Petén, Guatemala — On March 25th and 26th, 2022, the learning group on Community Connectivity of the youth of the forest communities of Petén met at the ACOFOP offices to outline the next steps on their path towards the planning and installation of the First Community Intranet promoted by the young leaders of the Mesoamerican School of Leadership of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests.
We begin the journey with a review of the path we have traveled since the first meetings in July 2021, through the First Exchange on Connectivity and Community Networks in which we learned about some experiences of community telecommunications networks in Latin America.
We remember the meeting with professor Luis Ramón Alvarado from Jnoptik Intrabach and finally the First International Exchange on Community Connectivity and Communication from which came the final impetus for the dream of building a network of intranets in the forest communities of the Maya Biosphere Reserve led by young people.
After this introduction, we use the methodology that the colleagues of Redes por la Diversidad, Equidad y la Sustentabilidad A.C. have built in their walk accompanying processes of communication and technological autonomy with indigenous communities. This methodology is a guide for communities, based on their principles, needs, dreams and priorities, to identify useful technologies and develop participatory and sustainable communication projects, in accordance with their organizational forms.
With this activity we cemented the goals of the intranet project. We jointly designed the sections and contents that it will have, as well as the ideas to produce the contents that we want it to include.
In a second moment, we had a session to solve technical doubts with the colleagues of the SDR group of study on Cognitive Radios of the Autonomous Metropolitan University Iztapalapa (UAM-I) in Mexico city, SDR-UAMI. The group has contributed to provide infrastructure and applications for community networks.
In charge of the Dr. Enrique Rodríguez de la Colina, this study group created the MoSiNetI (Modular System Network Iztapalapa) modular system based on open source software and low-cost free or generic hardware, and a bank of manuals so that communities can install the system. After this session we still have more doubts, so as part of the next steps we will continue with the exchange and advice of the SDR group of UAM-I.
The next day, we finished defining the next steps to follow in training, negotiations with community authorities and a sustainability plan, closing the meeting on the shores of Lake Petén Itzá in the company of territorial communicator Welder Ramírez from the ACOFOP’s Community Communicators Network, better known as the “Red Compa”. With Welder, the young leaders recorded an episode of the Compa’s podcast in which they expressed their reflections on connectivity in their communities. Wait for it here soon