As she explains in the above video, Marietta joined Global Voices after coming to the 2008 Global Voices Summit in Budapest to cover the event as a journalist for a local newspaper. A self-described technophile, Marietta likes how Global Voices uses technology to encourage dialog between distinct communities that often don't interact. Her latest posts about the Hungarian blogosphere look at recent protests against the Hungarian Guard, Budapest's gay pride parade, a law banning nightlife after 10 p.m. in Budapest's District VI, and a showdown between cyclists and drivers during a Critical Mass event.

This past week I was able to catch up with Global Voices author Sara Moreira at the International School for Digital Transformation in Porto, Portugal. Sara arrived to the program after spending several weeks in Dili, East Timor, the country whose blogosphere she dutifully covers on Global Voices.

Sara teaching young women computer engineering at East Timor National University.

She has worked as a professor at East Timor National University and was awarded computer equipment from Hewlett Packard to help introduce more Timorese women to the fields of computer engineering and web design.

Make sure not to miss Sara's three-part series commemorating the 9th anniversary of internet access in East Timor.

Of the 270 project proposals, the following five are most representative of the innovation, purpose and goodwill that Rising Voices aims to support.

Abidjan Blog Camps

Théophile Kouamouo has long been one of Francophone Africa's leading bloggers. Based in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Kouamouo is one of the founders of the Ivoire Blog network and started the wildly successful meme “Why I Blog About Africa.” (Elia Varela Serra summarized many of the resulting responses in a two-part series on Global Voices.) Kouamouo is now trying to bring many more of his countrymen and women to the blogosphere by organizing a series of “blog camps” around Abidjan in which current Ivorian bloggers can discuss the issues affecting them and show new bloggers how to join their ranks. Kouamouo first proposed the idea on his blog back in August last year, which attracted a number of enthusiastic commenters supporting the idea. Blog Camps have a long history of attracting new citizens to the participatory net. A number of blog camps have taken place in India, including in Chennai in 2006 and, more recently, in Mumbai. Blogcamp CEE last October brought many new participants to the Russian-speaking blogosphere. For the most part, however, West Africa (and particularly Francophone West Africa) has been left out of the booming global blogosphere. That is starting to change. Panos West Africa, in partnership with Highway Africa and Global Voices, recently announced the winners of the Waxal - Blogging Africa Awards. Next year we can expect to find many more Ivorians on that list as Théophile Kouamouo sets out to organize a series of events that will bring dozens if not hundreds of Ivorians to the blogosphere. Abidjan Blog Camps will also promote more pan-African online interaction by teaming up with existing blog camp movements in Madagascar, Kenya, Uganda, Mauritius, and South Africa.

Ceasefire Liberia

Just west of Ivory Coast lies Liberia and its roughly 3.5 million inhabitants. Settled by free slaves from the United States in the early 19th century, Liberia fell into a 14-year dark period of civil war and lawlessness that concluded in late 2003 with the presence of ECOWAS and the United Nations. Today Liberia is slowly recovering despite inadequate infrastructure, unemployment at around 80%, and former combatants (many of them minors) who must be re-integrated into society. Many unemployed Liberians have put their hopes in friends and relatives living abroad in the United States. However, there is often a lack of communication and understanding between Liberians at home and those living in the diaspora. By partnering with African Refuge - a drop-in center for West African youth - and the Century Dance Complex in Park Hill, Staten Island (the largest Liberian community outside of Africa), and Amnesty International in Monrovia, freelance journalist Ruthie Ackerman aims to help foster a transatlantic Liberian blogging community.

Those Liberians who lived through the war — whether soldiers or not — experienced some type of trauma or displacement. By creating a community and sharing experiences with others, it has helped give these youth a purpose and vision that there is something larger than themselves. This will benefit the community (on both sides of the ocean) on many levels: Liberians, many of whom have difficulty adjusting to life in America, can reconnect with their families and dispel myths about what life is like in the U.S. There are also left-over tensions from the war, which may be able to be diffused through the dialogue created between the communities.

Real Experience of the Digital Era - China

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Shenyang, literally meaning “the city to the north of Shen River” and capital of the Liaoning province, is touting itself as China's “next tourist destination.” But whether you are visiting the ancient pagodas of Old City or the official “High-tech Industrial Development Zone” the tourist brochures won't mention the city's male and female sex workers who mostly come from poor rural communities in search of talked-up urban opportunities. In partnership with the Ai Zhi Yuan Zhu Center for Health and Education documentary filmmaker Wei Zhang will train male and female sex workers who use the AZYZ center how to maintain a blog and upload short video documentaries to share their experiences, opinions, and troubles in order to promote more understanding of the region's sex worker population.

Nomad Green - Mongolia

Environment officials from throughout Northeast Asia met in Ulaanbaatar this week for the first time to discuss climate change and how to enhance energy efficiency in the region. Mongolia's capital city was a fitting location for the meeting as the country's environmental deterioration has accelerated recently due to rapid urbanization, industrial growth, and increased coal consumption. Ulaanbaatar is frequently shrouded in a haze of thick pollution:

Desertification from climate change is threatening the livelihoods of nomadic Mongolian tribesmen and the country's saiga antelope was just named the most endangered antelope species in Asia. It is amid so much negative news that Portnoy Zheng, in collaboration with the Mongolian and Tibetan Foundation and the Mongolian Green Party, will train Mongolian citizens how to spread awareness - both at home and abroad - about their country's environmental crisis. Nomad Green aims to 1.) train citizen journalists how to use blogs, digital video, podcasts, and map mashups to report on environmental news, 2.) create a network and community of environmentalists sharing and spreading information about related threats, solutions, and opportunities, and 3.) translate content into Chinese and English to promote more regional and international cooperation in facing Mongolia's environmental challenges.

