[translation] An excuse to get together

Gabriel Jaime Venegas, Argos, has been the glue to hold HiperBarrio in La Loma together. He is mentor, teacher, support and promoter of the project and each and every one of the individuals that calls themselves ConVerGentes in the community. This past week they got together, and I´m translating his tale:

Since the middle of last year, when we started on the road to this thing called Blogs along with Álvaro Ramírez and since the story of Suso made us start working as construction workers building his house, we hadn't had a break.

 

HiperBarrio La Loma together

Since “every saint has his day” and thanks to the Asociation of Community Mothers Loma Hermosa, we managed to make saturday night the night to get together, watch a movie and share a barbecue.

At fibe people arrived to help prep everything and install equipment, then we saw the movie Freedom Writers and finally we ate, we saw the pictures we've been taking and we listened to a bit of music.

We missed all of those who couldn't be with us because of their obligations or because they are outside the country: Yesenia Corrales, Milton Araque, Isabel Guarin, Alejandra Medina, Alfedo Marulanda, David Sasaki, Álvaro Ramírez, among others who slip my mind.

Thanks to everyone for being there!

Hiperbarrio bloggers followed the Peace Concert

The much talked about concert thought up by Medellín native Juan Esteban Aristizábal, better known as the pop-rock artist Juanes had famous guest artists and a massive assistance. On TV and online, HiperBarrio bloggers followed the event.

Chocolate moon from Qué piensas De.. wrote:

 

Ayer en el puente internacional Simón Bolívar se llevó a cabo un multitudinario concierto organizado por Juanes a favor de la paz entre los países vecinos luego de la crisis diplomática ocurrida por causa de los bombardeos de Colombia en territorio Ecuatoriano con el fin de acabar con uno de los campamentos mas grandes de las FARC.

Varios artistas amigos del “mensajero de la paz” (como algunos medios llamaron a Juanes), lo estuvieron acompañando en el concierto para de cierta manera apoyar a Colombia, Venezuela y Ecuador; estos artistas cantaron hasta el cansancio por la Paz, muchos de ellos tuvieron que tomar hasta 4 aviones para poder llegar a tiempo a la frontera, no importaba lo que se tuviera que hacer, lo importante era estar y demostrarle a el mundo entero que… LOS BUENOS SOMOS MÁS.

El concierto duró aproximadamente 5 horas, la multitudinaria asistencia que tuvo éste evento fue lo que mas animó a los artistas y al mismo Juanes que al finalizar la jornada agradeció enormemente a todos los asistentes tanto espectadores como cantantes el hecho de haberlo acompañado en ésta iniciativa por la Paz de su tierrita que tanto quiere.

El mundo entero fue testigo del gran evento que para muchos fue INOLVIDABLE…

Yesterday at the international Simon Bolivar bridge, a massive concert took place. Organized by Juanes on behalf of peace among neighboring countries after the diplomatic crisis which took place after Colombia bombed a FARC encampment inside the Ecuatorian borders.

Several of the “peace messenger's” friends (as the media decided to call Juanes), accompanied him at a concert which in a way was meant to support Colombia, Venezuela and ecuador; these artists sang until they dropped for Peace´s sake, some of them had to take as many as 4 planes to be able to reach the border on time, it didn´t matter what it took, the important thing was to be there and show the whole world that … the good ones outnumber the bad.

The concert lasted aproximately 5 hours, the massive assistance was one of the things that cheered the artists and Juanes himself, who at the end of the event greatly thanked everyone present: both spectators as well as singers for accompanying him in this Peace innitiative for the homeland he loves so.

The whole world bore witness to thiss great event which for many was unforgettable.

Carolina decided to experiment with microblogging formats, and twitted the concert, informing everyone of what was going on in real time. You can read it on her twitter page.

More information on the Peace Concert can be found here.

Guest post on The Where Blog

Brendan Crain kindly asked me to write a guest post on his blog Where: a blog about urban places, placemaking and the concept of place while he´s busy with NaNoWriMo.

He writes about urban planning and its impact on people who inhabit these “planned” spaces:

“Where” is, so far, the most technologically sophisticated result of my long-running interest in the urban environment and experience. It's a small gesture, but hopefully it will get a few more people reading — and talking — about the role that physical places play in shaping our lives, culture, and society.

It was a pleasure to write this article. In the past I´ve felt drawn to any sort of projects which attempt to make cities liveable and pleasurable. Whether in Costa Rica, Medellin or the rest of the world, I believe that the inner city is where someone can observe the distilled essence of the larger metro area, where you will be able to see the characteristics that others desperately try to whitewash in globalized uniformity. Downtown spaces can make or break a city´s image. The past, present and future are all visible when you walk the streets where a city was born.

Medellín: a City Planned for the Other 90% (Guest Post by Juliana Rincon)

Medellín, Colombia, is a city that I've fallen in love with, and it loves me back. Whenever I walk its streets, ride the metro, or take a bus, I feel that the city was planned with me, and with all the thousands of others who, like me, don't own a car and depend on public transportation to move around, in mind.

Continue reading

On the web: Hiperbarrio: blogging and video from the neighborhood

Thanks to  Itzpapalotl who wrote an amazing article summing up our activities, it is also posted on her English blog:

Great news at Hiperbarrio this week: the English weblog is back online after sorting out the problems generated by a WordPress update. Now Juliana is dutifully translating all Spanish posts into English. If you're not very familiar with Hiperbarrio, this is your chance to go back and read some of the project achievements to date:

“According to what we had planned on our Spanish wiki, participants would create a googlereader account to read feeds, they would go out to the neighborhood and take pictures and open a flicker account with which we would work on uploading pictures from the cameras to the computers and then to the web.” First group session.

“It is already August 25th, our second workshop and we started off strong. In this meeting each participant created their own blog with a few simple instructions. Every participant had to open a gmail-blogger account. During this process they learned to copy and paste hyperlinks and upload pictures on each blog.” Second workshop.

The new bloggers have already started posting content despite their limited Internet connection. Andrea, one of the participants who works in social projects and social development, wrote about her experiences with Solar Eco-terraces in the neighborhood:

“There are wonderful individuals with hope, with an idea that persists and shows how important is not what others do, but what I can do; that politicians are not the ones that change a country but its citizens; that the world today is not black or white, that is full of colours and that many things can be accomplished when there are dreams and people who are willing to make them a reality” Mi trabajo en Santo Domingo [Es]

Almar recently re-posted a very complete summary of the project objectives and development. He also pointed us to the first project podcasts, divided in Part 1 and Part 2. We're looking forward to the next edition, but in the meantime, a little philosophy behind all this:

“We believe in blogs, in Creative commons, in finding simple solutions to common problems, in knowledge sharing, in social and personal growth by appropriating common spaces such as neighbourhoods and public libraries” Hiperrbario [Es]

In one of the latest English language posts, Juliana showcased The Radiocicleta project:

“There´s a special bicycle moving around Belén de los Andaquíes in Caquetá, Colombia. It seats two and carries with it a complete radio broadcasting system, able to send out Wi-max signals and be heard not only through the Andaquí Community Radio, but live through Internet as well.” La Radiocicleta.

Galo tells us how they're starting to experiment with video at the Cultural week in the Fe y Alegría Santo Domingo School. They have posted a selection of clips showing the participant's dancing moves. In one of the videos you can see the very colourful ballgowns made out of recycled materials.

The project team is only learning basic video editing but they're already prolific photographers. They even exceeded their flickr account capacity! Go ahead and take a look at those pictures.