Global Voices » Nicaragua

Nicaragua: Sandinista Revolution Icon Starts Blogging

Silvia Viñas — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:24:13 +0000

Mildred Largaespada reports [es] that Sandinista Revolution icon Dora María Téllez has started blogging [es]: “This is big news for the national and international blogosphere, because she is also one of the female ‘comrades' who participated in the guerrilla war that defeated the Somoza dictatorship and who continue their anti-dictatorial struggle through political and peaceful means and now using the tools of social networks.”

Nicaragua: The Struggle for Food Sovereignty

Silvia Viñas — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:53:07 +0000

Maddy M., a Voices of our Future correspondent for World Pulse, writes about how free trade agreements and other policies have affected the access to affordable, locally-produced, healthy food in Nicaragua. She also highlights citizens who are “working to raise awareness about the need to change the agricultural system in the country.”

Latin America: Museum Releases Digital Archive of 20th-Century Art

Silvia Viñas — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:36:22 +0000

The International Center for Arts of the Americas (ICCA) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has released a digital archive of 20th-century Latin American and Latino art, which, “is now available, free of charge, to the research and teaching community as well as to the public at large.” Culture magazine Ñ [es] briefly interviewed Mari Carmen Ramírez, the project's director.

Nicaragua: Telecom Company CLARO Censors Clients

Stephen Cairns — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:31:44 +0000

This past November 29, some less-than-satisfied customers decided to start a blog complaining about the telecommunications company CLARO Nicaragua [es], a subsidiary of América Móvil consortium which belongs to the most wealthy man in the world, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú. The blog is called Claro que NO! [es], a play on words in Spanish meaning ‘of course not,' and describes the bad service and worse treatment of customers by CLARO employees.

However in less than 3 days the company responded to this initiative by blocking the website [es] hoping to impede dissatisfied clients from freely expressing themselves on the internet. Many users have manifested their objections toward this on blogs, Twitter and Facebook.

Blogger Juan Ortega was one of the first to write about this on his blog juanortega.info [es]:

Esto claramente atenta no solo a la neutralidad de la red, sino que es una clara violación a nuestro derecho de libertad de expresión en cualquier medio, por lo que esperemos que Claro Nicaragua se pronuncie al respecto, y rectifique su error. Mientras tanto, invito a todos mis colegas blogueros, tumbleros, y demás, a que denuncien por cualquier vía lo que está sucediendo, en twitter pueden encontrar mas información, de igual forma se está siguiendo el caso con el hashtag #clarobloqueo.

This is clearly threatening not just net neutrality but is also an obvious violation of our freedom of speech on whatever medium. We hope that Claro Nicaragua acknowledges this and rectifies their error. Meanwhile, I invite all of my fellow bloggers, tumblr users, and others to decry this action through whatever means. On Twitter you can find more info, if you are not doing so already, follow the hashtag #clarobloqueo.

Image for the campaign against the Claro censorship

Also, blogger Adolfo Fitoria [es] comments on the following:

Esto sienta un terrible precedente, en un futuro podrían bloquear a otras empresas competidoras, blogs independientes, alguna aplicación que no les convenga y a como ya hacen: limitar ancho de banda en cierto sitios como youtube.
No esperen ver nada de esto en los medios, no creo que publiquen algo al respecto ya que casi NUNCA critican a esta empresa, que es una de las que mas gasta en publicidad en el país, y los medios escritos que por esta época mueren no tienen otro palo donde ahorcarse.

This feels like a premonition of a terrible future where these companies will block access to competitor companies, independent blogs, some application that doesn't suit them… like we see already where the bandwidth has been limited for some sites like YouTube.

Don't expect to see any of this covered by the media. I don't think they will publish something because they NEVER criticize this company, which is one of the companies that spends the most money on advertising in the country, and print media outlets are now dying and have no other means to survive.

Leandro Gómez on his blog comuNIdad [es] continues with a similar thought:

Esta acción ilegal de parte de Claro Nicaragua puede representar el comienzo de una nueva era para los ciudadanos digitales en Nicaragua. Si esta empresa, una organización privada extranjera, no tiene el menor reparo en prohibirte visitar sitios que los critican abiertamente, el día de mañana podrían comenzar a bloquear otros sitios; por presiones políticas, por conveniencia económica, o porque simplemente les dió las ganas, y nosotros, los ciudadanos de este país no vamos a poder hacer absolutamente nada.

This illegal action on the part of Claro Nicaragua could represent the start of a new era for the digital citizens of Nicaragua. If this company, a private foreign enterprise, does not have the least reservation in denying access to openly critical sites, the day may come when they will start blocking other sites to exert political pressure, to improve their financials, or just for kicks… and we, the citizens of this country, will not be able to do a single thing in response.

