Stories about Rising Voices
A lasting legacy of Ignacio Tomichá Chuvé: Revitalizing the Besɨro language on the internet
In memory of Ignacio Tomichá Chuvé: Bésiro language digital activist from Bolivia. His enduring legacy will live on through the digital resources he created to promote his language and culture across diverse spaces.
Morocco's Amazigh pursue civic presence through linguistic rights
Respecting the linguistic rights of the Amazigh people promotes social integration and allows speakers to freely express their culture and identity, which results in increased civic engagement.
Digital activist discusses why native Yoruba speakers should embrace their Indigenous language in online spaces
Many people are beginning to forget all the rich cultural and historical aspects of Yoruba. If the language is to thrive, its culture and identity must be visible.
How India's Ho- and Santali-language content creators are holding space for Indigenous linguistic assertion
A 2022 study conducted in Ho and Santali, Indigenous languages from India, found that 70.4 percent of creators use their smartphones to create and upload content, though monetizing remains a major challenge.
How Africans are bridging the language digital divide
About 20 years ago, 80 percent of the world's online content was in English. Currently W3Tech estimates that 54.9 percent of websites with known content languages use English.
Punjabi Wikipedia for 21 years: Celebrating 50,000 articles and looking ahead
The entire volunteer community came together for Mission 50,000, a call-for-action to reach 50k articles, in order to celebrate the 21st birthday of Punjabi Wikipedia.
Undertones: Indigenous Bolivian youth question media narratives on fossil fuel extraction
Coping with severe drought, Indigenous communities in the Gran Chaco want local media to also highlight how oil companies impact their communities
ÒCTele, a private TV station broadcasting in Occitan brings the language to France's public space
In southern France, a private TV initiative takes the safeguarding of the Occitan language to the next level by mainstreaming Occitan content for all age-category audiences over traditional and social media.
Digital technology: Promoting the use of Togolese national languages
In Togo, despite government intentions to promote the teaching of national languages other than French, this promotion mainly comes from private online initiatives.
Press freedom also means media in indigenous languages: The case of France's Occitan
Media production and access is essential to the revitalization of indigenous languages, as the case of Occitan, spoken less and less in southern France, demonstrates.
No one left behind: promoting the Indigenous languages of Ghana
Discover the efforts of Mohammed Kamal-Deen Fuseini, a language digital activist committed to promoting indigenous languages in Ghana. Through Wikimedia projects, he champions the visibility of the Gurene language in digital realms.
What does it take to revitalize a dying language?
Researcher and writer Uday Raj Aaley, together with resource person and the only fluent Kusunda speaker Kamala Sen Khatri, is on a mission to revive the language, once deemed moribund.
A look back at the Mayan Languages Digital Activism Summit 2023
From January 11-15, 2023, the Mayan Languages Digital Activism Summit convened digital activists and their communities to explore how the internet, digital media and technology are helping to revitalize Mayan languages in digital spaces.
Announcing the Mayan Languages Digital Activism Summit (January 11-15)
Rising Voices will host the Mayan Languages Digital Activism Summit 2023 at the Grand Museum of the Mayan World in Mérida, Mexico on January 11–15.
Indigenous and proud: A Maya-speaker’s reaction to ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’
The values that my family fostered in me encouraged me to “Remember who you are, no matter where you want to go,” and the Indigenous communities now know that we can go a long way.
Colmena: an open source media platform connecting Indigenous and rural communities
"The name 'Colmena', for me, represents a commitment to diversity."
Filming Gyani Maiya Sen who inspired efforts to revive the dying Kusunda language in Nepal
She "kept repeating that the young people were not interested in learning the language at all but she was ready to raise a generation of Kusundas speaking their mother tongue."
Water scarcity in Indigenous communities should be reported on, a young Bolivian journalist says
What does a media search for the words "incendio" and "chaqueo" reveal? Brisa Abapori considers that these words were relevant in the media only during the fires, afterwards they were neglected.
Creating new, local narratives on climate change in the Bolivian Chaco
Young Indigenous journalists propose more representative media coverage of climate change focused on their lived realities in the Gran Chaco, Bolivia that extends beyond natural disasters.
Meet Ganesh Birua, a champion who is bringing the indigenous Ho language online
Ganesh Birua is a young activist from the Indian state of Odisha. Rising Voices talked with Birua to learn about his efforts to bring his mother tongue to the internet.
Alhassan Alidu is uplifting the Moore language by bringing it online
As the executive director of the Moore Wikimedia Community, Alhassan is providing Moore with a digital platform that exists in the face of dominating Western media and languages.