Voces Bolivianas Begins in Santa Cruz

Welcome to Jessica Olivares, the new Santa Cruz Coordinator and Enrique Canedo, project assistant. They wrote this description of the first day of Voces Bolivianas – Santa Cruz, our newest iniciative.

The crazy weather in Santa Cruz played tricks on us, as it began to rain very early in the morning, and as we came closer to our destination, the streets and avenues beyond the 4th Ring of the city truly became rivers.

After 25 minutes of an eventful journey in a small taxi, we heard the continuous complaint from the taxi driver. He talked about his theory of the phenomenon “La Niña” that it was not the result of global warming, rather it was due to human consequences: according to him, human sin was the cause. In the middle of his whining, he spouted, “Repent, heathens because the water will wash away our sins..” in that moment we realized that we were finally arriving to our final destination, Paurito Avenue in the area of Plan 3000 near the neighborhood La Ciudad de la Alegría.

The rain was beginning to cease, and 11 individuals were waiting to begin the first class of digital literacy through the use of blogs… 11 individuals that were transformed from real-life to virtual and became part of the Bolivian blogosphere.

It was satisfying to see the commitment from the attendees, and it was also surprising to see the variety of backgrounds in this heterogeneous group. There were young people, professionals, students, commercial vendors, and novices. Most were brand-new to the world of blogs, but they had the complete interest to learn how to create their blogs, and express themselves through words to the world what they live on a daily basis.

Here are their new blogs:

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Prof. Miriam Vidal- – Miriam Vidal
Capuletos- – José Armando
Eufenisimos – José Luis Alanoca
Travieso - – Kevin Ayllon
Reciclaje – Edmundo Vaquila
Turismo en Bolivia – Deisy Díaz
Crucenhito – Sergio Gutierrez
Litoraleño – Pedro Velásquez
Mi Cofre Musical OK – Silvana Salvatierra
La Docente de Siglo XXI - Elsa Muruchi

To visit their page: Voces Bolivianas – Santa Cruz

When the clock struck 2 pm, the rain had stopped and we had finished providing answers to the rainfall of questions from our new students. Once more, they demonstrated the commitment to learn and we showed our commitment to teach them. We would appreciate if you visit their new blogs!

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Voces Bolivianas 2.0

Voces Bolivianas is pleased to announced that the next round of citizen's media workshops will begin this Saturday, January 12th in the city of El Alto. The project titled El Alto II will improve upon the experiences of the first pilot project in 2007, as well as continue the successes experienced by the Voces Bolivianas team. As one of the main goals of Voces Bolivianas is to work with underrepresented groups, a concerted effort to recruit female participants was made in the past couple of weeks. In the pilot project, nearly 75% of the participants were male, and the goal is to reverse that number with the approximate percentage being female.

In addition, the organization's first expansion is scheduled for January 19th in the city of Santa Cruz. A local blogger, Jessica Olivares, has agreed to become the Voces Bolivianas coordinator in Santa Cruz. She is busy making arrangements for recruitment of participants.

More news soon.