Introducing myself and my journal: Wikiperiodismo

About Me:
I was born in Colombia, I have a degree in Politcal Science. I´m an editor, citizen journalist and photographer.

Since 2002 I worked as a Oficial of Congreso Visible, a research program of the department of Political Science at the Universidad de Los Andes in Colombia. Congreso Visible promotes citizen monitoring of Congress and citizen access to elected representatives. By making information on members of Congress available to citizens, Congreso Visible advocates for citizen participation in the decision-making process.

During 2010 I published several articles about civil resistance by women, colombian indigenous people and elections on Demotix a citizen journalism project based in UK.

I am a human rights activist, Social Leader and founder of social networking site for women called Red de Mujeres Ciudadanas (Women Citizen Network) in Colombia which supports and advocates for the rights of women, internally displaced women and children, particularly Afro-Colombian and Indigenous.

In 2009 I founded WiKiCiudadania a news blog focused on Colombian citizen, Human Rights and politics. I am convinced that the Internet is changing journalism and life in ways we never could have imagined only a few years ago. The idea of the reported story as being the basic unit of journalism is being shaken by the Web’s way of sharing information, and along with this change comes a rethinking about the concept of the beat itself.

I would like to work o end violence and discrimination against women and girls around in Colombia and world through the mobilization of citizen media and movie made by and about women.

A couple of years ago I set up this blog (“Wikicitizen”). It is a website dedicated to covering news from citizen in Colombia and, as such, it serves as a discussion platform about public issues on social media and digital mainstream media. With a staff of 3 — and about 10 unpaid contributors — WikiCiudadania publishes stories that before we existed were not being told. They are the stories that lie behind the news media’s typical daily citizen, political and women issues reporting.

In some other countries, these blogs are too numerous to count. But in Colombia, WikiCiudadanía was the first such experiment with sustainable independent photoreportage. Here, news organizations are concentrated among a few business conglomerates and families with power and political backgrounds so a news reporting outlet set up by journalists is truly innovative.

Since launching the website in September 2009, one thing I have observed is that Wikiciudadania has been converted into a new—and influential—citizen beat. What we publish gets quoted each week by cibercitizen on social media some NGO´s, politicians and journalists.

Our work features original investigative pieces, multimedia content, opinion and commentary, and hosts debates on social media. It combines professional reporting and citizen generated content. Our working team are creating a new model for journalism in Colombia. I lead social innovation at Twitter for citizen media.

WikiCiudadania has broken stories of presidencial and local election, women and Human Rights issues in Colombia, with media and citizen allies.

My Passions:
gender equality & women's empowerment, citizenmedia, Interests: People, culture, politics, elections, women, social issues, urban art, social networks, Web 3.0 photography, Human Rights

My Challenges:
Covering women's issues, changing women's lives. Ending violence and poverty by Empowering Women with citizen educations and ICT. Women solutions participation problems,

My Vision for the Future:
accelerate progress ans solutions on meeting the voice and ideas of women & girls worldwide.

My Areas of Expertise:
gender equality & women's empowerment, citizenmedia, photography, Human Rights