Tech: key to re-empower 42 surviving communities

Dear SOLE Colombia friend,

During the last months we have continued with our conversations all over Colombia, inviting different people to join the great worldwide conversation about the future we want (https://www.un.org/en/un75). At SOLE Colombia we found with this UN initiative for the 75th. Anniversary of the United Nations, a great opportunity to contribute to a long-lasting peace to Colombia. 

We all know that dialogue is vital to build peace, and in a country like Colombia, where many people aren't used to have conversations with people outside their social circle, we find it more important than ever to open different spaces for dialogue with diverse people, from different ages, backrounds, regions, gender, political views and many other characteristics. 

This is what has been happening at SOLE Colombia during this last months. The SOLE methodology is a great fit to begin a conversation basing on Big Questions, and teachers, librarians, community leaders, students, parents, and many other people from diverse profiles have joined the project UN75+SOLE. They all started their own conversation by using their own Big Questions about the future. Excepeting a few people who had the chance to come together in person to talk, all the conversations have been remote, where SOLE Ambassadors (facilitators on SOLEs and conversations), Grannies (from the Granny Cloud in Spanish - Nube de Abuelitas) and participants, did a virtual SOLE using StartSOLE (www.startsole.org) and an asynchronous conversation using Loomio (www.loomio.org). We also had the chance to do a SOLE Radio with the UN, where we reached other people that otherwise couldn't have joined the conversation. 

We have had around 1000 people participating in different conversations about different themes concerning the future, like education, environment, childhood, livelihood, local communities, equity and equality, work and employment and so on. Opening the space for conversations and being in contact with so many different people, has also allowed us to start weaveing a network between diverse communities and people around our country and also other parts of the world. Many of the SOLE Ambassadors and Grannies, have invited new people and facilitaded in many cases more than one conversation. 

Here you can see and listen to the voices, quotes and pictures of different people participating on the conversations all over Colombia and the world: http://www.solecolombia.org/narrando-la-conversacion-mas-grande-del-mundo/ 

Now that we have started this movement, we want to continue. We think this is the right time and place to continue the conversations and taking action towards the future we want. For this, we need support from new people all over the world. We would love many others to have the chance to join, because we believe that together we can change our planet into a world, where we can all enjoy our lives and take care of each other, as human beings and non human living creatures.

We thank you for all your support and hope you will join us on the next steps of this journey that has already started.

Stay tuned and stay healthy.

Sanjay, Catalina and Maryam
The SOLE Colombia Team

Links:

• Infographic of the great conversation in Colombia
• SOLE Radio

Dear SOLE Colombia friends,

We hope you are safe and healthy. We know that the last 3 months have been challenging for all of us, no matter in which corner of the world we are.

At SOLE Colombia we also have been facing a new reality, in the way we work and interact with the SOLE Colombia Community and with our different partners.

This worldwide situation brought us to rethink the importance of what we do. We have a big challenge: How to respond to this situation with the tools we already have, what can we do? What other ressources are available to respond? How can we still contribute to a long-lasting peace in Colombia from our homes? Is there a way we can keep building and strengthening our SOLE Colombia network and comunity of people all around the country and the world even if we can't meet in person?
Sitting at home, we saw how a new window of opportunities opend for us and the diverse people and communities we are connected with.

We started reconnecting to other people doing SOLE worldwide, who had similar challenges. We received the support and great company form the StartSOLE team (www.startsole.org) to have access to a great platform to do virtual SOLE sessions with different people all around the world, and this has been a big oportunity to open different spaces to talk, chat and learn together. This new way of connection and interaction has become the core of what we do at this moment.

Even if the actual crisis is hard, the technology we are using to connect to each other, is opening opportunities for people from different regions and contexts to connect, start new conversations and learn together about different kind of themes. We are convinced that we need to talk more, to open new spaces for many diverse people all around Colombia and the world, to get together and learn more about our differences and diverse world views.

We also know that this actual situation has shown us more clearly some of the problems that were already there under the surface, like socioeconomic inequality and lack of opportunities due to isolation in remote areas. We are sure that if we bring this themes to our conversations and start not only talking, but acting, we can start to find the solutions together, being aware of not leaveing out those who have to be part of this conversation.

This is why we are looking for new ways and partners to bring the voices of those who right now aren't connected to the networks we are conencted with. Our dream is to build a strong network of people and communities all over Colombia and the world, people from all different backrounds, who have had different life experiences, have different world views and even though are willing to come together and learn from each other.

If you would like to join us for a Virtual SOLE or conversation with many different people all around Colombia and the world, please send us an email to hola@solecolombia.org and we will give you more information so you can join us on this great adventure!

And also, if you would like to support us with your donation to help us bring more people in remote and isolated areas to this conversation, you would be contribuiting to a one of the big steps in the peace building process of our country.

If you would like to know more about our work with one of our rural communities, please visit this project and feel free to share it with your network: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/build-a-school-in-the-cloud-for-pisamal-colombia/

Thank you for your support in so many different ways.

We wish you all the best and hope to hear from you soon, you'll definitely hear from us again during the coming weeks.

Stay safe,

SOLE Colombia Team

Links:

• SOLE Colombia webpage
• The Playground in The Cloud