Bolivian Voices

Cristina Quisbert of Voces Bolivianas has received a scholarship to attend the Blog Her 2009 Conference on July 24 and 25 in Chicago. She will be a part of a prestigious group that includes Annie Zaidi (India), Esra’a Al Shafei (Bahrain), Pilirani Semu-banda (Malawi) y Toyin Ajao-Dawodu (Nigeria).

Here is the profile of the scholarship and a summary of the prize:

Cristina Quisbert, Bolivia, publisher at http://boliviaon.blogspot.com

Blog Mission: According to Cristina’s nominator: “The mission of this blog is to strive to show indigenous communities as a source of pride. There are a lot of misconceptions about indigenous people, and Cristina shows a more personal side and uses her own voice to represent other members of indigenous communities in the Bolivian Altiplano. Cristina is a bridge blogger, allowing fellow Bolivians who may not identify themselves as a member of an indgenous community, to interact and learn about indigenous communities in another region of the country. By also writing a blog in English, she is able to reach a much wider audience and show another side of life in El Alto, Bolivia.“

Congratulations to Cristina and we wish her good luck in Chicago.

As the start-up funding from Rising Voices comes to an end, Voces Bolivianas must find new and creative ways to find funding to continue our projects. The list of participants and communities that want to be a part of this web 2.0 world continues to grow. The number of bloggers that want to become trainers also increases as word gets out. As a result, we must find new and creative ways to find funds to pay for many of the expenses, such as internet cafe rental, overhead projector rental, and travel expenses for volunteers (i.e. the latest projects in Achacachi).

With the help of two of our bloggers in El Alto, Voces Bolivianas is pleased to offer the sale of laptop sleeves made from the traditional aguayo textile with a fleece lining. The sleeve is held by velcro. If this is successful, we will continue to manufacture more in different sizes. For now, the exact size is made for the dimensions of a Macbook (laptop measures 12.78 x 8.92 x 1.08 inches (WxDxH). Numbers are very limited.

There is a choice of two style (#1 and #2) and the cost is $25 USD and includes shipping within the US only (for now). Payment may be made via Paypal. 100% of proceeds goes towards Voces Bolivianas activities.

For more information please write: info [at] vocesbolivianas [dot] org or eduardo [at] vocesbolivianas [dot] org Please specify style #1 or #2.

To purchase:

Sorry, we are sold out. Please check back for future sales.

Note: We are trying this to see if there might be future interest in other sizes.  If you have a laptop that is not a Macbook, but would be interested in helping support Voces Bolivianas through the purchase of a laptop bag, please indicate what size you would be interested in (Survey Monkey)

Voces Bolivianas is an organization that seeks to create spaces where Bolivian voices from underrepresented groups or regions can be heard. Using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), such as blogs, digital photography, video and audio, Voces Bolivianas continuall looks for ways to promote this mission.

Through the use of workshops, Voces Bolivianas teaches the use of participatory and citizen’s media to underrepresented groups. In order to support and promote greater representation from other regions, cities and other sectors of societies, Voces Bolivainas is offering travel scholarships for bloggers from these groups to attend the national bloggers conference on August 29-30.

Travel Grants

In the spirt of supporting persons from these underrepresented groups, so that there is constant participation and dialogue, Voces Bolivianas will offer travel grants to bloggers or others who are using these participatory media tools (photos, videos, audio) in Bolivia so that they can attend and participate in Bloguivianos 2008 in the city of El Alto and La Paz on August 29 and 30.

The number and amount of each scholarship will depend on the amount of requests received and amount requested.

In order to be considered:

Write in your blog an entry responding to the following question (300-400 words)

How can blogs help create bridges between regions, social classes, ethnicities or cultures in Bolivia? Do you have an example from your personal experience?

Once you have completed the essay, please send the link to: becas (at) vocesbolivianas (dot) org with the following information:

1. City where you will be traveling from/where you live
2. Full name / e-mail / telephone / cell phone
3. Blog address or of the site where you use citizen’s media (videos, photos, podcasts, etc.)
4. How much funds will you need? (please only ask for the amount that you really need so that more people can receive assistance – we cannot cover plane tickets).
5. Deadline: August 10 at 17:00

Scholarship winners must be able to commit to attending both days of the gathering (August 29 and 30).

We will contact winners by August 15 via email and we will announce winners on the websites: vocesbolivianas.org and 2008.bloguivianos.org

The scholarship will be reimbursed upon presentation of a receipt of the transport or housing company. The scholarship can also be used for accommodations.

For more information, please write to Eduardo [at] vocesbolivianas [dot] org.

The need to reach more Bolivians in underrepresented groups created the need to launch the campaign “Bolivian Voices in Your Community” in order to ask for the help of local bloggers to bring a Bolivian Voices 2-month project to they communities and teach the use of web 2.0 tools (blogs, digital photography, audio and video). The response was overwhelming and moving and included proposals from more than 24 people and institutions from 6 of the 9 departments. In order to reach more people, Bolivian Voices decided to change the workplan in order to accomodate more teaching sites and reach a wider audience.

Bolivian Voices would like to announce that April 19 will be “Bolivian Voices Day” where in approximately 10 sites across the country, a workshop on the creation of blogs will be helpd. With the help of local bloggers, approximately 120 participants will receive instruction on how to open, create and maintain their own personal blog and how to be a part of the Bolivian Voices community, as well as the local and national blogosphere.

The confirmed sites include the continuation of the sites in El Alto and Santa Cruz, but also the launching of new sites in La Paz, Oruro and Cochabamba. More sites will be confirmed this week. More details and a list of sites and collaborators will be released this week.

“Bolivian Voices Day” will also be an opportunity to talk about some of the topics of why there are so many voices without representation in the Bolivian blogosphere and what we all can do so that these internet tools can help bring people together and look for ways to overcome these obstacles such as lack of access and lack of knowledge from the population.

Many thanks to all of those who are supporting this blogger citizen’s movement, including all of the participants of the projects in El Alto I, El Alto II and Santa Cruz I, the coordinators, the volunteers, special invited guests, media, institutions, organizations, national and international bloggers, Rising Voices network of projects and Rising Voices for the funding that made the first three projects possible.

More details in the days to come….

In 2007, we launched the teaching of participatory media, with emphasis on blogs. Blogs are webpages that are easy to use and it allows bloggers to communicated with the rest of the world by writing about their daily lives. Bloggers can share text, images, audio and video. It is not difficult to use. If one can use e-mail, then it is just as easy to blog.

n the first pilot project, El Alto I, 20 individuals participated with www.vocesbolivianas.org, and the website for the first project El Alto I can be found at www.vocesbolivianas.org/elalto , and included individuals that wanted to show “the other side” of El Alto. There are also translation websites in Aymara aymara.vocesbolivianas.org and English english.vocesbolivianas.org

The Closing Program for El Alto I will take place:

For those people arriving from La Paz, take any mini-bus that goes to Ciudad Satelite. These go along 4th Street in the neighborhood of 12 de Octubre (see map).

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