Empowerment of Women Activists in Media Techniques - Yemen

With international coverage of the Middle East focused on the Israel-Palestine conflict, the war in Iraq, Iran's nuclear program, and the financial markets of the Persian Gulf States, little attention is given to one of the region's poorest countries, Yemen. The few spikes in media coverage of Yemen over the past few years are all related to fears of al-Qaida presence.

In collaboration with the Hand in Hand Initiative, Ghaida'a al-Absi will organize a new media training course for female politicians, activists, and human right workers in order to bring a new perspective to the Arabic-language blogosphere and to build an online network of Yemeni gender activists. It is fitting that today, on the 98th anniversary of International Women's Day, we announce al-Absi's initiative to bring more women's voices to the internet. The deteriorating status of women's rights in Yemen is frequently documented and discussed, but rarely do women themselves take part in those discussions. By reaching out to NGO's and political parties throughout Yemen al-Absi aims to change that.

Please join me in congratulating and welcoming the newest five grantee projects to our community.

Rising Voices, the outreach arm of Global Voices, is now accepting project proposals for microgrant funding of up to $5,000 for new media outreach projects. Ideal applicants will present innovative and detailed proposals to teach citizen media techniques to communities that are poorly positioned to discover and take advantage of tools like blogging, video-blogging, and podcasting on their own.

As the internet becomes more accessible to more people, including mobile phone users, the so-called digital divide seems to be narrowing. In its place, however, we see a participation gap in which the vast majority of blogs, podcasts, and online video are being produced in middle-class neighborhoods in major cities around the world.

Rising Voices aims to help bring new voices from new communities and speaking new languages to the conversational web, by providing resources and funding to local groups reaching out to underrepresented communities in the developing world. Please visit our current list of grantees for project examples.

The sky is the limit, but unfortunately funding is not. Rising Voices outreach grants will range from $2,000 to $5,000. Please be as thoughtful, specific, and realistic as possible when drafting your budgets.

Successful projects will be prominently featured on Global Voices. Grantees are expected to host regular workshops to train participants how to start and maintain a weblog, upload and share digital photographs, and produce basic videos. Grantees are also required to post regular project evaluations and updates to the Rising Voices website.

Completed applications will be accepted no later than Sunday, January 18. Please submit your completed application on the Rising Voices apply page.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments section below or by sending an email to outreach@globalvoicesonline.org.

Rising Voices and Open Society Institute's Health Media Initiative are happy to announce the six newest health-focused citizen media outreach projects. We received over 110 proposals from health activists and organizations based in over 50 different countries. The six selected grantees represent the most innovative applications of citizen media tools like blogs, podcasts, and online video to help further the advocacy goals of public health organizations, and to empower the communities they work with.

In Brasov, Romania, the Casa Sperantei hospice center will train its nurses, doctors, and staff how to use audio and video recording equipment to share the direct stories of patients with life-threatening illnesses. The center's staff will also take advantage of their online media training and interactive website to explain the objectives, successes, and challenges in palliative care, which focuses on improving end-of-life care for patients and their families, with a special focus on vulnerable populations including the elderly, children, and patients with cancer or HIV/AIDS.

In the township of Kwa Mashu, on the outskirts of Durban, South Africa, the Kwa Mashu Community Advancement Project (K-CAP) will use its Ekhaya Imagination Lab to train 20 new citizen journalists from within the township how to report on local stories related to local health issues affecting the community. In 1998 Gugu Dlamini was stoned to death in Kwa Mashu after publicly declaring her positive HIV status. The twenty citizen journalists trained at K-CAP will aim to counter such severe stigma to HIV and AIDS while also bringing local health issues to an international audience.

Pavel Kutsev of the Drop-in Center will use blog posts, photos, podcasts, and online video to share his experiences working at a harm reduction facility based in Kyiv, Ukraine. The blog will open a window to the daily reality of drug users and describe how that reality affects public health throughout the country.

The Orizonturi Foundation in Campulung Moldovenesc, Romania will create a blogging club for mental health service users which trains them how to maintain a weblog, upload videos to online sharing sites, and use social networks. The technical skills will enable the participants to share their own stories and forge their own online identities.

In Brazzaville, Congo the AZUR Development organization, as part of its AIDS Network Africa initiative, will “train communication officers of local AIDS organizations in digital story telling, podcasting, and the creation of blogs to document the stigma and discrimination of people infected and affected by HIV and AIDS in Congo in order to use them as a tool for advocacy, education, and the promotion rights of people infected with HIV.” Each communication officer will describe how the AIDS pandemic is currently affecting the local community where he or she works and what daily life is like for people living with HIV and AIDS.

Last, but not least, the FrontAIDS project based in St. Petersburg, Russia will use citizen media to monitor accessibility to treatment for people living with HIV, AIDS, hepatitis, and TB in 20 regions around Russia. The interactive blog-based site will become a an aggregator and go-to resource of citizen media information related to health issues around Russia.

The six projects are diverse in their geography and their strategic approach, but they all share a desire to train health activists to use new media in order spread awareness about their work and the communities they serve.

