According to Telecentre.org:

A telecentre is a public place where people can find information, create, learn, and communicate with others while developing digital skills through access to information and communication technology.

Organized by Telecentre.org Foundation, Telecentres Europe, Consorcio Fernando de los Rios-Red Guadalinfo, and the National Information Society Agency of Korea, Spark13 is expected to bring together 1300 participants from around the world.

The winners of the 1st Global Telecentre Awards will also be announced at Spark13. Awards will be given in the following categories: The Awards feature 6 main categories: Telecentre, Telecentre Manager, Telecentre Network, Telecentre Initiative, Telecentre Innovation, and Information Access Center.

Rising Voices has become very interested in how physical spaces, such as telecenters, libraries, and hack labs can be important resources for local communities as a way to encourage citizen participation through the use of digital media tools. Certainly providing internet access is an important step, but many of these spaces also provide important training and mentoring for users.

In August 2012, together with New Tactics and Social Media Exchange, Rising Voices co-hosted an online dialogue called “Physical spaces as catalysts for greater digital citizen participation.” During this virtual conversation, we brought together experts and other practitioners to share their experiences, challenges, and success stories:

Across the globe, new physical spaces are emerging that are acting as catalysts for greater citizen participation using digital technologies. Community libraries are rethinking their traditional role, and many are now offering internet access to their users in order to provide opportunities to gather around local issues where they can produce, not simply consume information. Telecenters are going beyond providing computer access to communities, to providing workshops to train citizens on how to use digital technology effectively to promote change. Hacklabs offer a physical space where activists and technologists can come together to find innovative solutions to local problems. These are just a few examples of the innovative use of physical space to encourage and empower greater digital citizen participation.

Before, during, and after Spark13, Rising Voices will be featuring some of these innovative Telecentres that are playing important roles in helping their local communities access digital media tools to tell their own stories or participate more fully online.

Written by Eddie Avila
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This year marked a major change in the way that Rising Voices collected these proposals for sharing on a public platform designed to facilitate networking and peer exchange. Thanks to the new WordPress-supported site designed by Global Voices’ Code and Design chief Jeremy Clarke, we were able to offer a new website that published the proposal submitted by each applicant. Each applicant was given the option whether or not to display their proposal publicly.

After the proposal was categorized by geographic location, topic, and tools to be used in the trainings, the application was visually mapped as accurately as possible to show the location where the project would take place. Visitors to the website could then search the public proposals according to these different categories or by focusing on a particular place on the map. We were also pleased to see interaction in the comments section among the applicants, who also shared their ideas on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

From this group of public and private proposals, our volunteers from the Global Voices community helped review and select 74 shortlisted candidates, who were then invited to submit a more detailed proposal for further consideration. After an additional round of review of these candidates, our selection committee chose five new grantees to be awarded a microgrant to implement their project. These new projects are diverse in their approach, and have demonstrated a commitment to work in their unique context. We are thrilled that they will join the Rising Voices community of grantee projects.

The five winners (in alphabetical order):

Argentina: Los Inestables Radio

In Córdoba, Argentina, a local team of volunteers had been making regular visits to the public psychiatric hospital where they got to know many of the patients on a more personal level. They found that much of the external perception by the local community of those hospitalized at the facility was either incorrect or the result of stereotypes. From this experience, the volunteers and the patients decided to produce a weekly live radio program called “Radio Los Inestables” broadcasted from the hospital's outside patio and transmitted over a local radio station. The content ranges from serious topics such as exploring the relationship between mental health, poverty, and discrmination, to more light-hearted features in the form of radio theater or poetry readings. The project seeks to place more of the responsibility for managing the radio program into the hands of the patients by adding an online component where they can reach a national and global audience. The participants will learn how to record, edit, and upload audio podcasts, and manage the radio program's social media accounts to have regular interaction with listeners around the world.

Fiji: Tukuni Yadua (Talking about Yadua)

For the past forty years, residents of the community of Denimanu on the isolated island of Yadua in Fiji have been committed in their efforts to protect the endangered Crested Iguana. These creatures have been threatened by external pressures and by climate change, making their protection much more urgent. The protection of the wildlife and the villagers’ traditional way of life has been one of the defining characteristics of the community's identity. However, due to the island's isolation some of these stories depicting the challenges, as well as the successes of these efforts have not been adequately told. Now the residents want to pass this passion for conservation along to the next generation with the hopes that they will continue this work. The National Trust of Fiji (NTF) will work in conjunction with the local community to train young villagers to tell this story through the use of digital video and photography. This digital imagery will showcase the unique biodiversity located on the island, and how the relationship between humans and nature is such an integral part of the community's past, present, and future.

