Latest posts by Juliana Rincón Parra from December, 2008
Burning the Year Away: New Year Traditions
In many South American countries, it has become a tradition to burn human shaped representations of the previous year, as a way to get rid of everything bad that the year brought, and leave way for the new. The following videos show some of these traditions and some of the controversy soome of them have sparked.
Gaza/Sderot: Israel and Palestine together on video
The Gaza/Sderot: Life in Spite of Everything Project is one of the prime examples of the variety of ways a bridge between different cultures and world-views can be created through online media. In this project created by ARTE.tv, a French-German cultural television station, twelve people going on their day to day business on either side of a violent border were exposed on a website for ten week project which ended on December 23rd. The two minute videos documented snippets of the lives of 6 characters in Gaza, Palestine and 6 characters on the other side of the border in Sderot, Israel during two months.
Video: Costa Rican Artist takes on the Fine Art Classics
Francisco Munguía, a Costa Rican cartoonist and artist has interpreted the Fine Arts classics and is currently doing a show in the Costa Rican Children's Museum. However, you don´t need to travel to Costa Rica to see his work: it is uploaded on YouTube in a gallery style presentation.
Costa Rica: Call for Collaborative Christmas Video
Costa Rican online humour collective nosedecirlaerre.com which translates into "I can´t pronounce the R" has set out a call for participation from Costa Ricans and those familiar with their culture to create a collaborative video for Christmas. The campaign is called Uniting Ticos for Christmas and the requirements are quite simple: dancing in the Costa Rican style of "swing criollo" the popular end of the year song Jugo de Piña and saying something in Costa Rican slang, on video.
AIDS: Orphans, Marches and Reminders
Following up on past AIDS coverage such as the AIDS Conference 2008 and the World AIDS Day 2008, we bring you a video that shows the plight of orphans in South Africa whose parents have died from AIDS, the AIDS day celebrations in Bangladesh, a reminder from Mexico to get tested from SexualidadIntegral podcast and the AIDS impact report from the 2008 Conference in the Mexico City as well.
Costa Rica: Unconventional Names for Towns and Villages
In Costa Rica, La Foto Salió Movida [es] searched the electoral lists and discovered truly strange names of townships and villages in the country, and publishes them on his blog. Some of the names, translated into english includes Loser, Ice Cream or Liberty, Beer, Betterthannothing, Cheap Houses, Sewers, Socks, The...
Colombia: Pablo Escobar's Brother Makes Claim of AIDS Cure
Colombia's twitterers are buzzing about the television declaration of the cure and vaccine for AIDS that druglord Pablo Escobar's brother, Roberto states he has discovered. So far, the only available information regarding the claim can be seen on 6 month-old low quality videos of testimonies by people claiming to have...
Playing for Change: Peace Through Music
MeetJohnSong brings to our attention a global collaborative musical project called Playing for Change: Peace through Music. The concept behind it is that music is a common uniting factor between different cultures, ethnicities and regions.The film and music will be available in 2009, and more information on the project can be found on the Playing for Change website.
Video:What image opened your eyes to human rights?
The sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is on December 10th, and Witness' The Hub team has put together a video that responds to the question: What images have opened your eyes to Human Rights? The video is online right now and with it they are asking all of us to participate by showing and telling the world about the power images have had in making us care about Human Rights.
Costa Rica: Different Perspectives on Reporting
Cristian Cambronero of Fusil de Chispas [es] writes about the recent Juan Luis Guerra concert in San José, Costa Rica, where most of the concert attendees were herded into a muddy field. He writes that citizen media allows for the documentation of real experiences of events through the use of...
HIV & AIDS: Creative awareness raising campaigns
We bring you a Christian Church that raps in Spanish against Drugs and AIDS, correct male condom usage in El Salvador, a Peruvian campaign using modified Tarot cards to tell "clients" about their future regarding love and sexuality, a Venezuelan calendar that brings nude artists together against AIDS, an African network show about living with HIV/AIDS and an HIV+ Argentinean who shows through video what his life is like.
Video: Eliminating Violence against Women
A series of videos bring attention to the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25th and to the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence which ends on December 10th. Clips from Mexico, Paraguay, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Zambia and Afghanistan all provide different perspectives on the same serious worldwide issue.