THE JOB: The Public Health Editor will be responsible for writing weekly articles which cover the latest discussions and topics related to public health and human rights in the developing world from citizen media like blogs, podcasts, and video-blogs. S/he will work closely with the rest of the Global Voices editorial staff (managing, regional and language editors), and will also be expected to attend regular online editorial meetings.

As GV is a virtual organization, the Public Health Editor will not be expected to relocate. Regular access to high-speed internet connectivity will, however, be a key factor in being able to carry out this job.

The position involves:

• Surveying the current citizen media space to find blogs, podcasts, and vlogs focused on public health issues in the developing world.
• Introducing Global Voices readers to how health activists are using citizen media to spread awareness about public health issues.
• Interviewing and introducing the grantees of Rising Voices' latest health-focused grant competition.
• Liaising between public health bloggers and journalists looking for stories to report on.

This is a part-time position with modest compensation, for somebody who is passionate about helping to amplify the voices of health activists concerned with human rights from the developing world. It is also a great opportunity to become involved with a global community of bloggers who are working on the cutting edge of citizens' media.

THE REQUIREMENTS: Our ideal candidate has an international outlook and solid experience both in citizen media and public health. Solid English-language writing editing skills are a must, and a strong familiarity with the current tools, web sites and trends in citizen media worldwide is important. Familiarity with the regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia is particularly desirable. S/he has the ability to work independently and responsibly with only remote supervision.

Ideally, s/he will have the ability to read and write well in at least one language other than English and have a working knowledge of other languages. Preference will be given to candidates from outside the United States and Western Europe.

To apply, please send your CV and a letter of interest to outreach@globalvoicesonline.org. The application deadline is Saturday May 24, 2008.

Rising Voices, the outreach arm of Global Voices, in collaboration with the Open Society Institute Public Health Program’s Health Media Initiative, is now accepting project proposals for the third round of microgrant funding of up to $5,000 for new media outreach projects focused especially on public health issues involving marginalized populations.

Ideal applicants are dynamic NGOs or individuals who:

• Represent the vital voices of communities affected by stigmatized health issues whose stories, viewpoints, and experiences are often marginalized, unheard, or misrepresented in mainstream media. These communities include people living with HIV and AIDS and/or tuberculosis, people with mental illnesses or intellectual disabilities, injecting drug users, sex workers, LGBTI individuals, people in need of palliative care services, and Roma facing discrimination in healthcare settings.
• Are enthusiastic about using new, interactive modes of communication to build relationships and establish dialogue on the important advocacy issues of their community.
• Envision and highly prioritize media and communication strategies to achieve the advocacy goals of their organization.

Pre-requisite for the competition:

• Organizations must have their own website or participate in a network website.

Rising Voices and OSI aim to bring new voices from new communities and speaking new languages to the conversational web, by providing resources and funding to local groups reaching out to underrepresented communities. Examples of potential projects include:

• Working with a tuberculosis or HIV clinic or local drop-in center with the offer of training health workers, local harm reduction or sex worker outreach workers, patients, and their families to blog and upload video, in order to document their work, their experiences, and their community.
• Use blogs, podcasts, and online video to help give voice and representation to LGBTI communities and advocate for their rights.
• Distribute mp3 recorders to a local NGO working on palliative care issues, and help them produce monthly audio testimonials and/or interviews featuring stories and experiences of participants, for uploading to the NGO's website.
• Organizing a regular workshop on blogging and photography at a legal aid center representing the rights of people living with mental disabilities. Part of the budget could be used to purchase affordable digital video cameras and internet café costs, so that participants can describe their challenges and life experiences to a global audience.
• Purchasing an affordable digital video camera and teaching a group of local Roma community outreach workers how to produce an ongoing video-blog documentary about their work, which could then be posted to the organization's website and linked to other networks' websites.

Rising Voices outreach grants will range from $1,000 to $5,000. Special consideration will be given to proposals from Sub-Saharan Africa and the Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucusus. Please be as thoughtful, specific, and realistic as possible when drafting your budgets.

Successful projects will be prominently featured on Global Voices.

Completed applications will be accepted no later than Sunday, June 1st in either English or Russian. Please submit your application on the Rising Voices apply page. Russian-language proposals should be submitted here. All applicants will receive a confirmation email by June 3. Grantees will be announced on June 28 at the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit in Budapest, Hungary.

***

The OSI Public Health Program’s Health Media Initiative aims to increase public awareness of health issues, especially stigmatized health issues involving marginalized populations. The initiative focuses on supporting health NGOs to develop their relationships with journalists across all media platforms so they may communicate health and human rights issues effectively with the public. Where the media environment is especially hostile, OSI also supports “community journalism” initiatives to encourage NGOs to use digital technology to communicate their stories and issues to each other and to the world at large. The initiative also seeks to build the capacity of media professionals to report responsibly on public health issues.

Rising Voices aims to help bring new voices from new communities and speaking new languages to the conversational web, by providing resources and funding to local groups reaching out to underrepresented communities.

Ten poems were submitted from Colombia, Bangladesh, and Madagascar. Of those ten, the following three featured poems were selected by Dr. Ward and her poet friend to be featured in commemoration of women around the world.

“Paceñita / Cristina Quisbert

Priority

by Sufia-734 of Nari Jibon

(Originally written in Bangla - Translated by Kazi Rafiqul Islam)

Time has come now
To stand for that we need
Not equality, but priority.
Upright
We want to open our heart
Express our mind
For that we need
Not equality, but priority.
Fathers can be cruel even
Mothers cannot.
Mothers can sacrifice
Fathers cannot.
That is what women are
We can do everything.
Combating with sorrow
Win happiness.
No more shall we endure injustice
No more shall we remain within the four walls.
Time has come to open ears and eyes
To protest against unfair deeds.
For that we need
Not equality, but priority.