The blogosphere has not been the only place to strongly reject CLARO's heavy-handed measure; social networks like Twitter (@CQN_Nicaragua) and Facebook have been used to broadcast to others what is happening.

Nicaraguan bloggers united their voices to denounce the action on social networks and due to their persistence received a response from CLARO. The response which is less than convincing alleges that they didn't block anything, rather the website's server settings caused the problem. The website administrator for claroqueno.com responded by stating that at no point were there server settings to block incoming traffic from CLARO subscribers.

For their part, on December 13 the official Twitter account of @ClaroNicaragua [es] maintained:

@evialejandrina As we have already indicated to@nim_rod, we did not block that page. There's no problem on our side.

Marketing director for CLARO Nicaragua published an article [es] in the daily La Prensa that same day, citing the vandalism and defamation of companies that happens on social networks via fake, anonymous accounts. Even though the marketing director did not refer to the specific claroqueno.com situation, the article was very negatively received by Nicaragua's netizens.

The independent blogger movement was the only group to denounce the act; traditional media did not publish anything on the censorship applied by CLARO Nicaragua.

On December 25, CLARO Nicaragua lifted the access block, once again allowing CLARO subscribers to visit the website. On Twitter, ClaroQueNo (@CQN_Nicaragua) celebrated:

Ganamos! aparentemente @claronicaragua al fín enmendó su error y levantaron el bloqueo. Por favor entren a http://claroqueno.com y confirmen

We won! So apparently @claronicaragua mended their ways at last and lifted the site block. Please visit http://claroqueno.com and confirm!

In an article published [es] in the paper El Nuevo Diario on Wednesday December 28 by journalist Oliver Gómez, CLARO Nicaragua recognized the block but alleged it had taken such action because of the defamation and lies about CLARO which were published on the website. The Corporate Communications Manager Azalia Salmerón said: “we respect the freedom of expresson but not defamation or licentious behavior.”

The group Claro que NO! celebrated its victory and has confirmed its continued commitment to working with dissatisfied users; its Twitter and Facebook page as well as its website continue to be active, receiving new complaints to publish.

Nicaragua: Life in Villa Norte

Silvia Viñas — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:25:17 +0000

In the blog Huella Libre [es], Fernando Guzman describes the difficult living conditions of residents of a settlement in Jinotega, Nicaragua, called Villa Norte.

Central America: LibreBus Project Presents its Documentary

Jenny Cascante Gonzalez — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:17:39 +0000

Several months have passed since the LibreBus [es] collective project traveled across the streets of five different Central America countries looking for free culture and knowledge sharing enthusiasts.

As Jane Park explained in October, 2011:

Librebus, a project inspired by Free Culture principles, consisted of a regional tour spanning most of May of this year [2011] to explore Central American shared culture and digital communities. Twenty-seven “librenautas” [free navigators] with different nationalities, backgrounds and skills, from the free software community, Creative Commons chapters, freedom of speech activists and natural commons experts, shared their “open” knowledge with others in a variety of activities, from roundtables to public data hackathons and the first Central American CC Salon in Guatemala.

Conversations were held in each city with representatives of diverse communities that promote the use of information technology and communication. LibreBus ‘free navigators' also organized meetings with digital natives whose contributions complemented to the discussion on free software and the defense of freedom of speech and content sharing.

Musicians, artists and users in general were able to learn about the cultural commons licenses. Also, participants had the opportunity to learn about the development of knowledge and technological constraints that farmers face in the region because of the legislation and use of transgenic seeds.

A documentary [es] showing the different interactions that took place during the tour through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, is now available online. The organizers are open to arranging a similar tour in the future, under the same flag: free collective knowledge.

These are some extracts from the documentary:

El 16 de mayo de 2011 LibreBus dejó de ser un viaje por Centroamérica para convertirse en un compromiso.

On May 16, 2011 LibreBus was not just a trip through Central America, it became a commitment.

LibreBus leaving Honduras. Image by Flickr user LibreBus (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

24 personas subieron y bajaron en el trayecto pero son muchos más los que comparten la filosofía de ser librenauta.

24 people got on and off the bus along the way but there are many more who share the philosophy of being a free navigator.

Ser librenauta es seguir un camino: el del conocimiento libre para todos y todas.

To be a free navigator is to follow a path: free knowledge for everyone.

Information on presentations related to free software, photographs of the trip, and posts published by some participants can be found on the LibreBus [es] website. You can also follow the project on Twitter @Librebus [es] and Facebook [es].

Latin America: Youth Unemployment

Silvia Viñas — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 11:22:56 +0000

Bloggings by boz looks at youth unemployment in Latin America, concluding that “with growth projections decreased for 2011 and 2012, the current situation for youth unemployment is almost certainly getting worse. That could have major economic, political and social implications moving into 2012.”

