‘Don’t be the one clipping your own wings’

Posted on by stanleyobando

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Step one if you want to interview Mariana Santos? Figure out where in the world she is.

And no, following her on Facebook won’t help much. As the driving force between a growing international network of journalists, she’s not only traveling constantly to trainings and events, but also sharing updates, event announcements and most of all, news from all over the world. Oftentimes, it’s groundbreaking digital journalism created by members of Chicas Poderosas (Powerful Girls), an organization she founded in 2013 and now co-directs with Vicki Hammarstedt, the digital media director of the Berkeley Advanced Media Institute.

The organization’s goal is to address the gender gap Santos, 34, experienced during her work in digital media at organizations including The Guardian and Fusion, and to provide women – both professional and citizen journalists – with the tools they need to tell their stories online. From free training and events to the organization’s New Ventures Lab, which offers intensive support to women-led media startups, Chicas is on a mission to get women telling stories using digital tools they might otherwise be uncomfortable using.

Continue reading ‘Don’t be the one clipping your own wings’

‘Can we bridge this gap?’

Posted on by stanleyobando

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I’ll admit it. When I picture an activist, I tend to envision picket lines and marches and petitions; if I associate it with a profession or field, it’s probably the law or politics. Activism is all of those things, but as I browsed with amazement through the website of Philadelphia Printworks, I realized that a true activist can infuse any of her endeavors with that spirit – art, fashion, business, writing, or, in the case of Printworks founder Maryam Pugh, all of the above.

The local business, which Pugh, 35, created in 2010, sells clothes in thought-provoking collections such as School of Thought, whose collegiate designs bear the names, not of famed universities, but of iconic black thinkers and leaders such as Harriet Tubman or Audre Lord. Other collections include Cats Against Catcalling, Professional Black Girl and Cognitive Dissonance – basically, these are clothes that are guaranteed to start a conversation.

Continue reading ‘Can we bridge this gap?’

On motherhood and hunger (como el león del Bolivar)

Posted on by stanleyobando

I’ve come to Costa Rica three times in my life. The first time, I was seven, and I remember absolutely nothing about the whole trip except seeing an enormous crocodile in the canals of Tortuguero. The third time, I was twenty-five, beginning the six-month visit that has continued for ten years. But in between was a college summer when I worked as a highly improbable intern at the national newspaper La Nación and lived with the greatest family in Costa Rica. Don Memo and doña Hannia sealed my fate, planting the seeds for my return years later. They ensnared me in a net of good food, exuberant kindness and costarriqueñismos that I would never quite escape. In a very real sense, they paved my way to you. Continue reading On motherhood and hunger (como el león del Bolivar)