Women road repair crew, Kathryn Ward, Dhaka, 2004.

by Poupoune of FOKO from Toamasina, Madagascar.

NY VEHIVAVY

Vatolampy fehozoro ny nehivavy, ka zava poana raha tsy misy azy
Eny fa ny fo fanfahy dia atolony avokoa,ary miaraka @ dia ho tody ny soa
Herin'ny tokan-trano anie izy hatramin'izay, koa dera sy laza no atolotray
Indro anefa ireo zava bitany, hojoro ho mandrakizay, ka tsy ho toy ny rozy malazo ho dinganinay
Vola sy harena tsy misy raha jerena, fa raha lavitra anao dia ssento sisa atao
Anaovana hery setra sy verin-jo tanteraka, anefa dia mitalaho any @
Voninkazo midoroboka mamirapiratra tahaka riva, 

Koa masoandro mamiratra tokoa anie isika,
Izay mitondra fahasambarana sy fifaliana, 
Hoan'ireo rehetra maminitsika

THE WOMAN BEING

Poem by: Camila Urrea Morales (Colombia)

Translated by: Carolina Vélez López of HiperBarrio.

EL SER MUJER
En un principio, aún incierto, apareció la mujer, un ser creado fibra a fibra de azúcar, adornado con tanto hilos dorados como sentimientos, un ser que se derrite con cada palabra que infunde fuego en ella, y que se enfría, levantando la pared más fuerte, con aquellas que llegan como témpano ante ella. Luego, aparece aquella cubierta que es más que piel, una cubierta conductora de emociones, de latidos, de vibraciones. Y apareció la mujer, y con ella la dulzura de las cosas hechas con la delicadeza que nada más se encuentra en ese ser.

Finally, in a class all its own, a coordinator of the FOKO project in Madagascar, who prefers to go by the pseudonym SipakV, submitted this poem in Malagasy and English.

“Lehilahy iza no ho tamana amin'izao”
-Tsia ange fa izy no te handeha
-Ka tsy handeha ve izy
Vehivavy nilaozambady ianao
Manala baraka anay
Manala baraka fianakaviana
Jereo ity volonao
Jereo ity tarehy
Jereo ity sakafo 
Jereo ity trano mikorontana
Lehilahy iza no ho tamana amin'izao
-Koa mba efa niezaka ao re
Ny volo notapahina, natao plaquage
Ny tarehy nohosorana diloilo manitra
Ny sakafo niezahana hatsiro isan'andro
Ny trano ampirimina
Kanefa ange Ikoto sy Ikala
Mitaky fitiavana sy fikarakarana
Ny sakafo adino eo ambony fatana
Ny trano voakorontana
Angaha misy hitany akory
Izy anie ka mody alina
Mamom-behivavy hafa sy toaka
Domelin'ny hatezerana
Fa ratsy hono ny fiainanay
Ratsy taiza hono ny ankizy
Ratsy tarehy hono ny vadiny
Vehivavy hafa hono no tadiaviny
Koa dia ny fahareseny no vonoiny
Vonoiny amin'ny tavako sy ny vatako
Vonoiny isan-kariva fa tsy mety voafafany
Tamin'ny farany teo efa tonga ny fokonolona
Dia nohafatrafarana aho hoe
Vehivavy ka mihareta
Mihareta hatramin'ny farany
Fiharetana eto an-tany
Hatramin'ny nikororosian'ny lanitra eo ambony
Tonga teo ingahy mompera nilaza hoe
Tsarovy Victoire Rasoamanarivo
Fa tsy fahasambarana any ankoatra anie no tadiaviko
Fa mba kosa filaminana ho an'Ikoto sy Ikala
Tonga ianao androany ry Neny ka hoe
Efa izy no anjara
Fa vono olona ve no fetra
Ary fanagejana no lahatra
satria ho aiza moa
Fa izaho dia vehivavy tsy miasa?
Ka dia aleo re ry mama…
- Jereo ity volonao
Jereo ity tarehy
Jereo ity sakafo 
Jereo ity trano mikorontana
Lehilahy iza no ho tamana amin'izao…

Originally published on Rising Voices.

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I know, it probably sounds a little cheesy - someone rapping about video-blogging - but the lyrics of Jorge Jurado's song ‘ConVerGentes' are not only poetic, they also reflect a truth a about participatory media in general: we create because we are compelled to, not because we are told to.

The most active members of ConVerGentes. Jorge Jurado is on the far right.

Jorge is one of about 20 young people in the peripheral working class community of San Javier La Loma who form the citizen media group “ConVerGentes.” They are one of three groups who make up the larger outreach project HiperBarrio. ConVerGentes is a play on words which combines the Spanish words for convergence, seeing, and people.

Jorge, who produced a short documentary about La Loma's graffiti culture and blogs at La Voz del Silencio, is also a talented graphic designer and hip-hop artist. His song “ConVerGentes”, which he performed live above in early January 2008, discusses the potential of using participatory media to rescue the forgotten history and culture of local communities. He also somehow manages to mention the title of every ConVerGentes weblog in a way that describes both its content and the person behind it. You too can visit each of their blogs by going to the ConVerGentes site and clicking on each of the links on the right-hand side beneath the header “Blogroll”.

