- Global Voices Community Blog - https://community.globalvoices.org -

Elections and Culture

Categories: 10th Anniversary, First Post

My first post for Global Voices was technically not my first post. I had written on my blog, medeamaterial, a post about a music festival in downtown San Jose, Costa Rica, [1] and David Sasaki, who was then the Latin America Editor, contacted me about reposting my article. I was interested in the idea so I looked at the Global Voices site and noticed it was in English… so I suggested I could translate the article. I guess that intrigued David, and after a bit of back and forth, he suggested I could write a bit about the elections in Costa Rica as well, and that became my first post. My second was an article on the International Music Festival, which I rewrote to reflect Global Voices bridge-blogging style. So my second was actually the one that started this ball rolling. A few months after I started writing for Global Voices, bringing the conversations we were having in Costa Rica to the rest of the world, I moved to Colombia. I continued with my coverage of the blogosphere in Costa Rica as I tried to find the blogosphere in Colombia, specially Medellin. My city did not have a very large blogging community, but I did find a few fearless bloggers who became my good friends. We set out to raise awareness about blogging, to meet the other bloggers and writers in the city and to teach more people how to blog. We got one of the first Rising Voices grants and had the opportunity to work in a new library with a group of young people who wanted to learn how to use the new technologies.

A while later, I was approached and encouraged to submit an application to become the Video Editor for Global Voices. I thought about it, made a nice application, got the job and I had officially begun the period of my life where I had my dream job. My hobby, what I did for fun and for the love of sharing stories, had become my livelihood. I was over the moon.

Thanks to Global Voices I got to meet an incredible group of people from all over the world. I got to travel and share what I knew with people who taught me more than I could ever teach them. I experienced the BEST working environment I've had, and it raised the bar really high: after all, it is not every day that you go to do meaningful work with bright and dedicated people who are self-motivated and who know how to effectively use online tools to collaborate… and you can do it while wearing pajamas at home, with the easiest commute ever. I was part of the Global Voices Summit in Budapest, Chile and Kenya and the combination of great friends, great locations and amazing conversations have put those conferences in my top life experiences. Good things sometimes must come to an end, and once I migrated to the USA I realized I no longer had the time to do the best job I could and Global Voices deserved better, so I stepped down.

I love that Global Voices is having its 10th Anniversary. I will look forward to seeing all the pictures and hear the adventures during the coming Summit. I'll be there in spirit with all of you!