A few months ago I contacted Voice of Witness because I was interested in their work using storytelling to highlight the voices of human rights victims. I started collaborating in a small way by proofreading the Spanish versions of some of the stories compiled in the book “Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives“. The book is a collection of oral histories from men and women struggling to carve a life in the United States.
All the stories were touching and inspiring in their own way. I was humbled by the struggle and the determination of the people who shared their stories for this book. As a recent immigrant going through the complicated legal process to remain in this country, I can only begin to imagine the difficulties and uncertainties that illegal immigrants are facing under the current social and economic climate. The human rights of this always growing population are under constant threat.
The Spanish version, named “En las Sombras de Estados Unidos: Narraciones de Inmigrantes de Indocumentados“, will be presented at the San Francisco public library on November 19, 2009.
During a few months at the beginning of 2008 I was lucky enough to work with Ben Rigby, doing some background research for his MobileVoter book “Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web2.0 Technologies to Recruit, Organize and Engage Youth.”
At the time I truly wished I had more time to work on more chapters! I ended up compiling three documents that follow Ben’s excellent guidelines: one for Blogging and Microblogging, one for Video and Image Sharing. The documents contain some definitions, a section on strategic approaches, a few use cases, a technical overview with key features and mechanisms, a “getting started” section, and a few points on what may come next on this topic. I may change the format and structure of these and re-publish the content in the near future.
Ben’s book is enriched by interviews, examples, real use cases and a lot of insight, both from campaigners and from technical people. The chapters cover Blogging, Social Networking, Video and Photo Sharing, Mobile Phones, Wikis, Maps, Virtual Worlds. The book is available on Amazon.com.
El libro “Compartir conocimientos para el desarrollo rural“, recoopilado por Sally Burch y publicado por ALAI, contiene varios artículos sobre experiencias de intercambio de conocimientos en América Latina. Mi aporte tiene que ver con el uso de distintos medios (nuevos y viejos) para documentar, apoyar y generar procesos de intercambio. Las experiencias que decidí retomar en el libro son parte del trabajo que hemos hecho en la cooperativa Sulá Batsú en los últimos años. El libro está disponible en formato PDF en Español.
The book “Sharing Knowledge for rural development“, coompilation by Sally Burch and published by ALAI, contains several articles about knowledge sharing experiences in Latin America. My contribution is focused on the use of different media (old and new) to document, support and generate sharing processes. The experiences I talk about in the book are part of the work that Sulá Batsú has been developing in the last years. The book is available in PDF format in Spanish only, for now.
Voces Libres de los campos digitales resume los resultados de tres años de investigación sobre Software Libre en América Latina y el Caribe, con el apoyo de ICT4D Americas (IDRC). El libro está impreso en Español y está acompañado de un CD con todos los datos de investigación. Esta publicación es el resultado del trabajo conjunto de 6 contrapartes en toda la región. Todos los contenidos se pueden encontrar y bajar en línea.
Free voices from the digital fields gathers the results of a 3 year research on Free Software in Latin America and the Caribbean, with the support of ICT4D Americas (IDRC). The book is printed in Spanish and comes with a CD with all the research data. This publication is the result of the work of 6 organizations in the region. All contents, including an English Version (pdf) of the book, can be downloaded at the website.