Rising Voices grantee Pablo Flores, who is in charge of the implementation of the One Laptop Per Child program in Uruguay, believes that the XO laptop is more than just an educational tool. He also sees the lime green laptops as an important communication device which he hopes will allow all Uruguayan students to be heard by the rest of their country and participate in the online conversations which will affect their future.

On YouTube, there is an 11-minute video of the veterinarian-assisted birth of a calf on a farm in Villa Cardal, Uruguay, a small town in a dairy-rich region four hours north of the capital, Montevideo. It’s an amazing thing to watch—at least, to a city slicker like me who doesn’t get to witness the miracle of birth every day. But what makes this particular video remarkable is that it was shot by a fourth-year student at Villa Cardal’s Public School 24, using the built-in camera and recording software on the student’s XO Laptop, within weeks of the machine’s arrival at the school last year.

Wade Roush 2/1/08

Perhaps just as amazing is that the low-production (that is, zero-production) video has already been viewed by nearly 40,000 individuals. How did a lower-middle class rural Uruguayan fourth-grader learn to take video of a cow giving birth and share it with so many people across the globe?.

Villa Cardal is a rural town of around 1,300 residents in the department of Florida, Uruguay. Last May it became the unlikely destination for dozens of technology correspondents from major media outlets around the world after the One Laptop Per Child project chose it as a testing site for for their XO computer, formerly called the $100 laptop. (Each laptop actually cost the Uruguayan government $205.)

You can get to know Villa Cardal better in Google Earth or, to a lesser degree, with Google Maps. You can also check out many photographs of the town which were taken by students in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade using their XO laptops. I am personally a fan of this photograph as I tend to make the same face when staring into a webcam.

Rising Voices grantee Pablo Flores, who is the technical and educational coordinator for OLPC's implementation in Villa Cardal and throughout the province of Florida, has also posted some interesting videos of Villa Cardal and the young students using their XO laptops on his YouTube page.

During the OLPC's pilot project in Villa Cardal, the Uruguayan government was also testing out the Intel's Classmate PC. In early October, after intense negotiations which brought the XO laptop down to $205 compared to the Classmate PC's price tag of $258, the Uruguayan government ordered 100,000 XO laptops with an option to buy 50,000 more at $199 per unit.

Two months later and the first non-pilot deployment of XO laptops was launched at Escuela No. 109 in rural Florida. The laptops in Villa Cardal were also replaced with new XOs with updated hardware and software. The OLPC project in general, and its first deployment in the Uruguayan province of Florida specifically, have both attracted a good deal of international criticism. The most common critique is that the $205 per student would better used elsewhere; for example, on the renovation of shoddy schoolhouses, the purchase of textbooks, or the salaries of underpaid teachers. Another common criticism is that the laptops won't be effectively used by teachers, who will probably have a more difficult time than their students in adapting to the new technology.

For those interested in how those criticisms specifically applied to the 6 month pilot phase of the OLPC project in Villa Cardal, you could do no better than reading “Reflections on a Pilot OLPC Experience in Uruguay” by Juan Pablo Hourcade, Daiana Beitler, Fernando Cormenzana, and Pablo Flores. The paper is largely optimistic, but its authors do note that:

While the Uruguayan government is making a great effort in providing funding for the hardware, there is no funding for designing and developing software and content for use with the laptops. We are interested in developing technology to help setup and facilitate partnerships between local communities, schools (children and teachers), software developers and funding sources to foster the user-centered design, development and evaluation of open source software and open content for the XO laptops.

Another excellent resource for frank feedback about the value and challenges that those lime green laptops brought to Villa Cardal comes straight from the students' parents and teachers. Again, we mostly encounter gratitude and optimism, but parents do note that the laptops have been the cause of some arguments between siblings while teachers observe that some of the students become distracted in class by focusing more on their computers than the classroom activity. Flores also writes, “The phrase ‘… and we are waiting for Internet' was repeated by most of the parents. Teachers also had some difficulties with Internet, because apparently not all the time there's good connectivity inside the school.”

What kind of content are the young students producing with their laptops? Much more, it turns out, than just videos of birthing cows. You can find out yourself by taking a look at the classroom blogs for grades one, two, three, four, five, and six at Villa Cardal's Escuela Italia. (As the new semester has just started, most of the blogs have not been updated since before the holiday vacation.)

For Pablo Flores the XO laptops are much more than an educational tool; they are also an important communication device which he hopes will allow all Uruguayan students to be heard by the rest of their country and participate in the online conversations which will affect their future. Flores' Rising Voices project, Bloggers Desde la Infancia or “Growing Up Blogging” will organize four series of workshops in strategic rural locations throughout Uruguay. These gatherings will bring the young XO-toting students and their teachers together with national and international veteran bloggers, podcasters, and producers of online video. They will go over intermediate and advanced blogging techniques, how to add meta information to the photographs they upload to the web, how to create conversational video threads using YouTube responses, and much more.

As Flores wrote on his project proposal [es]:

Creemos que hay una enorme potencialidad de extraer información rica desde todos los rincones del país, involucrando a los maestros, los niños y sus familias. Esto brindará una gran riqueza de visiones sobre las noticias, la cultura, el quehacer y todas las expresiones de la realidad desde todos los rincones del país. Es una oportunidad para promover la real integración del país a la sociedad de la información. Creemos también que la experiencia de Uruguay puede servir de referencia para otros países que estén impulsando modelos educativos de un computador por niño (1:1).

Obviously, before organizing the participatory media workshops, Flores is first overseeing the complete distribution of the laptops in rural schools throughout Florida and the rest of Uruguay. He says the series of workshops will likely take place throughout July and October, though that many of the OLPC schools will have their own classroom blogs before then.