Mapping for Niger

Through a partnership with the Department of Geography at the Abdou Moumouni University in Niamey, Niger, students from the campus Geography Club will come together to form a Volunteer Technical Community (VTC) to discover the needs and the stories of their surrounding community. Using OpenStreetMap tools, the team will learn skills needed to take part in a collaborative open-source humanitarian mapping project. Once they learn these mapping and citizen media skills, the participants will set off around the capital city and surrounding rural villages to map key landmarks such as schools, streets, and hospitals. They will also use other forms of citizen media to link the objects that they map with the needs of these communities. By accompanying this mapping process through regular updates to the project's blog and Twitter and Facebook accounts, this map will come to life with the stories and realities of Niger.

Mexico: Dizha Kieru for SMS

Dizha Kieru (“Our Voice” in the Zapotec language) is a local community radio station located in the indigenous Zapotec village of Talea de Castro that sits in the Juarez mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico. The town owns and operates its own GSM mobile network that provides low-cost cellular service to the approximately 2,500 residents. The radio station, together with the organization Rhizomatica, will train local residents to become community news gatherers through in-person reporting or through collection via SMS or phone calls from citizens. The Dizha Kieru team, who run both the radio and GSM base-station will collect, synthesize, format, and send out the news reports to residents twice a day via mass SMS and posted online for emigrants living abroad via Twitter. The community mobile network will help reduce the costs for this form of news gathering and distribution, and can help enrich the dialogue between those in the community and the diaspora.

Youth Stories from Bhutan's Maturing Democracy

Bhutan is home to one of the youngest democracies in the world, when in 2008 it transitioned from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy. Since then, many organizations such as the Centre for Media and Democracy based in the capital city of Thimpu have been playing its part in helping citizens take a more active role in this new society. Through the establishment of local Media Clubs, the CMD has been providing citizen journalism workshops to college-aged youth giving them the opportunity to add their voice to the national debate and conversation related to these democratic changes. With this new project, the CMD plans to expand their reach by offering audio podcasting workshops to the communities of Samtse, Trongsa, Kanglung, and Paro. Much of the content created by these young podcasters will focus on the country's second-ever national elections and will be shared online and on local airwaves.

Over the next few weeks, we will be providing a more in-depth introduction to each of the new projects.

Even though this cycle of funding has been completed, our platform will remain available for the foreseeable future. We invite you to continue to explore the many ideas presented on the site, and reach out to those that share your interests or if you have a proposal for collaboration.

Please join us in congratulating and welcoming the five newest Rising Voices grantees.

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This project from the Alliance of Linguistic Diversity seeks to “put technology at the service of organizations and individuals working to confront the language endangerment by documenting, preserving, and teaching them.” Originally launched by Google, the ELP is now administered by the First Peoples’ Cultural Council and the Institute for Language Information and Technology (The Linguist List) at Eastern Michigan University.

In addition to allowing for the uploading of other videos or sharing links to videos already available on YouTube, this option for direct recording can be an opportunity to hear more voices from diverse language communities. Once the video is recorded, it can be uploaded, tagged, and shared with the growing ELP community. Video creators can choose from a particular theme such as Food, Humor, Greetings, or Songs, as a way to group their content with others. The themes can also jumpstart the creative process by offering suggestions for a new topic to film. Once the video is uploaded and categorized it will be displayed on the respective languages's page.

ELP has been careful by encouraging users to only upload or create videos that respect the privacy of the language communities, and ask that any videos have the consent of those individuals displayed. There is also a content guidelines section that outlines some of these recommendations. The system also has a flagging option where others can notify the site if there is content that does not follow the guidelines. Once reported, it will be reviewed by expert moderators who can decide to permanently take down content that is found to be inappropriate or videos that show sacred or private content.

This new feature is relatively new, but the hope is that it will open up new citizen media access to emerging activists interested in taking the first step towards making their own contribution for the preservation and revitalization of their native languages.

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This year marked the launch of a new and interactive platform that allowed applicants to submit their preliminary ideas where they were mapped and tagged, making it easier for others to make connections with similar projects that focus on a particular topic or based in a specific geographic area. As a result, the published proposals received more than 500 comments with questions, feedback, and words of encouragement. A visual map showcased these proposals down to the local level and it was an impressive site to see proposals from around the world.

