The amazing work of Bolivian Voices
What will be the result if you put together millenary cultures that preserved their memory and traditions in spite of repression and poverty, enthusiastic youth and volunteers discovering new media? You might be surprised of the amazing contents produced by Voces Bolivianas and Rising Voices (a project by Global Voices). In the year of the preservation of Endangered Languages by UNESCO, it brings results as you can see now online indigenous languages as Aymara then translated into spanish, french, english or even japanese.
Silenced, ignored or trivialized, communities around the world have preserved their identities. But expressions of folklore evolved in an amazing way. Indeed a language reflects a view of the world, but in some places it has been totally ignored. Often mainstream media do not offer a real space or real tools for indigenous or “different” people, they are “the others”. Ignorance of the voice of the others is the worst enemy of peace.
The Director of Rising Voices, David Sasaki, and Voces Bolivianas´s Project Director Eddie Avila (who is also the Editor of Global Voices for Latin America), did an amazing work on it, sharing their time and skills, with a small grant and a a lot of enthusiastic people willing to learn and contribute, you can show the world real stories, real insights of peoples daily life but also can empower people´s creativity, like Cristina Quisbert who had done an amazing job on her blog Bolivia Indigena. There you can see how bolivian people lives, their clothes, you can see a bolivian wedding, listen to traditional music that musicians are happy to share with the world, and also you can see how a blog can give a positive, different image of indigenous world reality.
Forget about the image of indigenous people you have in mind, in Cristina´s blog you can find a whole different reality full of energy, colors, magic, stories, faces and views alive and sharing their daily life with the world in the Aymara region of El Alto.
As a final remarks Cristina said: aymara peoples have a lot to share with the world? And I say to We Media why don´t you take a look on Voces Bolivianas and the other amazing projects of Rising Voices?
