From the Voces Bolivianas in English site:

Voces Bolivianas is an organization that seeks to create spaces where Bolivian voices from underrepresented groups or regions can be heard. Using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), such as blogs, digital photography, video and audio, Voces Bolivianas continuall looks for ways to promote this mission.

Through the use of workshops, Voces Bolivianas teaches the use of participatory and citizen’s media to underrepresented groups. In order to support and promote greater representation from other regions, cities and other sectors of societies, Voces Bolivainas is offering travel scholarships for bloggers from these groups to attend the national bloggers conference on August 29-30.

Travel Grants

In the spirt of supporting persons from these underrepresented groups, so that there is constant participation and dialogue, Voces Bolivianas will offer travel grants to bloggers or others who are using these participatory media tools (photos, videos, audio) in Bolivia so that they can attend and participate in Bloguivianos 2008 in the city of El Alto and La Paz on August 29 and 30.

The number and amount of each scholarship will depend on the amount of requests received and amount requested.

In order to be considered:

Write in your blog an entry responding to the following question (300-400 words)

How can blogs help create bridges between regions, social classes, ethnicities or cultures in Bolivia? Do you have an example from your personal experience?

Once you have completed the essay, please send the link to: becas (at) vocesbolivianas (dot) org with the following information:

1. City where you will be traveling from/where you live
2. Full name / e-mail / telephone / cell phone
3. Blog address or of the site where you use citizen’s media (videos, photos, podcasts, etc.)
4. How much funds will you need? (please only ask for the amount that you really need so that more people can receive assistance – we cannot cover plane tickets).
5. Deadline: August 10 at 17:00

Scholarship winners must be able to commit to attending both days of the gathering (August 29 and 30).

We will contact winners by August 15 via email and we will announce winners on the websites: vocesbolivianas.org and 2008.bloguivianos.org

The scholarship will be reimbursed upon presentation of a receipt of the transport or housing company. The scholarship can also be used for accommodations.

For more information, please write to Eduardo [at] vocesbolivianas [dot] org.

On Saturday, July 5, Ericka held a workshop with 19 participants, who learned the basics of blogs and created their own. Thanks to a partnership with a local university, Univalle, which provided their computer lab free of charge, the latest Voces Bolivianas took place in our 8th city across the country. This is only the beginning of this expansion, as Ericka indicated that support to these new bloggers will continue.

We are very pleased to welcome Ericka and salute her commitment to help provide these tools to the Voices in Trinidad.

Picture from the workshop taken by Ericka Pinto. See the rest of the photos on her blog.

More information to come.

One participant from the April 19 event, Nancy Condori, participated in the city of El Alto. Her blog called El Chairo [es] had been updated only once since the first workshop. However, reviewing the RSS feeds, I came across a very authentic and heartfelt entry. Perhaps Nancy did not write the entry for any particular audience in mind, but thanks to the blog workshop, she knows that she has an outlet to write about her feelings and begin to heal. Here is a translation of her blog entry:

Did you know that having a baby in your home is the most beautiful thing?

Well, I had a baby in my home, but due to circumstances, she wen to heaven and is no longer with me. I feel sad because of the little one’s absence, maybe for some it might seem absurd to cry for the loss of someone that was at my side for such a little time, but she meant a lot to me, even though some of my friends said that it was for the best so that she wouldn’t have to suffer. Who know? All I know is that wherever she is that she will take care of me. I haven’t stopped thinking about the beautiful baby called LINMEY, who went to heaven like a small angel. Only God knows why she left my side. I still weep for her departure, even though her parents abandoned her. For me, she was like my daughter, and writing these lines still move my heart and I can’t keep from crying because of her absence.

A piece of advice for single fathers, single mothers, and parents: love your children because it the most beautiful gift that God and life can give.

Gabriel has the making of a great citizen journalist, as he is very knowledgable about places and people in his neighborhood. For someone in his early 20s, he knows an enormous amount about the history of this part of Santa Cruz that rarely is seen in the mainstream media. Perhaps, most importantly, he is also very curious and unshy when it comes to interviewing others. Here is one interview he helped conduct of the caretaker of one of the schools where ballots were stolen in the middle of the night.

