Church Citizens’ Voice – First year Report
Church Citizens’ Voice (CCV) will soon celebrate its first birth anniversary, precisely on Nov.6th. It was on this day CCV was officially launched last year, 2014.
Originally CCV was part and parcel of the Malayalam portal Alamayasabdam (അല്മായശബ്ദം) almayasabdam.blogspot.com. functioning as the communication and publicity wing of the Kerala Catholic Church Reformation Movement (KCRM) to bring about radical reform in the Church in Kerala and abroad.
As such it had two limitations, it had to function like frog in two wells – the geographical well Kerala and its linguistic communication well Malayalam. It was to get out of these two wells and go global that the CCV was planned with contact persons, reporters, and contributors from all over India and abroad, especially Europe, Americas and Australia.
After a test run for several months it was finally launched as an All English website: www.almayasabdam.com meaning Church Citizens’ Voice (CCV) on Nov.6, 2014, under the guidance of an editorial Triumvir, dr.james kottoor (Editor in Chief), Jose Mattappally, and Zacharias Nedunkanal. All of them were introduced to the CCV readers. Kindly refer to “About Us” section of CCV.
As CCV approaches its first birthday, everyone connected with it – its readers, writers, contributors, editors and well wishers – have reason to rejoice because CCV has not only equaled three other individually operated prominent websites in India but also excelled some of them.
No one expected CCV to come up to or overtake its elder sister Blogspot in Malayalam. But today in the world ranking of websites CCV has captured the 4’14,111th and its Malayalam Blogspot 967,528 th position.
UCAN: 351,370
Church Citizens' Voice: 414,111
Matters India, Delhi: 509,101
Almayasabdam blog: 967,528
Indian Currents 3,426,968
Laitytude, Bombay: 4,325,098
As a professional news and views portal, CCV does not show partiality to anyone, it is not afraid of anyone, it does not distort facts, it did not have to withdraw anything it published. It goes ahead publishing without fear or favor but holding firmly to the principle: “Truth is mighty and will prevail”.
CCV personnel works 24 hours a day. At present one of its operators is working from Chicago, another from Switzerland and the third from Kerala. Today CCV has a large network of friends, supporters and well wishers around the world, among them many are our own writers and columnists. It is because these collaborators who have a nose for news and send us instantly what they come across that we are in the forefront of Church related news. News is not news if it is not new. It is what is NEW that appears in CCV.
Since, “uniting people of good-will from around the world” is one of the main goals of CCV, we work in collaboration with all, especially with our sister portals like Laitytude of Bombay and Matters India of Delhi. In the same spirit of brotherly collaboration, not competition, we take, too, news items from them and publish them in CCV. The principle is to give wings to “Good News” to fly far and fast to reach as many as possible.
Hurdles & Problems
This past one year was not a happy-go-lucky-ride for CCV. We had our own trials and tribulations. Around eight times CCV was hacked as part of some sinister design to silence us – yes to silence our Voice as the Voice of the Voiceless. Here we are reminded of St. Paul’s missionary journeys in which he was shipwrecked several times. But God’s hand, not our smartness, helped us from drowning. We continue forward, trusting in that providential help.
You can see that unseen hand working in this portal. CCV has not received any prayer-offering or good-will donation as at church services, nor did we ask for it from anyone, as some portals do. Ours is a labor of love. None of the office bearers, who work around the clock, take any remuneration from anyone.
This website was designed, built and is maintained free of cost by a prominent website building company in India. Also CCV is taken care of and protected by its well wishers. It has its own legal advisers as well to guide and show the right way. It has no bank account of its own. Yet we make fast progress and are ahead of others in serving the Church without exploiting anyone.
Website Design
CCV website is designed to surprise, inspire and give hope. In the image of the risen Lord with outstretched hands we embrace all. The masthead is CCV’s proud proclamation that we lead a movement of the risen people worshiping the living God.
As you open the website, some 20 attractively illustrated headlines in three rows prop up, imploring you gently: “Click open and read.” Each article might need about 5 to 10 minutes.
Each news item or article stays exposed for a week before it disappears. What so disappears can be instantly retrieved by clicking on the relevant date and month in the “Search Posts by Date” at the bottom right side. Have a direct experience by visiting: www.almayasabdam.com
Our esteemed readers, supporters and well wishers, now we invite you to judge how we performed and to tell us what better things you would expect from us in the new year. Your order please, for your servants are at this end. With Samuel we pray: Speak Lord for your servant is listening.
The CCV Editorial Board
(Editor in Chief: james kottoor, jameskottoor@gmail.com
Associate Editors:
Joseph Mattappally:jmattappally@gmail.com
Zach Nedunkanal: znperingulam@gmail.com)
