Last week we had our second workshop which was about the creation and management of blogs. The three libraries participating in this project have now their own blog and all the participants learned how to create new posts.

Blogs:

http://bibliotecaminuevomundo.wordpress.com/

http://bibliotecanuevoamanecer.wordpress.com/

http://bibliotecafuentedesabiduria.wordpress.com/

Besides the three libraries blogs everyone created a personal blog for those who want to write not only about the libraries activities and community issues but for more personal purposes. They were taught not only about what a blog is and how to manage it and update it; they also learned techniques to tell stories in more compelling ways. In this occasion we had the collaboration from Kara Andrade, a journalist who has been blogging and teaching about blogs since 1999 in the United States and Guatemala. She kept the youngsters attention throughout the workshops and shared her own story about when she began her first journalist activities when she was 6 years old, as she had to document a road trip that she did with her family to the United States. Using the learned story structure the participants presented personal and library stories and they were able to upload their pictures and write a short bio in their personal blogs.

Kara Andrade

Also collaborating with Kara was Bea Gallardo, an independent producer, who taught them about the meaning of blogging and how they could be useful for personal and community development.

At the end of the second day, Bea presented a documentary called “Granito” (small grain) which is about interviews and testimonies of the civil war in Guatemala. This is an educational documentary aimed to let people know, especially young, what really happened during those years. Unfortunately they had to run to catch the last bus back to their communities and we were not able to discuss it, but we will do so before our next workshop next week, which will be about the right to access public information.

By then these new community bloggers will have plenty of things to share and talk about.