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Home?
Related to country: Costa Rica

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

I just got back to Costa Rica this week and I finally feel like I am home. A strange feeling to feel when I am supposed to be leaving in a months time. Josue and I have just moved into a huge house with a beautiful garden full of fruit trees. We have noni, guayabana, manderinas, and mangos all in our backyard. We live in a quiet neighbourhood just a 10 minute walk from downtown Turrialba. The town itself is tiny but has plenty to do, including a range of cute bars, restaurants, and cafe's equipped with wifi. All around us are mountains, rivers, and farm fields.

I must admit I don't want to leave. My instincts tell me to settle down, find a cool job, and finish my masters desde aquí. It is possible, but I feel like I'd be letting people down if I stay. I think the most important thing is to concentrate on the work ahead and do an awesome job. I still have to finish working on a few websites and I have a pile of translation and subtitling to do.

Other amazing news is that before we left Panama I invested in an iPhone! I have been waiting all year for this, and it was totally worth the wait. Jailbroken, it is the most magical piece of technology I have used yet and I believe that it symbolizes a revolution in mobile communications. The digital divide may not be bridged with one laptop per child, it is already being formed by a huge network of cellphone users. The trick is to develop applications compatible with existing technology.

We went to the Kuna Yala region right before leaving panama and our guides got so excited when we mentioned that we were web designers. They told us that they had just got Internet access and they wanted to figure out how to download free video games and music. Yet both Josue and I were short for advice when they explained that they wanted to do it on their cellphone! They also told us that the local school also wanted Internet, but on an island that is short on power and telephone lines this could only be possible through satellite (preferably solar powered). Any social entrepreneurs interested in a digital divide startup, there is definitely a need for solar powered satellites and the development of better cellphone applications!

April 24, 2008 | 12:17 PM Comments  1 comments



Networking our way to Social Change
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Italian | German | Portuguese | English | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic



Social Networks have moved from being a buz word, to an essential element of global pop culture. From India to Brazil, youth, artists, musicians, businesses, politicians, and not for profits are embracing these new technologies in order to spread their influence and reach new audiences. Yet as Social Networking becomes more popular, the array of choices are starting to flood the average user. What do you pick with so many new options popping up everyday? Obviously, you pick what your friends are using, or in the case of NGOs, what your supporters and clients are embracing.

For Canadian NGOs, it is pretty hard to ignore the resounding influence of Facebook. International NGOs such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International have embraced multi-media sites like YouTube, and of course we cannot fail to mention the powerful networking platform TakingITGlobal has provided for youth leaders around the world. Yet there are some agencies that are going the extra mile by producing their own networks, such as the Ontario Ministry of the Environment's site obviously.ca. Youth Action Network has tried to embrace all of these technologies, by having both a Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and TakingITGlobal profiles. Some sites are more popularly used than others, as you can see that our MySpace account is rarely used as it has gone way out of style with Canadian youth. With all these subscriptions, our most popular network is through our website itself and our individual members. Our website gets over 50,000 hits a day, and our toolkits and web publications are some of our most popular downloads. Really it is not the amount of networks you are signed up to, but the quality of content and programming that your NGO provides which makes it the most succesful!

Yet as new sites are popping up everyday, how does a NGO determine where to put its resources into? Is it worth it to construct your own site? I think that it is worth it to invest in independent social networking infastructure in order to provide a focused space for conversation, networking, and idea generation. In big sites like Facebook and MySpace, your project can get lost in all the chatter. MyBLOC.net does a great job in this regard, as they have carved out a specific space for youth activists of colour to engage and network on the issues that concern them. Yet it is also important to have a networked presence in these sites as well if that is what your target audience is engaged in daily. The trick is to find a ballance, and to also find ways to integrate existing online platforms.

April 7, 2008 | 12:33 PM Comments  4 comments



Comunicación Popular - Grassroots Communication
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic



As I am finishing up my semester it means that I have to turn into an essay machine, something that I have been avoiding as of late. I have been up to my ears (as they say in Spanish) with work on CEAAL's new website.

Finally I have a chance to breath a bit, and go back to the theory. Looking through the reading lists I was assigned for this term I have found a huge amount of enticing information online. Comunicación Popular is Spanish for what we call Grassroots Communications in English. Now days it is better know as Citizen Media, an updated term that reflects both past and new media technologies which alow everyday people to publish and distribute media independently.

Popular Communication is the process of integrating the voice of the people into communications media, thus finding ways to make media production more independent and accessible to the general population. Some traditional examples of this are Community Theatre, Radio, Television, and Newspapers. These types of media have all been used as tools for democratic participation of civil society, and have been used in a variety of ways depending on the populations. Another example of popular communications in a Latin American context is Diablos Rojos, public buses which are painted with a number of images and slogans which reflect the popular culture of their owners. Popular communications always reflects the culture of those engaged in it.

Some more contemporary examples of popular communications are media like eZines, Blogs, SMS Networks, Participatory Video and Online Communities. New technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones are changing how we conceptualize hegemonic media landscapes.