"Despair is a black leather jacket in which everyone looks good, while hope is a frilly pink dress few dare to wear. Rebecca Solnit thinks this virtue needs to be redefined.

Here she takes to our pulpit to deliver a sermon that looks at the remarkable social changes of the past half century, the stories the mainstream media neglects and the big surprises that keep on landing.

She explores why disaster makes us behave better and why it's braver to hope than to hide behind despair's confidence and cynicism's safety.

History is not an army. It's more like a crab scuttling sideways. And we need to be brave enough to hope change is possible in order to have a chance of making it happen."

"A current affairs docu-report about the attempts by the first socialist indigenous president Evo Morales to change and indigenize the educational system in Bolivia. This docu-report is shot in October 2009 just as the first 5-year period of Evo Morales as president is finishing and the country is preparing for new elections."

"Harvard's Widener Library is the repository of many scarce and unique Latin American pamphlets published during the 19th and the early 20th centuries. One of the few institutions to have consistently collected Latin American pamphlets, Harvard has benefited from collections formed by Luis Montt (Chile), Nicolás Acosta (Bolivia), Manuel Segundo Sánchez (Venezuela), José Augusto Escoto (Cuba), Blas Garay (Paraguay), Charles Sumner, John B. Stetson and others. Chile, Cuba, Bolivia and Mexico are the countries most heavily represented in this collection.<br />
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These pamphlets are valuable primary resources for students and researchers working on Latin American history. They document the emergence of the Latin American colonies as independent states, and illuminate many aspects of their populations' social and cultural life. Many pamphlets are devoted to boundary disputes, territorial expansion, the description of unexplored territories and the relationship between Church and State…"

"Our mission is to transform lives and strengthen low-income communities by empowering people with information and communication technology. We use technology as a medium to fight poverty, stimulate entrepreneurship and create a new generation of changemakers"

"Founded in 1995, pioneer of the digital inclusion movement in Latin America, CDI (Center for Digital Inclusion) is one of the leading social enterprises in the world with a unique socio-educational approach. CDI Founder and Ashoka Fellow Rodrigo Baggio and our work at CDI have been recognized with more than 60 international awards. Today, we are a network of 816 self-managed and self-sustaining CDI Community Centers throughout Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay – monitored and coordinated by our 32 regional offices."

"From Borges to Bolaño, Spanish has given us some of most beloved writers of 20th & 21st centuries. But as reach of Spanish-language culture extends far beyond Spain & Latin America, & as US tilts towards majority Hispanic population, it is time to ask who is next…22 literary stars of future.<br />
<br />
Andrés Barba –Spain, 1975<br />
Oliverio Coelho –Argentina, 1977<br />
Andrés Ressia Colino –Uruguay, 1977<br />
Federico Falco –Argentina, 1977<br />
Pablo Gutiérrez –Spain, 1978<br />
Rodrigo Hasbún –Bolivia, 1981<br />
Sònia Hernández –Spain, 1976<br />
Carlos Labbé –Chile, 1977<br />
Javier Montes –Spain, 1976<br />
Elvira Navarro –Spain, 1978<br />
Matías Néspolo –Argentina, 1975<br />
Andrés Neuman –Argentina, 1977<br />
Alberto Olmos –Spain, 1975<br />
Pola Oloixarac –Argentina, 1977<br />
Antonio Ortuño –Mexico, 1976<br />
Patricio Pron –Argentina, 1975<br />
Lucía Puenzo –Argentina, 1976<br />
Santiago Roncagliolo –Peru, 1975<br />
Andrés Felipe Solano –Colombia, 1977<br />
Samanta Schweblin –Argentina, 1978<br />
Carlos Yushimito –Peru, 1977<br />
Alejandro Zambra –Chile, 1975"

"MISIÓN: Mejorar la calidad de vida de las familias que viven en situación de pobreza a través de la construcción de viviendas de emergencia y la ejecución de planes de habilitación social, en un trabajo conjunto entre jóvenes voluntarios universitarios y estas comunidades. Queremos denunciar la realidad de los asentamientos precarios en que viven millones de personas en Latinoamérica e involucrar a la sociedad en su conjunto, logrando que se comprometa con la tarea de construir un continente más solidario, justo y sin exclusión."

"As outgoing Editor for Latin America, I have seen the Global Voices team from Latin America grow tremendously over the past three years. Each of the volunteer authors has dedicated time and energy to serve the mission of Global Voices, and to share their part of the world with a global audience. At any given time, each of the countries that make up the Latin American region has been represented by a talented blogger tasked with the challenge of presenting a wide range of issues in a balanced and fair manner. Now that I am moving on to take the helm at Rising Voices, I am eager to see how the team will take the coverage of such a diverse region to greater heights under the leadership of the new Latin America Editor, Silvia Viñas. Continuing a recent tradition, let's meet some of these amazing people that have been part of the Latin American team (in alphabetical order by first name)."

"In a country likened more to Europe than the rest of Latin America, Jujuy stands apart.<br />
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Here, pagan rituals overshadow Catholic beliefs, medicine men are sometimes preferred to doctors, and everyone, regardless of ancestry, embraces an indigenous heritage that dates back to the 10th century.<br />
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“The culture of Jujuy has little to do with the rest of the country,” said Héctor Tizón, a renowned Argentine writer born in a small town near the province’s capital, San Salvador de Jujuy. “The culinary arts, the music, customs and architecture are autochthonous.”<br />
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But perhaps the most singular aspect of Jujuy is its dramatic landscape: more than 20,000 square miles of salt deserts, untamed jungles and an endless maze of multicolored rocky mountains rising up to 16,000 feet, threaded by a scenic ravine called Quebrada de Humahuaca — a onetime Inca trade route leading north to Bolivia, now a Unesco World Heritage site."

"He is the only survivor still alive of the anarchist Durruti column which held Francoist forces at bay in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the founder of an anarchist community in the heart of the jungle."

"Chile is claimed as being a market economy but that's highly misleading: its main export is a very efficient state owned copper company nationalized under Allende. You don't get correlations like this in economics very often. Adherence to the neoliberal

"San Pedro prison, the biggest in Bolivia's main city, La Paz, is home to about 1,500 inmates. Once you pass the thick walls and the security gates, any resemblance to a normal jail disappears: there are children playing, market stalls, restaurants, haird