Our committee comprised of Global Voices volunteers carefully reviewed and selected 74 projects out of the approximately 860 proposals from around the world to move onto the next round. These projects represent a diversity of topics and come from more than 50 countries.

We are pleased to announce the shortlisted finalists, who have been invited to submit a final proposal for consideration by Rising Voices. From this group, we will select up to five projects to be funded to make their ideas a reality. In alphabetical order, the shortlisted projects are:

Please note that some projects chose not to participate in the optional publication of their ideas for a variety of reasons, and their decision will not affect the final vote.

These applicants now have the opportunity to further develop their ideas by submitting a second more-detailed proposal for consideration. An additional element to the final competition is that the finalists can include a multi-media video, audio, or photograph to complement their written proposal.

As the applicants submit their final proposal, we will publish them on the microgrant platform so that the community can once again comment and provide additional feedback.

We hope to make the final announcement of the selected winners for the microgrants by the end of the second week of April.

Good luck to the finalists!

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Preservation of language and culture remains an important pillar for the UIV, and an example of this can be seen on its website [es]. The school's mission statement is available in the Huottöja, Pumé, Ye´kwana, Shiriana, and E´ñepa languages. Here is the translation in the E´ñepa language, also known as Panare:

A university that raises awareness and educates young indigenous students so that they can serve their communities. We preserve and strengthen indigenous peoples and we put forth intercultural and experimental higher education

During the digital photography workshop held on the campus with three students from the edu-communications department, the students also learned some basics in the use of the free and open-source program Audacity to record audio podcasts and upload them to the web. To demonstrate, we recorded the students giving a brief greeting in their native language and the Spanish-language translation. These are the three audio recordings uploaded to Rising Voices’ Soundcloud account.

Indigenous University of Venezuela – Kuranicha – Piaroa Language

Indigenous University of Venezuela – Akaneto – Jivi Language

Indigenous University of Venezuela – Wadaana – Ye'kwana Language

UIV Students: Kuranicha, Akaneto, and Wadaana (left to right)

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A university that raises awareness and educates young indigenous students so that they can serve their communities. We preserve and strengthen indigenous peoples and we put forth intercultural and experimental higher education

The campus sits on 2,000 hectares of forest and savannah located in Tauca in the state of Bolívar. The original university's visionaries from an indigenous rights organization made up of indigenous leaders and Jesuit priests wanted to maintain as much of the traditional way of living as possible. Students live in small residences or “villages” with members of their own ethnicity or with students from other communities, where they cook over an open flame in community. They can also take advantage of the land where they can fish or hunt for their food.

River running through UIV campus. Photo by Wadaana.

In addition, students take part in a variety of classes ranging from indigenous rights, history and language, and courses about the cosmic view and spirituality of their cultures. They also learn topics related to production, such as beekeeping, the raising of ducks and fish, and other agricultural practices. This mix of academic and productive knowledge is part of what makes the university so unique and addresses the actual context facing the students.

Coming from one of the estimated 35-45 indigenous communities across the country, students come from communities such as Pemón, Warao, Ye´kwana, Yukpa, and others. Students are nominated by their communities to enter the university with a clear mandate to return home to the benefit their communities once their studies have been completed.

Open-air discussions. Photo by Luis Carlos Díaz and used under a Creative Commons license.

With so much activity and a wealth of fascinating stories from the students, often the only time that news and images originate from the campus is when visiting professors or other visitors return home, such as the case of Global Voices contributor Luis Carlos Díaz, who documented his visit on his Flickr album. However, more and more students are active on the web taking advantage of the InfoCentro located on campus. Thanks to this government program, which provides the physical infrastructure and internet access to rural communities, students have the potential to take a greater role in showcasing their university to the country, region, and the globe.

Rising Voices Collaboration

Thanks to a UIV project supported by the Avina Foundation, Rising Voices was invited to visit the university during the last week of February, and work closely with a group of students. The main objective of the visit was to support the students strengthen their citizen media skills to a point where they can be resources for other students that regularly use the internet.

The primary tool taught to the students was the use of digital photography. Due to the fact that uploading photographs would be more effective considering the connectivity, three students took part in the week-long workshop, where they learned about the basics of composition, as well as how to upload their pictures to the UIV's Flickr account. The three students: Wadaana Lisander, Kuranicha, and Akaneto are part of the edu-communications department of the university.

UIV students that took part in the workshop.

