Global Voices on the Rise

The Internet has let us had access to voices we probably never imagined we could see, hear or read. For me, this is one of the most amazing things of the world wide web: how people all over the world can have access to audiences. Easy to use technological devices are cheaper every day and there are hundreds of organizations training people in poor communities, specially women, so they can tell their stories; so their voices can have an audience. Global Voices Online is a great place to find some of these voices. It's a very interesting project, founded by Ethan Zuckerman and Rebecca Mackinnon, where Third World bloggers have a space to share their their thoughts. In this case, these global voices are chosen by regional editors that work for the site. Most posts are written by the editors themselves, such as Juhie Bhatia, the Public Health Editor of Global Voices, who recently wrote about a new initiative in South Africa to fight against HIV/AIDS: sending free texts messages to cell phones to "encourage South Africans to get tested and treated for the disease." It would be interesting to research if these voices are penetrating the se countries mainstream media. The posts are a good complement to other media outlets and can shed light to what is happening in other countries. Rising Voices, an outreach initiative of Global Voices, is my favorite project. It's fascinating to learn how people around the globe are getting empowered by doing grassroots journalism. Poor people, women, young people, ethnic and sexual minorities are writing about themselves and their communities. For example, the Nari Jibon project from Bangladesh is empowering women by teaching them computer, business, language skills, and grasroots media tools such as blogging, photography and video.

Photo (cc) Posted by White African, and republished under the terms of Creative Commons License Attribution Generic 2.0.