What Does Hen Tie Mean?

Pa Divorce Song

I recently read Blindness of Saramago and I was quite depressed with the descriptions of that world of darkness where the survivors who did not die of hunger wander apprehensive streets full of garbage, excrement and rotting corpses.

"Les Amants" by Rene Magritte

The deep philosophical message that concludes the book left me thinking about the little value we give to all what we have, and we misuse of resources, electricity, water, food and of course our senses. The hallmark of our societies waste, arrogance and superficiality in behavior makes us blind, blind us to what we have become.

The blind Report Ernesto Sabato, who read many years ago in his monumental On Heroes and Tombs , the blind were the others, the underground, the conspiracy from darkness to life the narrator. But we are all blind Saramago, it's terrible. We are all actors in the dark, not human deserve to see because we have failed to appreciate the clarity, live in the light.

All this and the title gives me the book of short stories by Carlos Fuentes, is a case for some time in La Paz I met a group of blind people in the context of the assessment I made of media projects supported by the WACC in several Latin American countries. What is the WACC ? An organization that has few resources, but places where they can be better used: the right to communication, to generate social change through participation and commitment of the actors.

Alfonso Gumucio and José Luis Aguirre

In this case, the project supported by WACC has been brought to fruition by the SECR (Service Training for Radio and Television Development, the Universidad Católica Boliviana San Pablo), led by my friend Jose Luis Aguirre, one of the leading specialists in communication for development in Bolivia, valiant defender of the right to communication, a concept that many people sounds subversive.

The SECR has developed the project "Training of communicators with disabilities to build their communication rights" a workshop production of radio programs directed especially to a group of blind, I had the chance to meet. The first thing that struck me is that not mince words, the blind themselves and claim that word in place of other politically correct terms, as the blind or visually impaired.

Roxana Roca

The group, assisted by Roxana Roca and SECR technical team, chose the themes and radio formats (news, drama, documentary, interview) developed scripts and programs recorded their own voices. Opened training experience for each participant a new perspective on life.

"I hope to engage in communication, social communicators and an actor, not just a receiver of messages. The right to exercise communication means communication decisions, not just consuming information. Be actors means that we will deliver the messages to show how we can be useful to society, "says Ruben Pomacahua.

and Ruben Alfonso Gumucio Pomacahua

Rubén

I am surprised by the ease with which he handles the laptop that accompanies him everywhere. Programs installed in her voice that let you write and read with the same solvent that makes a person who enjoys the sense of sight. While typing quickly a voice repeats what you just typed. His fingers fly over the keyboard, the voice is accelerated to the point that I ask to make it more slowly, to understand better. He's already used that voice to demand maximum speed automatic.

Reuben and his fellow blind people ask me to send texts on communication rights, a topic that interests them greatly. "Texts? "Yes, text in Word or PDF, our computers can read them perfectly, "I respond.

Ruth Aguirre

To Ruth Aguirre, the training course in radio became a family environment "in addition to what I learned about communication, has changed the way we communicate with my children, which is something I wanted to achieve in order to help them. Some barriers faced in my life and not limit me. "

The learning process for all participants, is coupled with the desire to use what they learn to help others. Ruth, like her other colleagues, is very clear: "I work in radio, to express thoughts and feelings of people with visual disabilities to help them in their lives. I like to do role plays to give some lessons and raise awareness among people who know little about disability. "

Amilkar Castillo

Amilkar Castillo, who lost his sight and adult, I realize that until then working at the Sheraton Hotel in La Paz (now Radisson). I wonder if he met my mother, who also worked there. Sure, she remembers. This point Amilcar conversation with reminds me that in the early 1960's my mother spent part of their weekend social service at the Lodge for the Blind which then remained in the Obrajes curve, a few blocks from my house . Both also remember Alberto Zubieta, who my mother was very fond. Alberto I recognized the voice when, many years later, I found Commerce Street, selling lottery tickets at the door of the National Art Museum.

"We have lost the hat, but not the head. We lost the light, but our other senses are intact, "he says Amilkar. And with that sentence I close this note.