Despite the technical challenges facing the students, such as the occasional power outages, high temperatures in the computer lab, and a satellite connection that would sometimes slow to a crawl, the students were highly motivated to learn how to play an active role in telling their own story. During the week, they would borrow one of the university digital cameras and snap photos of their villages, community work, meals, and the beautiful nature that surrounds the campus.

The content is now being utilized and shared by the university's communications department, who use their social networking sites such as Twitter (@TaucaUIV) and Facebook to reach a larger audience. The plans are to continue with this work, and for the three students to take a more active role in helping their fellow students use the internet to share news about this unique educational experience in Venezuela.

Update: To see more examples of the students’ photographs, please visit this photo post on Global Voices.

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Do you have an idea for a project that would help your local community use citizen media to tell their own story? Do you need funding and support in making that idea become a reality?

Since 2007, Rising Voices has sought to support individuals, grassroots groups, networks, and organizations committed to helping their local communities participate more fully in the digital online space. By providing funding and mentoring to small-scale projects around the world, Rising Voices has supported 35 citizen media outreach projects located in all corners of the globe. These projects have helped local leaders bring new and underrepresented voices into the global digital conversation in order to tell their own stories or bring to light issues important to their own communities.

NEW PLATFORM

Beginning with the 2013 round of microgrant funding, Rising Voices has developed a new platform where applicants can publicly share their ideas with the broader community. This open process can enable greater opportunities to seek feedback and to help facilitate connections between groups located in the same geographic area or working around the same issue. We feel that this new way of sharing ideas will have a positive effect on the global community that shares the common goal of a more inclusive and diverse digital online space.

Once again, we will provide up to five microgrants in the amount of $USD 2,500-4,000 to successful applicants that have demonstrated a strong and clear idea how to best provide training and ongoing support to their local community members. Selected grantee projects will join the Rising Voices community of projects and be featured prominently across the Global Voices network.

GUIDELINES

Rising Voices seeks project proposals that share our mission of bringing voices from new communities, as well as underrepresented language groups to the online global conversation through the use of participatory citizen media. The project's primary activities should be to provide citizen media training workshops to the target community, as well vital ongoing support and mentoring. Please see our roster of current and alumni grantee projects for examples of previously funded projects.

Examples of potential projects may include:

• Organizing a citizen media “boot camp” with experienced local bloggers to train and mentor participants from underrepresented communities that will result in a local network of support.
• Working with an indigenous community to teach and encourage new generations to begin to use Twitter to connect with others as a way to preserve and promote their native language online.
• Partnering with a local library with a computer lab to invite community members to discuss local problems and solutions, and train them how to create a group blog to take these conversations to the wider community.
• Organizing a series of digital photography group walks where residents can document life in their community together and create an online Flickr photography exhibit.
• Teaching local residents to record and edit audio recordings on Audacity for a community podcast that can be uploaded online, as well as distributed to local radio stations for a wider reach.

Project ideas are not limited to these, and we encourage you to be creative, yet realistic in your proposals. See the Frequently Asked Questions for additional information.

To apply, please visit the “Submit a Proposal” page, where you will find short questions that will enable you to outline your project plans. Please note that there is a character-limit for each answer (not word-limit).

APPLICATION PROCESS

The competition will follow the following timeline process:

First Round – Applicants submit their initial proposal via the online platform. Once the proposal has been published, we invite applicants to share their proposal with their networks, as a way to solicit comments and input from others. Please note that there is an option for applicants to keep their proposal private if there are security concerns.

All of the proposals will be reviewed by a committee comprised of members from the Global Voices community, including past microgrant recipients.

Application deadline is Friday, March 1, 2013 at 23:59 Monday, March 4 at 23:59 GMT

Second Round – The selection committee will choose a shortlist of finalists, who will then be invited to submit a longer and more detailed proposal including budget, timeline, and additional detailed information. These finalists will also have the option to submit additional multi-media, such as a user-created video or photographs to help the committee make a final decision.

Winners will be announced by March 31 (subject to change based on the number of proposals to be reviewed).

Please feel free to ask questions by leaving a comment or by sending an email through the Contact Form.

Good luck!

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Organized and sponsored by the Enduring Voices Project, which is a collaboration between the Living Tongues Institute and the National Geographic Society, the workshop provided hands-on training about the use of digital tools in their work. Rising Voices also participated and provided a workshop in the use of citizen media for promoting the use of indigenous languages online.