Latin America: Social Networks Bring Recognition to Primary Recyclers

Betsy Galbreath — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 18:46:26 +0000

[All links lead to Spanish language pages except when otherwise noted]

“Being aware of the value of social networks, we will take advantage of them. So if you're one of our followers, you'll notice we're on Twitter”. With this statement, the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Recyclers (Red LACRE in Spanish) celebrates the 500 followers gained on its site in three months of work since they opened their account @redlacre. They are celebrating, but they want more, because the challenge is to reach 1,000 soon and keep going in order to extend this network of contacts that allows them to promote the value of their work much easier.

But what is a primary recycler? They are the people whose business is to gather, choose, recover, transform, market and reuse solid wastes from the primary source, making it their main source of income. In our countries, we commonly call recyclers by different names. For example, in Chile and Argentina they are known as cartoneros, in Mexico pepenador, and in Nicaragua buzo [translator's note: all terms loosely translate to “waste picker”], among other names they would like to do away with, so that they can be recognized as primary recyclers or simply recyclers (reciclador in Spanish and catador in Portuguese).

Recyclers in Guatemala, by Exequiel Estay, Facebook Red Lacre, used with permission.

They have been organizing across the continent since the early 90s and now have a formal network, Red LACRE, which consists of 15 countries and 4 more will soon join. The purpose of their movement is to be recyclers “with inclusion”, that is, each country guarantees that it will allow and formally recognize their work. The key to realizing this objective is enhancing visibility via the Internet and social networks, among the best tools they have to help advance their goals more rapidly.

These networks also allow us to understand better what a recycler is and how valuable his work is. We find that in Wikipedia, on October 23, 2011, (according to their site), the term “Primary Recycler” appears, where we are given some key points to better understand this profession.

Se distingue además de cualquier otro tipo de reciclador, por ser quien trabaja directamente en donde se depositan los residuos, lo que comúnmente se conoce como basura. Por ello, la selección de los residuos sólidos, los hace desde el lugar de disposición primaria y los transportan hacia el lugar donde se realiza la selección fina y enfardado, para una venta posterior. Se entiende por selección fina la separación de distintas calidades de materiales, lo que le permite el acceso a mejores rangos de precio.

“They are also distinguished from any other type of recycler, because they work directly where waste is deposited, what is commonly called trash. The sorting of solid waste is made at the first site of deposit, then transported to another area for secondary sorting and wrapping for later sale. Secondary sorting is understood as separating out various qualities of materials, which allows for access to better price ranges”.

Conversation in 140 characters

Embroidered Logo for the Recyclers of Chile. Photograph by Chilean Recyclers, imaged used with permission

Looking at the Twitter accounts of the recyclers who are organized through their network, we see a kind of raising-awareness and education campaign to learn about their work.

Statements like “we live off of recycling” or “RedLacre fights to formalize our work and improve current labor conditions” are repeated in their messages, as well as other messages that give more hard facts that enable us to gauge the impact of this work, such as “Did you know that the number of people who live off of recycling in Latin America is more than 4 million?” or “We help save municipal budgets. We recycle waste from your neighborhood and create jobs”.

Similar conversations do not only revolve around explaining the work, but also begin to paint a picture of the characteristics of the countries involved and the specific scenarios that make up the realities in each country. Add to this the comments made with reference to this profession:

Alvaro Alaniz (@alaniz_a): En Brasil, las latas de Coca Cola tienen la imagen e historia del pdte de una cooperativa de recicladores de Rio. INCLUSION!

Alvaro Alaniz (@alaniz_a): In Brazil, the Coca Cola cans have the image and story of the president of a cooperative of recyclers in Rio. INCLUSION!

Exequiel Estay Tapia (@RECICLADORESYA): recicladores chilenos luchando por una inclusión en el anteproyecto de ley de residuos…inclusión verdadera YAAAAAAAA

Exequiel Estay Tapia (@RECICLADORESYA): Chilean recyclers fighting for inclusion in the draft solid waste laws, true inclusion NOW.

Francisco Pollak (@panchopollak), también refiriéndose a Chile: Hoy conocí tres historias de los llamados “cartoneros” convertidos en recicladores y emprendedores. La materia prima es voluntad.

Francisco Pollak (@panchopollak), also referring to Chile: Today I learned the stories of three so-called “cartoneros” transformed into recyclers. Their will is their raw material.

PLACC (@cclimatico): Recicladores de Perú se formalizan y crean pequeñas y medianas empresas #cambioclimatico #Gestiónderesiduos.

PLACC (@cclimatico): The recyclers of Perú organize and create small and medium businesses #climatechange #wastemanagement.

