Bolivian Voices

The magazine “Américas” of the Organization of American States (OAS) recently published a short article about Voces Bolivianas in its October 2008 issue. Reporter Chris Hardman interviewed Eduardo Ávila about the project’s goals and about its plans for the future. The article also provided examples of some of the new bloggers such as Marisol Medina.

On a Saturday morning in El Alto, Bolivia, a group of men and women intensely watch the computer screens at the Internet Café Scorpio. Some of the users have never had access to the internet and now they are learning to write mesages, digital photograhy and video techniques, tools necessary to have a voice within the global online conversation that is the Internet.

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“I think the internet can be a great equalizer, as it can connect people that may not normally interact offline,” says Eduardo Ávila, the director of the program.

To see a scan of the article please click here.

Our friend Rosa Jiménez Cano from the Spanish newspaper El País was present at the Global Voices Summit in Budapest, Hungary. She wrote an article called, “Listen to the World to Improve it,” about the presentation by the Rising Voices projects and where blogger and Voces Bolivianas participant Cristina Quisbert shared her experiences.

Cristina Quisbert shared her experience with Voces Bolivianas, a network of blogs and citizen news based in El Alto, a city near La Paz, but located at an even higher latitude. In her opinion, a project like this was more than necessary, “The indigenous represent 63% of the residents, but they never received the necessary attention.”

The Spanish version of the BBC “The World” radio report was recent published in BBC Mundo and also in La Nación of Buenos, Aires Argentina. Many thanks to the reporter Ruxandra Guidi for her coverage of our project.