In this video, Gabriel takes us the school where he voted and fortunately, there was no incidents of violence.

When we launched the campaign, “Voces Bolivianas in Your Community,” one of the most enthusiastic responses came from one of the new bloggers and participante in the project Voces Bolivianas - El Alto 2, Santos Huanca. He works in the radio station “Pachamama” in the city of El Alto and he has been a big supporter of our project. On many occasions, one of us has been interviewed and he has given us a space to talk to about the project.

In his free time, he works with a youth group called, “Young Communicators,” which is comprised of youth, who primarily study at night because they work during the day to support their families. Each weekend, they participate in the radio station to share their experiences with stories, interviews and commentary, but now they have the interest in transferring the same information to cyberspace and to open their own blogs. The group wrote in their proposal:

We arrived at the conclusion that the media is an important instrument for the development of a more just society, free of discrimination. We think that one of the best options in this communicative process, free of filters, possibilities of reciprocity or “feedback” and one that can help with this interculturality is the blog. It is easy to use and it is relatively inexpensive. We would like to write about our daily lives, our neighborhoods, our problems, our joys and our loves.

They live in semi-urban ares of the city of El Alto, such as in the neighborhoods of Alto Lima, Rosas Pampa, Zenkata, Santiago I, Villa Tunari, etc, where hte majority of their streets are of dirt, and the houses lack basic services.

Santos will share his experiences and his knowledge about blogs with the youth. He has been one of the most active bloggers ad he provides commentary on his blog “The Power of the Word” and writes about culture, his experiences in school, and of children that must work in order to make a living. These are just some of the examples of some of the topics that he writes about.

In addition, the workshop will also receive support from Wara Yampara, who also formed part of the project of Voces Bolivianas - El Alto 2. Her blog called Productive El Alto, writes about agriculture, but also about the traditions such as the Alasitas Fair and about the commercial movement of the markets.

Many thanks to these two participantes from El Alto 2, who have committed to teaching what they have learned in the workshops. This ripple effect is very powerful, and will allow for even more people to learn about this tool. This workshop of approximately 15 people will take place in El Alto on April 19, “Bolivian Voices Day.”

and the logo to be used for “Bolivian Voices Day on April 19″

The need to reach more Bolivians in underrepresented groups created the need to launch the campaign “Bolivian Voices in Your Community” in order to ask for the help of local bloggers to bring a Bolivian Voices 2-month project to they communities and teach the use of web 2.0 tools (blogs, digital photography, audio and video). The response was overwhelming and moving and included proposals from more than 24 people and institutions from 6 of the 9 departments. In order to reach more people, Bolivian Voices decided to change the workplan in order to accomodate more teaching sites and reach a wider audience.

Bolivian Voices would like to announce that April 19 will be “Bolivian Voices Day” where in approximately 10 sites across the country, a workshop on the creation of blogs will be helpd. With the help of local bloggers, approximately 120 participants will receive instruction on how to open, create and maintain their own personal blog and how to be a part of the Bolivian Voices community, as well as the local and national blogosphere.

The confirmed sites include the continuation of the sites in El Alto and Santa Cruz, but also the launching of new sites in La Paz, Oruro and Cochabamba. More sites will be confirmed this week. More details and a list of sites and collaborators will be released this week.

“Bolivian Voices Day” will also be an opportunity to talk about some of the topics of why there are so many voices without representation in the Bolivian blogosphere and what we all can do so that these internet tools can help bring people together and look for ways to overcome these obstacles such as lack of access and lack of knowledge from the population.

Many thanks to all of those who are supporting this blogger citizen’s movement, including all of the participants of the projects in El Alto I, El Alto II and Santa Cruz I, the coordinators, the volunteers, special invited guests, media, institutions, organizations, national and international bloggers, Rising Voices network of projects and Rising Voices for the funding that made the first three projects possible.

More details in the days to come….

