Intervención de Irene

- Website of eSTAS: www.e-stas.org/en (and www.empodera.org/en).

- Dwonload “Redvolution: The power of connected citizen”

1. Presentation of Attendants and Introducing Fundación Cibervoluntarios.

I am here representing Fundación Cibervoluntarios (Cybervolunteers Foundation), a non-profit organization made up of social entrepreneurs, based in Madrid but with cybervolunteers all over Spain and Latin America (Ecuador, Argentina and Brazil). Our vision is to use new technologies as a means for social innovation and citizen empowerment.

For us, empowerment means “to give power”, to increase the rights, opportunities and capabilities of each person within their environment, in our case, through the use of technological tools and applications within their reach.

This is our main goal since we started our workout in 2001, to empower people through the social use of ICTs; and to achieve it we have the invaluable cooperation of around one thousand and five hundred (1.500) cybervolunteers.

What is Cibervoluntarios Foundation

I would like you to watch a short video about our organization; it is made by a young volunteer who has been travelling around the world recording many different NGOs to spread the word and promote social action. His name is Fernando Sapelli, he is our representative in Brazil and he developed a project is titled “People of change: a journey for the difference”. This video explains how he sees us; it is in Spanish with English subtitles and it is a good way for you to meet some of our cybervolunteers:

VIDEO FERNANDO SAPELLI

http://vimeo.com/9433374

2. The Cybervolunteers

Technology is nothing without persons. That is why we have created a new type of volunteering, the cybervolunteering: the Technological Volunteering or Cybervolunteering, WHICH is not the same thing as the online volunteering or the cyberactivism, its concept is broader. The work of the cybervolunteer is done onsite, together with the person being helped, teaching that person to use a technological tool or application from a close perspective, adapted to the person’s needs. Once the digital gap is overcome, the cybervolunteers provide following and further online support

Cybervolunteers help the Foundation to develop its everyday labor; it would not have been possible to have reached more than fifty thousand people through our existence without them. They are the leitmotiv of our organization and we are working for them to encourage the innovation and social change in society through the ICTs. THEY ARE Cybervolunteers are social change agents, aware of the power of new technologies to cause this change and empower people to improve their daily lives and expand their opportunities and capabilities, providing them with tools to grow in a personal, social and professional way.

Let’s listen to them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54E_giShJ2c

poner el Nuevo video hecho por referenzia “Ser cibervoluntario”

Let’s see an example of Nacho who made this video obout his vision on cybervolunteering in rural zones

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U60NWIUlZyY

3. People and organizations we work for and with.

The target group of our actions are all kind of people and groups who, for different reasons (cultural, economical, geographical, age...) do not know how to use ICTs: elderly people, immigrants, people living in remote rural areas, people without economic resources, people with disabilities, unemployed people, etc.

But we also offer ICT training to NGOs and social organizations, especially small and medium-sized non profit entities, because very often these organizations do not know the various ICT tools (free in many cases) that can improve their management and help them achieve their goals.

We have different activities and projects we are developing In Spain and in Latin America I would like to invite you to visit our website. Apologies because it is only in Spanish but we are about to launch the new version of it in both languages, English and Spanish, it will probably be online very soon.

www.cibervoluntarios.org

By clicking in “Proyectos” (Projects) you can find the main projects we are developing at this moment and you will have access to the different websites of the projects; I would like to make a difference between the projects or actions for

digital literacy actions and programs

raising awareness programs

Among all these programs we want to highlight EMPODERA.ORG for this specific Community Media Empowering Program.

Empodera.org: Innovation for citizen empowerment through ICTs.

Public virtual space for reflection and discussion with contents and experiences of experts and citizens about the technology at the core of citizen empowerment and participation.

+ info: http://www.empodera.org

Result: With this program we want to reward the work of different organizations and personalities working in citizen empowerment through ICTs. Empodera has its own Awards: The Empowerment Awards. This year marked its third edition, we have winners such as Sugata Mitra's Hole in the Wall project and Ethan Zuckerman, co-founder of Global Voices (you may see their messages on the page) we have received over 70 nominations per year and we have edited four books with experiences of empowerment, the last one can be downloaded from the website.

We publish Annual Publication of a multilingual book on the social use of technology for citizen empowerment, which gathers experiences from around the world on social innovation through technological tools. There are already four editions published, the last one in June, with the name: Redvolution; the power of connected citizens.

This publication can be downloaded completely free at http://www.empodera.org

5. How we use Social networks and Community Media in our actions

Cibervoluntarios Foundation strongly believes in the power of community Media and use of Social Networks for empower its community and sprerad its actions. We have presence in several social networks such:

Twitter: Our main profile @cibervoluntario has almost 6.800 followers, very active sharing contents en Spanish and in English. We have an specific user por empowerment with 2.400 followers: @EMPODERA_org

https://twitter.com/cibervoluntario

https://twitter.com/EMPODERA_org

Facebook: Our fansite has more yhan 3.500 fans, also very active sharing contents en Spanish and in English

http://www.facebook.com/Cibervoluntarios

We also have a fansite for an specific program focused on youth involved in volunteering with 2.550 fans

http://www.facebook.com/voluntarizate

Youtube: our youtube channel with more than 200 subscribers and 54.000 total plays

http://www.youtube.com/cibervoluntarios

Flickr, G+, Pinterest, LinkedIn… we really believe in social networks to spread our words J

Specific CASE OF SUCCESS whith community media empowerment in 2012:

We made a video contest last may in facebook with the program Voluntarizate (volunteer yourself) for young people to promote youth volunteering (www.voluntarizate.org).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrew1bvitbo

the results was pretty surprising, In the contest we asked young people to send us a video with this motto: “What volunteering means for you” in a creative way, the video with more votes was the winner. In just one month our fansite http://www.facebook.com/voluntarizate grew from 300 to 2.400 fans. We received 20 vídeos from different places in Spain and all the videos were voted for more than 2.000 thousand people through the facebook contest. Here you are the winning video who won a trip to Amsterdam

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iQMCTBZA2s&feature=youtu.be