This is a guest post by Lully Posada of HiperBarrio, which was translated by Silvia Viñas.

Hiperbarrio [es], a Rising Voices project from Colombia, is an outreach collective which “practices and promotes new ways of expression and participation” through blogging. The group is made up of members from the blog Convergentes [es] who live in the working class neighborhood of La Loma of San Cristobal in the city of Medellín, Antioquia. Hiperbarrio accepted an invitation from the Fundación Empresas Públicas de Medellín [es] (EPM) to replicate their experience in other libraries in the city of Medellín.

Consequently, the blogosphere is growing thanks to the work of the members of Hiperbarrio. The group advises bloggers from the first repoduction of Hiperbarrio, the group Ituango [es] in the municipality of Ituango in Medellín. They also teach workshops on blogs, and multimedia in general, to three groups of approximately 20 people in each one; results are already visible, as participants have began publishing in their collective blog, and will hopefully create their personal blogs soon.

Picture of the group Villactivos, taken by author Lully Posada.

The group from the Villatina library [es] is made up of various people from the neighborhoods of Comuna 8 and its surroundings, a place located northwest in Medellín. The blog and the group are called Villactivos [es] and in their first post they can’t hide their enthusiasm [es]:

Nos complace contarle al mundo que hoy nace un nuevo grupo de hombres y mujeres con actitudes e ideales para cambiar la visión. Ubicados en Medellín – Colombia; donde nosotros, los miembros de los barrios de Villatina, La Libertad, Las Golondrinas, Villa de Guadalupe y Las Estancias, queremos crecer todos unidos y aprender de estos medios virtuales de forma recíproca.

Image courtesy Funacrate and Tiempo pasado 24 horas

Another group, headquartered in the Empresas Públicas library in Medellín, named their group “Funacrate” and created a blog called Tiempo pasado 24 horas [es] (Time Elapsed, 24 Hours). Here are some contributions from their first post:

En el grupo de Biblioteca epm, se encuentran con personas que vienen de diferentes espacios cómo: Fundación “Servicio Juvenil programa bosconìa”, Fundación “semillas que crecen” y usuarios frecuentes de la Biblioteca epm relacionados con la experiencia en dicha biblioteca. Una fundación enfocada a ayudar a los jóvenes y otra orientada a rescatar a personas adultas que quieren salir de esa forma de vivir, y la otra que “brinda el espacio” para soñar despiertos (…) La que nos brinda la enseñanza del proceso de blogs es HiperBarrio, qué es un grupo de personas que brindan la enseñanza para Muchas Personas, esa es la esencia.

Revolución Esperanza [es] (Esperanza Revolution), is the third group that was created with various members [es] from library La Esperanza, in a neighborhood in the north of Medellin; their blog bears the same name, and in their first post they write:

Hoy te abrimos la puerta a un lugar nuestro blog, Revolución Esperanza, donde jóvenes, niños y adultos trabajaremos conjuntamente, mostrándole al mundo que revolucionando vidas podremos lograr, basados en el diálogo, promover los derechos de los niños y contar historias de un lugar llamado La Esperanza, sede de este nuevo colectivo, que pertenece a la red HiperBarrio.

We congratulate Hiperbarrio and all the new users from the blogosphere who dare to tell their stories, do citizen journalism, and work to never lose the historic and cultural memories of their localities, fine arts, free expression and free culture; while also transcending borders.