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.

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!

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.

Read Medellín is the new Bogota   at Tightgrid.

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.

An example: Carabobo used to be a chaotic avenue full of seedy joints and the constant rumble of old buses expelling diesel fumes. The beautiful art deco buildings along the avenue were left unnoticed as people rushed to their destinations enclosed in the safety of a vehicle. At the far end of the street was a no-man’s land where you could see homeless people warming their hands with bonfires made in steel drums, and where everything and everyone had a price. Beautiful buildings were abandoned, scavenged and then abused as crack houses, businesses where struggling to maintain customers, and something had to be done.

Nowadays, no buses run through this main avenue; only people are allowed here. Instead of the sky being overcast by clouds of combusted fuels, it is shaded by trees and palms. The former crack house is a cultural and educational center, and the architectural jewels along the way are lit up to showcase their details, while thriving businesses inhabit their spaces. It is a complete pleasure to travel up and down this public space, designed to be fully accessible for every type of citizen.

Walking down the paved walkway, you can see people sitting on park benches and resting their tired feet, bags and bags of purchases from a variety of stores sitting beside them. Textured bricks mark pathways for the blind to follow with their canes, traffic lights with sound and vibrations assist the pedestrians who might not be able to hear or see the lights change color. You don’t need to step off the curbs and onto the street — they are both at the same level, making it easy for people in wheelchairs to enjoy this space as well. No bicycles are allowed, but riders are welcome to dismount and walk their bikes through this area if they wish to.

It seems that common sense solutions are usually completely ignored by governments in Latin American cities, and it is refreshing to see that this isn´t the case with Medellín. The government is rebuilding its city for the inhabitants: they have discovered that when people have public spaces they can enjoy and where they can relax, breathe in clean air, and stretch their legs, they work harder, better, and are generally happier. The poorer inhabitants of the city don’t have time or money to take vacations to the rural areas; they don’t have the means to visit beaches and certainly don’t have membership to country clubs…so the city decided to give them spaces where they could take their families, where they could lay on the grass, sit on a bench and kick back on a Sunday.

The city has placed trust in the people, with the firm belief that if you make citizens take ownership of these new spaces, they’ll take care of them and make sure others respect the spaces as well. Store owners and workers down Carabobo street signed an agreement stating that they would take responsibility in keeping their surroundings clean, reporting uncivilized behaviors and vandalism if, in exchange, the city would do maintenance and have enough policemen in the area to ensure shoppers’ safety. These store owners now thank this project for their new situation: they have a lot more clients and shoppers now that people can walk at their leisure and window shop; they have met other store owners in their block; they don’t have to deal with car fumes and the noise from honking vehicles and motors; and they have come together as a community, united with one goal: to keep Carabobo looking clean, safe and beautiful for many other generations to enjoy.

However, this didn’t happen overnight. The business owners in Carabobo at first were terrified that once no vehicles could come by and park in front of their stores, sales would plummet. They didn’t want to deal with the months of construction, not knowing if their businesses would survive this metamorphosis. The government decided to include these concerned entrepreneurs in the discussion and planning process so they could become involved with the project and take ownership of it. On October 27th 2006, an agreement was signed, and they first saw the butterfly emerge from its cocoon.

Last week the Hiperbarrio team headed downtown to record a little bit of our experience walking down Carabobo. We took pictures, shot videos and then sat down on one of the many benches to enjoy the day. It was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday morning, and if you ever come to Medellín and visit, I would definitely recommend for you to do the same.

If you want to learn a bit more about Carabobo, you can see the government’s plan for Carabobo Street with pictures of the transformation, before, during and after, or look through the pictures we took that day with the Hiperbarrio team. Below, you can watch a YouTube video where the Carabobo community celebrates one year since the cooperation agreement was signed. (The narration is in Spanish).

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/aU9xsHkgRTA" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

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Big thanks to Juliana Rincon, one of the organizers of Medellín’s HiperBarrio project, for writing this guest post! Photo credits go to her group and the government plan sited in the post, in that order

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.