Stories from Quick Reads and El Salvador
What Does Hacking Education Mean?
Pedro Muller reflects on the lapse of the school system, an institution he says meant for a different historical context. In this regard, he notes the importance of two similar, but at the same time different, concepts: “to study” and “to be educated”: El educar se va más allá de...
Ecuador's Creeping Criminalization of Abortion
Marita Seara, blogging for Voces Visibles, warns about the growing criminalization of abortion in Ecuador, one of the most difficult countries in Latin America for women to obtain an abortion, second only to Venezuela. Hay dos únicos casos en los cuales es permitido el aborto: cuando corre peligro la vida...
Spain and Latin America Celebrate Open Data Day
One again, bloggers, hackers, designers, experts, as well as citizens interested in open data and transparency will meet to celebrate International Open Data Day 2015 all over the world to promote the opening of government data. The event is expected to have online meetings but also in-person activities all over...
Migrant Children from Central America Are Not Mere Statistics
In an opinion piece for the American newspaper Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Global Voices contributor Jamie Stark wonders, “What kind of parent would pay $10,000 for a stranger to bring a child 1,400 miles through gangland and hostile border crossings? A good parent, perhaps.” As a concerned citizen about the crisis of...
The Engineer, Documentary About the Man Unearthing the Dead in El Salvador's Gang Wars
The documentary “The engineer” tells the story of the man that unearths the dead in El Salvador's gang wars. Israel Ticas has been trained as a civil engineer, and as forensic criminologist, every day brings with it the promise of new bodies, victims of a remorseless Salvadoran gang culture, dumped...
An Open Letter to Salvadoran Migrant Children
From El Salvador, Pablo Lüers writes an open letter to migrant children who have traveled on their own to the United States and who will be deported back to their countries: Ustedes aquí en El Salvador y en su pueblo o barrio, se van a encontrar de vuelta con cada...
The Humanitarian Tragedy of Children Emigrating Alone
From Mexico, Katia D'Artigues, author of the blog Campos Elíseos (Champs Elysées), writes about the children who see themselves forced to emigrate on their own [es], and calls this a “humanitarian tragedy”: Son niños que son orillados a cruzar la frontera solos. No lo hacen por aventura, sino porque muchas...
The Appropriate Way to Talk to People With a Disability
Salvadoran Jaime Vázquez Villalta explains in this article the appropriate ways to talk to people who have a disability: Al dirigirse a un familiar, amigo o conocido que presenta algún tipo de discapacidad, en primera instancia debemos asumirlo como una persona, con virtudes, talentos, fortalezas y debilidades, pero ante todo, como una persona porque eso...
El Salvador Pays No Attention to Its Laws for Disabled People
Jaime Vásquez Villalta writes in his Spanish-language blog Desde mi Silla (From my chair) denouncing El Salvador's failure to observe the United Nations’ 1971 Declaration on the Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons. He mentions the six basic rights [es] of disabled people, according to international human rights legislation. Vásquez describes what happens in...
El Salvador: The New Águila Football Club
José Díaz blogs [es] on Te hablo de Fútbol [I talk with you about football] about his impressions on the new team coach and the recently hired players for Águila Football Club: Creo que en Águila deben estar aquellos que de verdad sientan la identidad del equipo, la camiseta emplumada...
Accessibilty for Handicapped in El Salvador
Jaime Vásquez notes [es] on his blog Desde mi silla [From my wheelchair] about accessibility issues for handicapped people in El Salvador and concludes: La adecuación de espacios para lograr la accesibilidad, constituye la protección de los derechos humanos de las personas con discapacidad, al eliminarse las barreras físicas y...
Analyzing Media in El Salvador
Salvadorean blog Colectivo de análisis de la realidad compiles and comments on its Media analysis on May 12, 2014 [es] the main news on printed and digital media that date in El Salvador. The blog carries out this analysis almost on a daily basis. The post reviewed here was part...
News Coverage with Drones in El Salvador
In a piece published on Global Post, Jaime Stark notes how in many Latin American countries it's very frequent to use unmanned aerialvehicle, known as drones, for news coverage. In United States, however, using drone for news and other commercial ends is banned. He writes: [In Holy Week in El...
Where Did the Blogs from El Salvador Go?
Hunnapuh remembers [es] his first steps on the world of blogs along woth other pioneer bloggers in El Salvador, and reflects that “from all those bloggers, there are very few who are still relatively constant […] today, everything is accelerated and has to be said with 140 characters, this is...
El Salvador: Letter to Minister of Public Works
[All links direct to pages in Spanish.] On the blog Siguiente página, Paolo Lüers posts a letter addressed to the Minister of Public Words of El Salvador, Gerson Martínez, where with some irony he makes reference to the announcement made by the minister on a local TV station where he...
El Salvador: Flower Carpets on Holy Week in Ayutuxtepeque
On the occasion of recently past Holy Week, the blog Hunnapuh went all over [es] the main streets of Ayutuxtepeque district in San Salvador, and captured images of flower carpets for the procession of the so-called “Holy Funeral”.
Analyzing Election Results in El Salvador
On the blog on World Policy website, author Jamie Stark analyzes the March 9, 2014 election results: A recount confirmed a thin margin for the governing left-leaning [Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front] F.M.L.N. by 6,000 votes of the nearly 3 million ballots cast. Arena [Nationalist Republican Alliance] claimed the winners...
VIDEO: ‘Happy’ in El Salvador
Salvadorans have created their own version of the song “Happy” by Pharrell Williams. Blogger Mildred Largaespada praises the video on her Facebook page [es]: It's beautiful. And yes, as in real life, this is also real: During most of the day, women and men of El Salvador are happy rather...
El Salvador's Election Tribunal Announces Winner in Presidential Race
El Salvador's election tribunal announced that Salvador Sánchez Cerén of the left-wing FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) beat conservative candidate Norman Quijano from the ARENA (Nationalist Republican Alliance) party on Sunday's run-off election. Sánchez Cerén won with 50.11% of the vote. Linda from Linda's El Salvador Blog served as an...
El Salvador Second Round Election Too Close to Call
Salvadorans went to the polls on Sunday, March 9 to vote in a run-off presidential election, but results are so close that both candidates have declared themselves winners and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal has announced that they will do a complete recount in the coming days. In a report about...
El Salvador and Costa Rica to Hold Runoff Elections
El Salvador and Costa Rica held presidential elections yesterday, February 2, but both countries will define their president in a runoff vote. In El Salvador, “results show Salvador Sanchez Ceren (FMLN) winning 49%, just short of the 50% he needed to win in the first round. Norman Quijano (ARENA) is...