a giant leap forward this week with the addition of ethnographer, writer and native-born Cameroonian Viola Allo to our team. Her involvement on the project is significant on many levels. For starters, she brings some much-needed gender balance to our group as the first woman to come on board. While the rest of the team is working here in Cameroon, Viola is based in California, making her the first Cameroonian abroad to get involved with the project. She’s also a professional ethnographer who will advise us on best practices prior to conducting field trials with the Village Diary. Viola is an authority on many of the complex issues faced by women and children in Cameroon and Africa, generally. As a tool with a special emphasis on cultural context, the Village Diary stands to benefit tremendously from her training in anthropology. With this expertise, she’ll help shape the project into a highly focused, effective tool for addressing their needs.

Viola has a BA in psychology from the University of California and an MA in cultural anthropology from the University of Michigan. She’s performed ethnographic fieldwork in Ibadan, Nigeria and Buea, Cameroon. She’s currently working on a collection of essays that celebrates her passion for Africa and storytelling.

Drawing on her background in Africanist anthropology, she’ll assist with our project’s use of ethnographic methods that are sensitive to the needs of women and children in Cameroon. She’s a prolific, opinioned writer with much to say on the issues faced by women in Cameroon and elsewhere in Africa. She’ll be a contributing writer to this blog, so watch for her posts in the coming weeks. In the meantime, you can follow Viola’s updates on Twitter.

Please join me in extending a big welcome to Viola as she joins our effort. African women ethnographers are a rare find, particularly those from our region of Cameroon. We’re extremely fortunate to have her advising us, and can’t think of a better qualified person to fill this role.

We’re still looking for a few good technical people who can assist with software components of the Village Diary. Visit our how to help page or see the developer’s wiki for more details.