The workshop's primary activity was the creation of Talking Dictionaries. This platform provides for a searchable multi-lingual online dictionary that contains digital audio clips recorded by language activists currently working with the Living Tongues Institute.

Each participant was provided a Technology Kit, based upon their current needs. Some of the activists received laptops, digital audio recorders, digital video cameras, tripods, sound-canceling headphones, and external hard drives for use in their work.

Participants receiving their technology kits.

However, it was the digital audio recorder that played a major role in the creation of the Talking Dictionary. Each participant was able to record high-quality digital audio clips, which could then be edited on free software programs such as Audacity. The clips are then tagged and uploaded to the server hosted by Swarthmore University, where it is matched up with the database that lists the word in the indigenous language, English, and Spanish.

Espíritu Bautista and his son, Elmo are shown here recording audio clips of words in their native language of Yanesha, which is spoken in the Central Amazon region in Perú.

At the end of the workshop, there were nine more Talking Dictionaries from languages such as Mapudungun, Tsesungun, Quechua Chanca, Yanesha, Miahuatec Zapoteco, Mazahua, Mam, Pipil, Besiro, and the expansion of an existing dictionary in the Ishír (Chamacoco).

Each participant returned to their local communities equipped with the tools and knowledge to continue adding more words to the Talking Dictionaries with a clear mandate to explore the best way for their use in the communities.

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Enduring Voices: Digital Media Workshop for Speakers of Endangered Languages in Latin America
Dates: January 7-11, 2013
Place: Santiago Library, Matucana 151, Chile
Collaborators: Enduring Voices Project (Living Tongues Institute + National Geographic Society), UTEM University, Fundación Imagen of Chile, and Rising Voices.

Context: When ideas are extinguished, we all end up poorer. Half of the planet's 7000 languages are now in danger of extinction: a drastic change in humanity's intellectual history. The basis of human knowledge is enduring, and during 99% of the our history, it was transmitted by word of mouth. Yet, it is fragile. It is largely not written, and vulnerable to be forgotten. Digital technologies can help document and preserve this knowledge found in these languages.

Objectives: To train 12 indigenous participants with the goal that they learn how to create a registry of their endangered languages by creating new linguistic materials, such as talking dictionaries through the use of computers, cameras, audio recorders and other technologies. (The workshop will be conducted in Spanish).

Agenda: Each day will be dedicated to a different activity related to digital linguistic documentation. All of the materials produced will be in the participants’ indigenous language. The following is the preliminary agenda for the workshop:

DAY 1 – Monday, January 7, 2013

• 9:30AM – 11:30AM. Opening session with a short introduction from each facilitator and each participant.
• 1PM – 4PM. Ethno-linguistic methods I: How to record, edit, and produce an audio recording for use in radio programs and for use in a talking dictionary.

DAY 2 – Tuesday, January 8, 2013

• Morning session: Ethno-linguistic methods II – The theories and methodologies to create a talking dictionary (with examples of other projects in various countries)
• 2 PM – 5 PM. The creation of a talking dictionary for each participant.

DAY 3 – Wednesday, January 9, 2013

• 11AM – 1PM. Digital media I: how to use cameras to create videos
• 2PM – 5PM. Filming, editing and data transfer

DAY 4. Thursday, January 10, 2013

• 11AM – 1PM. The importance of Citizen Media and language revitalization in Latin America: presented by Eddie Avila of Rising Voices.
• 2PM – 5PM. Digital Media II: Improving the presence of indigenous languages online: uploading videos and sharing information through social networking sites.

DAY 5. Friday, January 11, 2013

• 11AM – 1PM: Complete the digital projects by each participant
• 1PM – 3PM: Closing session and celebration with members of Chilean indigenous communities.

===============================================================

The following are the indigenous participants, who are experts in their native languages:

• Andres Ozuna Ortiz: speaker of Yshyr-chamacoco, from Paraguay
• Anselmo Nuyado Ancapichun and his son, Jonattan Laoiza Ancapichun: speakers of Tsesungun, a language spoken by the Mapuche in southern Chile
• Espíritu Bautista and his son Elmo Bautista: speakers of Yanesha (Amuesha), from central Peruvian Amazon
• Judith Condori Gavilán: speaker of quechua ayacuchano, Perú
• María Inés Huenuñir Antihuala: speaker of mapudungun, from Santiago, Chile
• Emiliano Cruz Santiago: speaker of zapoteco miahuateco from San Bartolomé Loxicha, México.
• Verónica Fidencio Núñez: speaker of mazahua, México
• Carlos Enrique Cortez: speaker of nahuat-pipil, El Salvador
• José Reginaldo Pérez Vail: speaker of mam, a Mayan language from Guatemala
• Ignacio Tomicha Chuve: speaker of chiquitano (besiro), Bolivia.