CiViSOL (@civisol), sobre Colombia: Por inclusión simulada de recicladores la Corte suspendió la licitación de aseo de Bogotá. Esta es la historia >larepublica.co//archivos/ECON…

CiViSOL (@civisol), about Colombia: Because of the deception involving inclusion of recyclers, the Court suspended the bidding for waste removal in Bogotá. This is the story > larepublica.co//archivos/ECON… [es]

Friends with benefits

Facebook is another social network where we find a strong presence of the different recycle cooperatives that exist on the continent. Here we see how the traditional bulletin board has moved to the computer screen and this large virtual community has become a coordinator of actions, and promoter of experiences and identities.

Photographs, videos and links add information such as hours of operation, grant requirements, course dates, and a series of data useful to the public about the work of all the groups and its members.

Image of Inside Out Montevideo. Photograph by Jorge Meoini, used with permission

The page for the Network has more than 700 friends and from there one can access other groups such as the Recycling Dream Cooperative of Montevideo Uruguay (Cooperativa Reciclando Sueños de Montevideo Uruguay.) This group shares on its wall the experience of a group of recyclers whose faces were photographed to appear on billboards in various areas of the city, as part of the international project Inside Out (financed by the TED award).

According to the artists who created the work, Magdalena Gurmendez y Agustín Fernández, the images are a way of providing recognition of the vital work the recyclers perform in the city.

La tarea de clasificación de residuos es uno de los primero pasos en la cadena del reciclaje, por lo general esta tarea se realiza en pésimas condiciones de trabajo -recorriendo la ciudad en carros para buscar en los contenedores-, pero el trabajo en cooperativas permite una dinámica distinta, trabajar bajo techo, con residuos pre-clasificados…

“The job of sorting waste is one of the first steps in the recycling chain, and in general this work is performed in dreadful work conditions — traveling the city in carts looking in dumpsters — but working in cooperatives provides a different dynamic, working indoors, with pre-sorted waste…”

In conclusion, this fight for inclusion gets its strength through social networks. There, the workers gain a new space, from the streets to the heart of social networks, to no longer be invisible, to garner understanding of their work as a profession and how it should be formalized. The Internet is at the service of recycling, of the environment and of the generation of new economies, so that with a click, we rediscover this work that we usually don't even see.

Gerardo Espíndola Rojas is Product Manager of Red Mi VOZ. Read more about our partnership with Mi VOZ [en].

Nicaragua: The Poor State of Roads in Nueva Guinea

Silvia Viñas — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:57:33 +0000

Ronald Hill [es] denounces the poor state of roads in Nueva Guinea, “the largest, most densely populated municipality and biggest economic hub of the Autonomous Region of the Southern Atlantic” in Nicaragua.

Nicaragua: Opposition Youth Affected by Hacktivism

Silvia Viñas — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:36:30 +0000

In The Nicaragua Dispatch, Tim Rogerts reports that opposition youth “have discovered that trying to organize protests using social media networks such as Facebook […] can be harmful to one’s health in Nicaragua. ‘They are monitoring our Facebook and Twitter accounts, and they’ve hacked our accounts and our emails,' says activist Israel Lewites, of the opposition youth movement Nicaragua2.0.”

Nicaragua: Protesters Denounce Election Fraud

Silvia Viñas — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:19:47 +0000

Opponents to Daniel Ortega's reelection protested on November 8 denouncing electoral fraud in the November 6 elections, as reported by El Nuevo Diario [es]. The blog Política Mente Incorrecto [es] shares links to articles, pictures, and several citizen videos of the protest.

Nicaragua: Citizens Report on Elections via #votonica

Silvia Viñas — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:17:18 +0000

Presidential elections were held on Sunday, November 6 in Nicaragua. Through #votonica [es] and a Ushahidi-powered map [es], citizens have been reporting on the electoral process since October 21, 2011, and will continue until January 10, 2012, when President Daniel Ortega is expected to begin his third term.

Nicaragua: A Preview of the November 6 Election

Silvia Viñas — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 16:30:03 +0000

Bloggings by boz previews Nicaragua's upcoming elections on Sunday, November 6. He analyzes two important points regarding President Daniel Ortega's reelection bid, and lists 7 things to watch for on Sunday.

Nicaragua to Host 2012 Debian Conference

Silvia Viñas — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 13:38:09 +0000

Nicaragua will host the 2012 DebConf. The blog comuNIdad shares the announcement: “The conference will take place from July 8 to July 14 2012, in Managua, Nicaragua. In DebConf’s twelve-year history, this will be the first time it will be held in Central America. […] This conference will boost the local Debian and Free Software communities and help to bring awareness for the Debian Project.”

Nicaragua: Blogger Argues Digital Journalism in the Country is on the Right Track

Silvia Viñas — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:59:16 +0000

Carlos R. Fonseca says [es] he was surprised when participants in a discussion panel at the Universidad Centroamericana affirmed that digital journalism in Nicaragua is “stagnant”. Carlos argues that digital journalism in the country is actually progressing. However, he also admits there is room for improvement and lists specific issues that digital media outlets must consider.