I will be visiting Villa Cardal and many of the other OLPC deployments in Uruguay throughout the month of April. We'll make sure to bring Rising Voices readers more updates and videos as the months go on.

These videos are, of course, far from sleek Hollywood productions. Which is exactly what makes them so valuable. They show life as it really is, not as we'd like it to be. You can always see the four latest videos from Rising Voices projects on the front page of our website. Every video is subtitled in English and many are available in other languages as well. For example, La Receta from HiperBarrio is already available in Bengali, Chinese, English, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. You can always help us translate all of the videos into other languages using dotSUB. To watch any of the videos with subtitles, simply click on the video player where it says “Choose a language …” To help translate the video into another language that does not appear on the list, click on “translate this video.”

All of the videos are currently downloadable in their native language, though we will soon make downloads available with English subtitles as well. We are also in the process of creating a special video archive page and increasing the size of the video player in order to make the subtitles easier to read. We hope that you will continue to check back and keep up to date with the latest videos from Rising Voices participants.

Rayones by Jorge Jurado

“Rayones” translates into English as “tagging”, a particular form of graffiti in which names, nick-names, and brief messages are scrawled in public places and on the sides of houses and building. In fact, as we learn in this video production by HiperBarrio participant Jorge Jurado, tagging can even take place on human skin. (And probably not where you're expecting!). Jorge's video is a thoughtful meditation about an activity which is common in La Loma, Colombia along with other working class neighborhoods around the world. Is tagging vandalism or a form of individual expression?

Interview with Monwara Begum by Taslima Akhter

Taslima Akhter is the video-blogging trainer at Nari Jibon in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She recorded a heartbreaking interview with Monwara Begum who describes the abuse she endured at the hands of her husband and his family.

Banda Paniagua by Dnabier Sady

The Paniagua Band from the Medellin's outlying community of La Loma used to be one of the city's most famous musical groups. But as you will soon learn in this brief documentary by HiperBarrio's Dnabier Sady, today very little is heard of or from the family group that has endured five genrations.

This is just a small sampling of the videos that have already been produced by Rising Voices projects. In upcoming weeks we will have more videos from Voces Bolivianas, HiperBarrio, and hopefully other projects as well. Stay tuned!!

Until now. Thanks to the hard work of Rising Voices' project coordinators, an international readership is discovering the local stories of previously unheard voices including young women in Dhaka, Bangladesh, motivated interns in Sierra Leone, and residents of the largely indigenous city of El Alto, Bolivia.

Rising Voices, however, is much more than an initiative to bring local voices to a global audience. We are also interested in the potential of citizen media to create more unity in already established local communities. With this in mind, the facilitators and participants of HiperBarrio recently organized a town hall meeting which brought together over 100 residents and community leaders from San Javier La Loma, a hillside community which endured the brunt of the violence during Medellín's Esobar era and the subsequent chaos that followed until as recently as 2002.

The event, which was to take place in La Loma's cancha acustica (the barrio's only public space), was moved to an auditorium in the local church when the afternoon's drizzling rain refused to let up. The Colombian digital magazine, equinoXio, published a four-part series about the unusual citizen media event with contributions from two of HiperBarrio's talented participants, Catalina and Julio Restrepo, as well as one of the facilitators, Alvaro Ramirez. Their articles, two of which have been translated from Spanish below, reveal how HiperBarrio has brought a sense of unified community to what was once one of Medellín's most violent and most divided neighborhoods.

Residents, local leaders, and special guests from La Loma and beyond gathered to experience the videos and photographs produced by HiperBarrio's citizen journalists.

“Satisfactions” by Catalina Restrepo

Six months ago the coordinator of the San Javier La Loma satellite library invited a group of its users to participate in a project aimed at rescuing the forgotten history of our neighborhood.

At the beginning, Alvaro Ramirez showed us how to create a blog using the site Wordpress.com, and since then the group has grown wings which today allow us to be known in many countries around the world and be part of the worldwide project Global Voices.

Following the creation of our blogs, many trainers and workshop leaders have come to our neighborhood to teach us the tools in order to create audiovisual works (photography, video and audio), which we have used to tell the stories of the neighborhood he has seen grow up.

The satisfactions have been many:

• First, to get to know so many people who have enriched us with their worldly ideas. The trainers have given us their very best as students, as professionals, and more than that, as individuals.
• Second, to discover the stories and history of our neighborhood, such as that of Suso, which has managed to touch the core of every member of the group.
• And third, the sense of unity that has grown between us as we go on our excursions throughout the community to document its history.

Without any doubt a space of conversation has opened in La Loma, which has generated changes achieved by the young people who belong to HiperBarrio. We will continue in this project that has made us grow as people and we want to give our very best as members of a neighborhood and a city that needs more projects like this one.

“A Night Under the Stars” by Álvaro Ramírez Ospina

HiperBarrio's ‘night under the stars' became a warm, cozy, and exciting encounter. We experienced some dramatic moments just two hours before the start as a persistent rain cooled the exposed hilltops of La Loma and the open plaza where we had planned to hold the event. The wind threatened to topple the giant screen where we were going to project video and the tree sculpture where we hung photographs and articles which the HiperBarrio participants have published over the past six months.

