Stories about Ideas from April, 2014
Trinidad & Tobago: The Implications of Style
When you see your reflection, are you seeing you or an amalgamation of your racial, historical and social complications? Tillah Willah blogs about the “self-schism that exists [and the] ways that this affects [her] as a black woman living in the west.”
‘I Saw You On The Train': Falling in Love on Portugal's Public Transport
A Facebook page called Vi-te No Comboio [pt] (I Saw You On The Train) aims to gather and share the stories of anonymous people who meet on the train and take an interest in the passenger next to them. The stories are sent to the social network's administrators who then post them...
Fans in Skopje Gather to Exchange Football Stickers
Hundreds of people gathered on Sunday afternoon in a downtown park in Skopje to exchange stickers of the official Football FIFA World Cup album on April 28, 2014. In Macedonia, as in other countries of the former Yugoslavia, the tradition of collecting stickers is decades long, dating back at least...
Catching Up with the Togolese E-Waste 3D Printer Makers
In 2013, we were introduced to the E-Waste 3D Printer project by Woelab engineers in Togo. My Africa Is gives the genesis of the WoeLab project and what the makers hope to achieve going forward : The Woelab team has organized conferences with individuals in the medical field in Africa, to...
Collaborative Economy Visionaries Gather at OuiShare Fest 2014 in Paris
The OuiShare Fest 2014 will gather thousands of activists for a conference on collaborative economy from May 5 -7 in Paris, France. The objective of the festival is to exchange on a common vision of an economy relying on horizontal networks and communities. Here is a video presenting the festival:
Menstruation Is Not a Shameful Secret. Let's Talk Periods.
“Why do women hush themselves when it comes to discussing menstruation?” asks Sourav Kumar Panda at Youth Ki Awaaz and goes on to discuss that in this day and age, keeping periods a ‘hush-hush’ issue is unnecessary – the time has come for us to break the silence and shame...
El Salvador: Letter to Minister of Public Works
[All links direct to pages in Spanish.] On the blog Siguiente página, Paolo Lüers posts a letter addressed to the Minister of Public Words of El Salvador, Gerson Martínez, where with some irony he makes reference to the announcement made by the minister on a local TV station where he...
Trinidad & Tobago: Green Business
ICT Pulse puts forward six suggestions to make offices greener.
Pure Grenada
What comes to mind when an unexposed individual envisions the Isle of Spice? Grenada’s brand, though it fuels patriotism, isn’t targeted at Grenadians. We already know what our country has to offer. Nisha writes about about the re-branding of Grenada‘s tourism product.
Coasters, Combis and Chaos: Public Transportation in Lima
The city's current system is a crowded mix of the city-owned Metropolitano bus rapid transit system and privately run minibuses, such as the notoriously aggressive "combi" minibuses.
Grenada, Antigua: Life Lessons
Kara Stevens, blogging at Groundation Grenada, shares five lessons about finances and life from Lessons her “Superhero Antiguan Grandpa”.
French Economist Piketty Links Inequality to Instability of Democracies
French economist and Associate Chair at the Paris School of Economics, Thomas Piketty recently published a book called “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” that has generated quite a buzz among fellow economists and political leaders. Piketty's central thesis is that inequality is not an accident, but one of the consequences of the excess of capitalism. Piketty...
Egyptian Turns to YouTube to Object to Compulsory Service in Egyptian Army
An Egyptian activist has turned to YouTube to spell out his objection to the mandatory military service in the Egyptian army, compulsory for men aged between 18 and 30. In an email sent to Global Voices Online, Adam writes: I am Egyptian conscientious objector against serving in Egyptian Army because...
Turning Faecal Waste Into Business Opportunities
Clean Team Ghana organised a Twitter chat using the hashtag #WasteOpportunities to discuss the business potential of faecal waste.
In Bangladesh, Cycling to Break Free of Dhaka's Notorious Traffic
Dhaka is one of the most unlivable cities in the world, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, and its extreme traffic congestion contributes a lot to this fame.
Exploring Trinidad & Tobago's Digital Divide (Part 2)
In the second installment of our post about the digital divide in Trinidad and Tobago, Global Voices talks with Kenfield Griffith, CEO of mSurvey, the company that conducted the research.
Syria: From Inventor to Laborer
The story of Ismail al-Shimali exposes the Baathist mechanisms of diminishing any possibility for scientific or cultural development in Syria.
“Blogs are the Vinyl Records of the Internet”
An article in Washington Post talks about “the decline of Iran's blogestan”. Several bloggers tweeted the last sentence of this article: #Blogs are the #vinyl records of the Internet. See @Kamangir @maasalan http://t.co/bd6NKrrTpR … — fredpetrossian (@fredpetrossian) April 13, 2014 Read more here.
Caribbean Loses Valuable Steward with Passing of Professor Norman Girvan
Economist, intellectual, Caribbean man: As news of Professor Norman Girvan's death spreads throughout the region, netizens pay him tribute in glowing terms, calling his legacy "powerful" and his voice "magnificent".
A Look at the Mexico City Metro
What do Mexico City residents say about their main mode of public transportation?
Jamaica: Social Art
It can only create a healthier cultural environment if multiple independent spaces, encouraging social interaction and supporting creative practice were operating. ART:Jamaica blogs about the importance of social art spaces.
