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.”

Mónica Ticona writes about activities in the municipality of San Andrés de Machaca in Ingavi Province. During the dates around Worker Day (May 1), a football tournament is held in the community of Laquinamaya. Mónica describes a bit about the Altiplano town:

This community sits on the border with the Republic of Peru between the markers 23 and 28. The climate is frigid and the residents raise cattle. There are vast pamapas, but with very little vegetation. The people work from sunrise until sunset. For the residents fo the community there are no Sundays or holidays.

To read and comment on the complete article, click here.

When we launched the campaign, “Voces Bolivianas in Your Community,” one of the most enthusiastic responses came from one of the new bloggers and participante in the project Voces Bolivianas - El Alto 2, Santos Huanca. He works in the radio station “Pachamama” in the city of El Alto and he has been a big supporter of our project. On many occasions, one of us has been interviewed and he has given us a space to talk to about the project.

In his free time, he works with a youth group called, “Young Communicators,” which is comprised of youth, who primarily study at night because they work during the day to support their families. Each weekend, they participate in the radio station to share their experiences with stories, interviews and commentary, but now they have the interest in transferring the same information to cyberspace and to open their own blogs. The group wrote in their proposal:

We arrived at the conclusion that the media is an important instrument for the development of a more just society, free of discrimination. We think that one of the best options in this communicative process, free of filters, possibilities of reciprocity or “feedback” and one that can help with this interculturality is the blog. It is easy to use and it is relatively inexpensive. We would like to write about our daily lives, our neighborhoods, our problems, our joys and our loves.

They live in semi-urban ares of the city of El Alto, such as in the neighborhoods of Alto Lima, Rosas Pampa, Zenkata, Santiago I, Villa Tunari, etc, where hte majority of their streets are of dirt, and the houses lack basic services.

Santos will share his experiences and his knowledge about blogs with the youth. He has been one of the most active bloggers ad he provides commentary on his blog “The Power of the Word” and writes about culture, his experiences in school, and of children that must work in order to make a living. These are just some of the examples of some of the topics that he writes about.

In addition, the workshop will also receive support from Wara Yampara, who also formed part of the project of Voces Bolivianas - El Alto 2. Her blog called Productive El Alto, writes about agriculture, but also about the traditions such as the Alasitas Fair and about the commercial movement of the markets.

Many thanks to these two participantes from El Alto 2, who have committed to teaching what they have learned in the workshops. This ripple effect is very powerful, and will allow for even more people to learn about this tool. This workshop of approximately 15 people will take place in El Alto on April 19, “Bolivian Voices Day.”

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….

Everyday, Internet cafes are filled with children and teenagers, but sadly, in most cases they spend their time playing games for many hours. In many cases, our students are left without money for recess and without bus fares because they spend their money on these games. The owners of these internet cafés should be more aware and they should not allow these minors and students to play at all. Also, the authorities should make them comply with established rules. But those who should be most interested in solving this are the parents, so they must organize themselves and complain to the proper authorities.

Translation by Jose Gregorio del Sol Cobos

The day started with something rather heavy, after a worrying experience last night. One of the many skills that I am very fond of is the sport of basketball. I can rely on my feline-like agility, so every night we decide to play with the guys from the neighborhood. We met some new people, who shared our ball with, and the game started. In one of my many moves, my elbow opened up and struck the faces of one of my new friends. It sounded similar to what one might hear when you crush a potato chip, but only duller. I turned around to see which part of his anatomy had bumped into my elbow, and I found that his right nostril had been hit. I became terribly worried, but I was later calmed. The first thing I did was to find a thin pen in order to correct the damage that I caused. After that, things calmed down, thank God.
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I am going to tell you about about my neighborhood as a little tour just in case you decide to come visit here. If you visit Santa Cruz, don’t forget to pass by here. The neighborhood is located the zone called Plan 3000. The tour will start from the new bus station, where one can take a bus (lines 85, 59) or a taxi for those who want some comfort. But let us suppose we take the line 59.

1: Going out from the station you go towards the Tres Pasos Avenue until you reach the third Ring, then you enter the neighborhood called Estación Argentina (Argentina Station).

2: In this neighborhood, one finds the School - Fe y Alegria Aniceto Arce (Faith and Joy) and the church in front of that school; next you will pass by the square, in which there is a police station. Before it became a square, it was a market where people stocked up their needs.

3: Continuing with this tour, you will reach the Fourth Ring where you also enter into the neighborhood Cañada Pailita, and where you might bump into the threshing machine.
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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.

La Ciudad de la Alegría (City of Joy) is a very beautiful place, with a sports complex, futsal courts, football fields, pools, and many more things. Going to Ciudad de la Alegría is a beautiful experience because we took many photos and we went to the neighborhood university to take more photos. It was very fun because we talked, and later unfortunately it began to rain. That didn’t stop us because we continued to take photos and got wet. The rain continued and there was nowhere to hide except for some small trees. We continued to walk and some wanted to wait because they didn’t want to get wet. I arrived to this neighborhood in 2006 and it is a neighborhood with many good things, as well as some bad things. Hopefully some day there will only be good things.

Ciudad de la Alegría has a church Master Divine Jesus, where there is a wooden altarpiece made with polychrome wood from the Chiquitania. At the university, there are the programs of tourism, information technology, and theater, and is sponsored by the Catholic University of Bolivia. The home “Messengers of Peace” houses 16 children, where they are taught and supported in their homework. The university residence houses 45 young people, 15 women and 30 men where also study at the Ciudad de la Alegría school and at the Autonomous University of Gabriel Rene Moreno. The microenterprise nursery houses five businesses that were started by the students. The Valencia coliseum has a capacity for 1000 spectators, where sporting events take place. The swimming pool is that thing enjoyed by the most amount of people in the area. Admission is Bs. 5 (60 cents USD) on weekdays. Farewell to our friends of Voces Bolivianas.

I think that everyone far and wide that was born under this blue, pure, and clean sky loves his or her country, like I do. Many of us feel happy to be here in the Orient or Occident, in the north or the south of this country given to us by God. Bolivia is beautiful, isn’t it? Its altiplano, mountains, valleys, yungas, tropics, drylands, and plains, which gave us and the world many natural resources. For that reason, dear countrymen and women, let’s join forces to advance this country. Let’s study and work for its progress, united for a one love for Bolivia. From wherever we are, let’s fight for her, and let’s start her to get to know the country and one another better.