We were saved by the Father of the parish who kindly let us use the communal hall adjacent to the church. We quickly set up the chairs and audiovisual equipment in order to start an event which not only brought the presence of over a hundred children, youth, and adults of La Loma, but also some important guests from inside and outside the community such as Jorge Melguizo, the brand new Secretary of Civic Culture, Gloria Ines Palomino, the director of the Library Network of Medellin, the local magistrate, the pastor, and the new commander of the local police post who took the opportunity to introduce himself to the expectant community.

The event began with the projection of photographs of the community and surrounding area - with spontaneous snapshots of local residents, their houses, streets, and corners, as well as the previous vistas and landscapes of Medellin which can only be fully appreciated by those who come up to the privileged topography of La Loma.

Vista of Downtown Medellin from La Loma

Milthon Araque performed a theatrical piece titled Sweet Dreams, Lilo which delighted all of the children. Then it was time to show the video productions including The Paniagua Family, Full Moon Nights, Rayones, and the powerful story of Suso. Those valuable productions not only show the history, living culture, and heartbeat of La Loma; they also reveal the creative talent of the directors as they continue their path toward becoming genuine citizen journalists. After sharing their works with the gathered audience, the members of HiperBarrio took to the stage and eloquently highlighted the exciting and challenging experience of learning to use the new online tools which have enabled them to self-publish on their blogs, equinoXio digital magazine, and on YouTube. Each participant received a long-deserved applause from the audience.

Milthon Araque performing Sweet Dreams, Lilo to a delighted audience of children and children-at-heart.

It was a beautiful and rewarding evening. I can still hear the voices of the kids in the audience: “It's the home of Rosa! Look, look, they also took a picture of my grandpa! Uy! That's up near Primavera, it looks good …” The children of La Loma gave small shouts of enthusiasm. Others, smilingly, whispered their comments to neighbors. Seated on the floor in front of the elders in the communal hall, they experienced this unforgettable public presentation of HiperBarrio, which has been documenting the everyday life of friends, family, and neighbors for seven patient, continuous months. There hard work has been feverish and they are now reaping the fruits, thanks to the cooperation of many people, especially the Biblioteca Pública Piloto and the metropolitan area Network of Libraries.

HiperBarrio participants describe their experiences as citizen journalists.

Indeed, with the continued support of the local library system as well as the Secretariat of Culture, HiperBarrio is now looking to expand its mission to bring citizen media to more of the many peripheral communities which climb up the hillside outskirts of the downtown valley. The current batch of 20 or so citizen journalists based in La Loma and Santo Domingo will continue to document the stories and histories of their local communities. But, in just a few months' time, they will hopefully be joined by new peers who will also document their local stories for a global audience.

The first guide, An Introduction to Citizen Media, offers context and case studies which show how everyday citizens across the world are increasingly using blogs, podcasts, online video, and digital photography to engage in an unmediated conversation which transcends borders, cultures, and differing languages. From the introduction:

A change is taking place in how we communicate.

Just ten years ago we all learned about the world around us from newspapers, the television, and radio. Professional journalists would go to faraway places and bring back stories, photographs and videos of the situations they witnessed and the people they met.

Sometimes at dinner we talk about these stories with our friends and family. But ten years ago we rarely, if ever, communicated directly with the journalists themselves. Leading members of society wrote editorials expressing their opinions about various issues, but the rest of us could only share our opinions and thoughts with a small group of friends.

Over the last few years everything has changed. Thanks to new tools like weblogs, it is now possible to easily publish to the Internet. From Turkey to Kenya to Bolivia, everyday people like you and me are starting to share their stories and opinions with the rest of the world.

While this new form of communication is now freely available to anyone, most of the people participating still live in the wealthy neighborhoods of urban cities.

The purpose of this guide is to show that anyone with an internet connection can participate in the emerging global conversation. Our understanding of the world is now shaped not just by the newspapers and television, but also by each other.

This first edition of An Introduction to Citizen Media is available in English, Spanish, and Bengali. Future editions will also be available in Swahili, Malagasy, and Aymara.

While there are already several excellent introductions to the principles of citizen media, they tend to overwhelmingly focus on the surge of citizen media initiatives in North America and Western Europe. This guide, on the other hand, hopes to show readers in North America and Western Europe that some of the most exciting and innovative developments related to citizen media are taking place in the non-Western world. It also aims to serve as a reference document for local citizen media initiatives that wish to provide a more international context to their projects when they approach community leaders, politicians, and foundations.

Throughout 2008 Rising Voices will continue to publish and release guides which document in greater detail the use and implementation of RSS feeds, blogs, digital photography, podcasting, and online video.

Download An Introduction to Citizen Media in English
Descarga Una Introducción a Medios Ciudadanos en Español
‘সিটিজেন মিডিয়ার পরিচিতি' ডাউনলোড করুন

We can assume that ever since language was first given physical form, poetry (from the Greek poiesis, “making” or “creating”) has been a vehicle to express our saddest laments, our giddiest joys, and our most enigmatic secrets of love and mourning. Though there is no shortage of concern that the tradition of poetry will be lost among the bits and bytes of a digital age, there is also a growing mountain of evidence (in the form of blogging poets, or poetic bloggers) that the aesthetics and muse of prose can now reach farther and wider than ever before.

The new bloggers of Rising Voices outreach projects in Colombia, Bolivia, and Bangladesh are more than just up-and-coming citizen journalists. They have also discovered the power of prose to reveal glimpses of the human emotions that bring us together and the local differences that make each of our communities unique.

Poetry is always the most difficult of texts to translate and for this reason we have left the original Spanish and Bangla text followed by our best attempts of English translations.