However, nearly six months after his first post, Ruben returned explaining his absence. Ruben works in the field of education and works in a rural province in the Bolivian Altiplano, where the internet connection is even less available than in some parts of El Alto. He then proceeded to write about some of the experiences working in the rural parts of Bolivia, as well as the fact that the local population stage football tournaments during Easter week and even hire professional football players from La Paz to act as ringers.

The most satisfying part of discovering the return of Ruben is that the lessons taught about how to write and publish on his blog were not lost nearly half a year later. Ruben obviously has a lot of interesting stories from his days spent in the provinces, and remembered that his blog is an excellent resource and place to share those stories.

In addition to sharing a meal with fellow participants, friends and family and other local bloggers, the Voces Bolivianas participants each say a few words and show off their blogs on the overhead projector.

However, there will also be a special announcement made at the closing ceremony on March 18 in regards to the next plans for Voces Bolivianas.

How will you measure and evaluate your project’s impact – on your main participants? other contributors? on the larger community? How many participants do you expect to be involved in your project? How will you seek and sustain their involvement? (200 words)

According to unofficial estimates the city of El Alto currently has 10 blogs, many of which are maintained by the same author. The main evaluative measure will be the number of blogs and blog entries that are created and maintained over the course of the two-month project. Follow-up after the project ends will be essential to ensure that the blogs continue, which will be encouraged through additional opportunities for internet access. For selected participants, the digital cameras and voice recorders will be awarded, which will be an incentive to produce high-quality work and making it easier to create content in the future.

Some of the participants will be encouraged to be part of future outreach programs and help continue to teach others about these tools.

Another evaluative measure will be participants’ attitudes towards these new technologies. A pre and post-test will be provided to measure the participants’ attitudes towards the ability to express themselves, as well as their comfort using internet tools.

This has been a topic of discussion internally, as well as some observers and supporters of the project. The Bolivian blog community site Blogs Bolivia took a look at the 23 new participants blogs and indicated which ones were still writing 3 months after the final workshop took place. They found that 25% of the blogs were still writing in the blog and observes:

Sadly we find that the majority of the (new bloggers) have stopped publishing between the months of October and November. This means that even though they learned the new technology, there are still reasons related to costs, interest, or habit, which caused them to stop writing. Or maybe the teaching methods have not found the right group.

The article goes onto say that when looking at it from a more optimistic viewpoint, one could say that there are six more blogs in El Alto that there were before. Since this is the first project of its kind in Bolivia, would some be happy with these results or would a perfectionist like me feel like we didn’t do enough. I offered up these possible remedies for this number, with the hope that the numbers will increase after the second project in El Alto:

1) During the registration, we should find those with more of a commitment. There will always be people that love to blog and others that will say, ‘this is not for me.’ Maybe we can charge a small registration fee and if they complete all of the workshops, then they will be refunded in full. (This is a little complicated, because we want to ensure everything remains without cost.)

2.) More support during the week. If they are not writing, then there should be calls or text messages to see if they need help or additional personal help. The lines of communication have always been open for those with questions, but maybe this should be increased.

Is it simply a question of raw numbers, i.e. an increase in the number of sustainable blogs? We also sought to measure attitudes and acquisition of knowledge. A pre and post test was given to the participants to ask them about their knowledge regarding the use and familiarity of blogs. For the pilot project, on a scale of 1-5, we found that the participants felt that they increased their knowledge in the use of blogs from 1.5 to 2.6. In addition, we also asked them about their knowledge of the advantages of having a blog, i.e. their utility. This also increased from 3.0 to 4.1. This may not be entirely scientific, but it does show that these workshops do help in some way in regards to the participants’ knowledge and attitudes towards the use of blogs.

Nevertheless, it is still a learning process in seeing what works and what should be scrapped altogether. Some things cannot be measured, but can simply be observed, such as when Bolivianas, who had no previous knowledge of these new tools, become excited to write and share their stories. It can also been seen in young people, who continue to share their traditions handed down from generation to generation, as well as write in their native language of Aymara.

It is still a work in progress, and hopefully the percentage of new bloggers that continue will begin to rise more and more.