The facilitators are:

Dr. Gregory D. S. Anderson (Living Tongues Institute), Anna Luisa Daigneault (Living Tongues Institute), Eddie Avila (Rising Voices) and Luis Godoy Saavedra (Centro de Desarollo Social, UTEM).

CONTACT

Website: Enduring Voices | Voices Duraderas from National Geographic
In collaboration with the Living Tongues Institute
For further contact: Anna Luisa Daigneault, Latin America project coordinator Enduring Voices. Telephone (United States): +001-415-613-0795 annaluisa@livingtongues.org

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The exterior of the Community Library Rija'tzuul Na'ooj. Photo by Community Library Rija'tzuul Na'ooj. Used with permission.

However, if one listens closely, one might hear the children playing with one another in their maternal language of Tz'utujil. Books for story time are often read in this Mayan language. And the grandparents who volunteer their time to take part in the Pixab’, which provides an opportunity to teach young people traditional customs and etiquette that have been passed down from generation to generation in the Tz'utujil indigenous communities.

Oral histories with village elders. Photo by Community Library Rija'tzuul Na'ooj. Used with permission.

The library's name can be translated to mean “seeds of wisdom” and is located in one of many small vibrant towns along the shores of Lake Atitlán. This library is also a part of the Riecken network of libraries throughout Guatemala and Honduras, which includes three libraries that comprise the Rising Voices grantee project Xela Civic Libraries.

This focus on placing the Tz'utujil language at the center of the library's activity has been a conscious effort to stress its importance during the daily activities and services offered. Library staff are encourage to speak to users, especially children, in their native tongue. According to the library's Director, Israel Quic there are already tangible results being observed because of these efforts. He has seen that young children are much more confident using the language on a daily basis, especially when interacting with elders on the streets of San Juan.

While much of the revitalization of the language is happening through verbal interactions, such as conversations or reading aloud, there are some attempts through the library to encourage the reading and writing of these Mayan languages. Quic managed the project that produced eight bilingual books, which were created by compiling oral histories from village elders. These stories were then transcribed and translated into Spanish.

However, Quic has also been committed to building upon the activities that promote the use of the Tz'utujil language among the library users by expanding the efforts to use the language online. Beginning with the library's blog, it has been a space to experiment with publishing bilingual blog posts. For example, this post provides essential information for town residents regarding what should be done in the event of torrential rains:

PIXAAB’ TOQ K'O Q'AQALJAB’

Katk'eje’ kaan paan awochooch, kateleel ja wi qas rajawaxiik chi aawe.
Ma tak'iyaqeel ta ja mees pa b'eey k'in pa rub'eey ya'.
Ma katt'iil apoon ta chi ruuchii’ nimaq taq rub'eey ya', onwi chuchi’ chooy toq k'ojab'.
Ta to'oo’ jun awach'alaal, awinaaq ja k'orpoqonaal nuutij.
Ta k'olo’ kaan akant'iil, akantela, ab'ateriya, aradio ja nakoj pa taq q'aqaljab'.
Ta poq'orsaaj ja ya’ natij utz k'a ma k'o ta yob'ilaal npit chawiij.
Ta k'olo’ kaan tz'uuj rixin jab', xarwari’ ta kuchu’ riij utz k'a ma ti tz'ilori.
Ak'ama’ aayaa’ b'a ya'oon wi’ rub'ixiik rumaal ja Q'atb'al Tziij.

In addition to the blog, Quic also created a Facebook Page devoted to the language. He indicated that Facebook users from neighboring villages have been connecting with one another and participating on the page by contributing with comments and other postings. Quic has also started to tweet on his personal account (@maisquick) hoping that it will encourage others to tweet in Tz'utujil.

Israel Quic visiting Facebook headquarters. Photo by Quic and used with permission.

In the near future, Quic hopes to organize a gathering at the library for those who participate on the virtual space in order to meet in person, where they will discuss ways to further revitalize this Mayan language using digital technologies and citizen media.

Here is an audio podcast in the Tz'utujil language, where Quic invites people to visit the Community Library Rija'tzuul Na'ooj in San Juan la Laguna.

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