Tribute by Carmen Elena Paniagua of HiperBarrio:

Homenaje

Con este breve poema quiero expresar mi gratitud a una vieja amiga.

Canción ausente

No llores cuando me marche y tenga que dejarte sóla en el rincón de siempre;

no olvides que mi voz quedó grabada en tu vientre;

no olvides que mis huellas están por todo tu cuerpo.

Ya de memoria sabes entonar nuestra melodía;

tu tristeza y mi llanto se confundieron muchas veces en acordes menores y mis lágrimas caían sobre tus cuerdas, apagando violentamente el eco de tus lamentos.

No te angusties por mi ausencia; deja que tu cuerpo esbelto repose, hasta que una noche regrese y juntas entonemos nuevamente la canción de siempre.

We Are Women by Sharmin Chowdhury Shikha of Nari Jibon:

আমরা নারী
জেগে উঠ আজ, জেগে উঠ
বসে থেকো নাকো
সময় হয়েছে গো, সামনে যাবার
কেন বসে থাকো?
কেন ভিরু লাজ?
সামনে অনেক কাজ,
কেন বসে আছো, আধাঁরের ঘরে?
কেন কাটিয়ে দিচ্ছ জীবন, ধুঁকে ধুঁকে মরে?
বিশ্ব আজ আলোকিত, চারদিক উচ্ছাসিত।
তুমি কেন আধাঁরে, হয়ে আছো নিপতিত?
বেরিয়ে আস ঐ ঘর থেকে
তাকিয়ে দেখ নারী বিশ্বের দিকে।
বসে নেই তারা হাত পা গুটিয়ে
বাহিরে আসছে আধাঁর কাটিয়ে।
উন্নত দেশ, উন্নত বিশ্বে
নারীরা আজ অনেক শীর্ষে।
জ্ঞান চক্ষে তারা করছে অনেক ভালো
পালিয়ে যাচ্ছে সকল আধাঁর কালো।
হে মহীয়ান নারী
গর্জে উঠে একবার বল
আমরা পারি, সবই পারি
আমরা নারী।

Announcement by Diego Ospina of HiperBarrio:

Anuncio

Te cambio una palabra por un beso mujer hermosa.
Es un buen trato teniendo en cuenta que el beso estremecerá a mi alma, dará tal alegría a mi corazón que saltará aceleradamente y el dulce sabor de unos húmedos labios abrazarán los míos; la palabra que yo acrezco una vez sea escuchada cambiará por completo la percepción antes tenida de la vida; la verdad, el sufrimiento y la muerte tomarán un sentido tan pleno como el que da una revelación maravillosa.

Once a Day by Zannat Ara Amzad of Nari Jibon:

কোন একদিন
অজানা, অচেনা হয় যদি চেনা-জানা
কোন একদিন……..
তুমি, আমি ডানা মেলা
যেদিন আকাশ হবে নীল।

চোখে চোখে কথা বলা
না বলা যত কথা হবে সেদিন,
যেদিন হবে তোমার আমার
প্রণয় মালার দিন।
দিন-ক্ষণ জানি না,
সময়-অসময় বুঝি না,
কোন বাঁধা মানি না-
যদি না বাজাঁও ভালোবাসার বীণ ।

From the Heart of the Andes by Juan H. Apaza of Voces Bolivianas:

Desde El Corazon de los Andes

GRITOS DE DOLOR ATAÑEN
LA SANGRE DERRAMADA CLAMA
CINCO SIGLOS DE AUSENCIA CALLADA
UN CORAZON RECLAMA PRESENCIA.

DESDE EL MAS PROFUNDO SURCO DE LOS ANDES
HAY UN ESPIRITU DE LA TIERRA
REFLEJO DE ARMONIA ,RESPETO Y VIDA,
AYNI ,RECIPROCIDAD Y AGRADECIMIENTO
UKAPINIU SARSTWA.

SE HA CUMPLIDO EL PACHACUTI,
UKA JACHA URU JUTASTA
DANZAN LOS TARIS Y LAS TRENZAS
SUENAN LAS PANKARAS
SICUS Y THARKHAS EXCLAMAN:

EL CORAZON DE LOS ANDES A VUELTO (BIS)

PARTIERON TU CUERPO A LOS VIENTOS,
LO ARRASTRARON POR CALLES Y PLAZAS,
FUE LLEVADA TU CABEZA EN PICOTA…
Y TU CORAZON CONVERTIDO EN WACA.
Y NO PUDIERON MATARTE…!

HA VUELTO EL CORAZON DE LOS ANDES,
Y LATE EN MILES DE ESPIRITUS,
TU CORAJE ESTA LATENTE ,JILATA…
JULIAN APAZA ….TUPAC KATARI

Friend by Jesmin Ara Amzad of Nari Jibon:

বন্ধু
বন্ধু মানে ভালো লাগা
দুটি হৃদয়ের ভালোবাসা।
বন্ধু মানে একটু আশা
মনের মাঝে স্বপ্ন বাঁধা।
বন্ধু মানে একটু ছোঁয়ায়
পরশ লাগে যত।
বন্ধু মানে ছুটে চলা
জোড়া শালিকের মত।
বন্ধু মানে উদার আঁকাশ
মেঘলা রোদের ঘর।
বন্ধু মানে স্নিগ্ধ আলোয়
শিশির ভেজা ভোর।
বন্ধু মানে বেজায় খুশি
একটু অভিমান।
মনের মাঝে কোথায় যেন
একটু খানি টান……

Translations by Rezwan and David Sasaki.