Hedgait: Three months old, humble start and kicking

Hedgait: Three months old, humble start and kicking

Hedgait, which means ‘the narrator’ in Tigrait, was launched on the 21^st of December and this is a stock assessment on how it has done so far, some statistics:

-       It has more than 40, 000 views

-       It has 339 posts

-       Views per day varied from 43 - 1087

-       Viewers from 46 countries (most of whom are regular visitors and assume most are Eritreans spread worldwide with few Ethiopians, Sudanese, Djiboutians)

-       Few regular visitors from Eritrea

-       Few  visitors (mostly regular) from countries such as Japan, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Angola, Uganda, Ukraine, Belgium, Finland, Malaysia, Turkey, Bahrain, Jordan, South Africa

-       The top six countries where visitors originate from, in descending order: are USA, UK, S. Arabia, Sweden, Egypt and Canada

-       The items most read are rather personal stories than political issues: The top six most read items, in descending order:

o   http://hedgait.blogspot.com/2014/12/picture-elf-group-that-was-training-in.html (ELF group in China)

o   http://hedgait.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-portrait-jelal-yassin-aberra.html (Story about Jelal Yassin)

o   http://hedgait.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-eritrean-artist-whose-life-was.html (Story about Younis Ibrahim)

o   http://hedgait.blogspot.com/2015/02/1928.html (Arabic Newspapers since 1928 – in Arabic)

o   http://hedgait.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-eritrean-freedom-fighter-who_19.html (Story about Abdella Tzegay)

o   http://hedgait.blogspot.com/2014/12/picture-central-committee-of-general.html (Picture CC of the General Union of Eritrea Women – affiliated to the ELF)

Hedgait will remain a window to Eritrean history, mainly the hidden untold stories. Knowledge is power and knowledge is to be spread to reach a wider audience, not be monopolized by few. There are two schools of thought in the scientific community: those who want to make knowledge freely available to all, and those who want to commercialize it. There has been a lot of progress in terms of making knowledge accessible. You will have the opportunity to get access to articles and books and other media outlets on Eritrea that are freely available.

Thanks to all who collaborated with me by providing documents and pictures, particularly Jelal Yassin and Ibrahim Gedem. Though I plan to concentrate on a bigger project on Eritrea the next months, I will continue to update the blog with more materials, from time to time.

 Your feedback and constructive criticism will always be valuable.

“Spring is the time of plans and projects.”

Leo Tolstoy in Anna Karenina as quoted in ‘goodreads.com’