About Spherio
Spherio is a weekly public affairs radio program with a Latin American and Carribean focus. We broadcast live from 6-7pm every friday on WMBR 88.1 in Cambridge, MA. Spherio is produced by a collective of MIT undergrads, graduates and boston-area community members. We feature music, news, announcements, and interviews on anything and everything of importance to our hemisphere -- the environment, women, community organizing, indigenous rights and autonomy, the emergence of Latin American socialism, radio and public communication, and lots more. Spherio highlights how people are making the Americas a better place, from reviving traditions to creating new ones. We invite popular organizers, artists, scientists, musicians and activists to come share ideas and struggles. Exploring our own backyard; seeing how Cambridge connects with the rest of the hemisphere.
We always love to hear from our listeners, so please comment on our shows or suggest topics by e-mailing us at spherio@wmbr.org
Listen to Spherio
There are many ways to listen to Spherio. Anywhere in the greater Boston area, tune in live to 88.1FM every friday from 6-7pm. You can listen to us live from anwhere in the world at wmbr.org . You can also listen to the most recent 2 episodes from this website as well.
We are currently in the process of uploading a complete archive of our
past shows to Internet Archive. You can access these by searching for
Spherio at
internetarchive.org or by simply selecting the episode you want
from the links below. These are direct links to the mp3's for you to
download (they are typically around 60 mb).
Fall 2009
November 27, 2009 Vida
Verde
Spherio hosts Amy and Mary speak with members of Vida Verde, an
all-Brazilian women's green cleaning collective. Members of Vida Verde
use cleaning products with natural ingredients to provide safe
housecleaning. This protects workers from harmful chemicals, which
in the past caused workers to feel sick and get headaches, and protects
them from the exploitation they might experience in a more traditional
cleaning company.
November 20, 2009 World Computer Exchange
Spherio hosts Jasmine and Mary speak with Alex Mbianda, who volunteers as lead Programme Officer for Cameroon and a Regional Manager of the World Computer Exchange, or WCE. WCE is a grassroots network of thousands of groups in 68 developing countries working together to help improve the educational opportunities for over 1 million youth annually. WCE volunteers gather and then ship donated used desktop and laptop computers to partner organisations and provide ongoing online help related to project planning, fund raising, teacher training, etc. They then send teams of volunteer university students or tech professionals after the computers arrive and have been installed. They provide help with trouble-shooting, upgrading networks, and training in the use of the Internet to improve education.
November 13, 2009 African Information Technology Initiative
Spherio hosts Mary and Cat speak with Michael Gordon and Gleb Kuznetsov of the African Information Technology Initiative, or AITI. AITI is a student-run organization of MIT that promotes development in Africa by cultivating young technology entrepreneurs. The team develops curriculum materials, software technologies, platforms, and networks that enable African undergraduate students to innovate in the area of information and communication technologies (ICTs). AITI has sent over 100 MIT student/instructors to Africa and instructed over 1200 African students in technologies appropriate to their local environment.
October 30, 2009 La Tuza
Spherio hosts Jasmine, Mary, and Amy speak with La Tuza, an acoustic trio that performs Mexican roots music with a repertoire that includes pieces from the son jarocho, son huasteco, and son calentano traditions. They use such varied instruments as guitar, jarana jarocha, jarana huasteca, violin, cajon, pandero, and quijada. In the studio, La Tuza plays a few songs live and discusses the history of their band and the different styles present in their music.
October 23, 2009 iSchool and the House of Volunteers
Spherio host Mary speaks with Raqeebul Ketan, an MIT student who started iSchool in 2006. iSchool is a program to supplement the already existing education curricula of the National Board of Education in Bangladesh by creating an interactive virtual lecture series (containing animations of various concepts, integrated video clips of various experiments, processes, lab videos, video shots from interactive software etc.) that will be in direct reference to the standardized textbooks. iSchool is part of the House of Volunteers group at MIT, which devises low-cost, high-impact solutions to empower the education sector in underdeveloped communities around the world.
October 16, 2009 Kathleen Li
Spherio hosts Amy and Mary speak with guest Kathy Li from the Global Poverty Initiative about Poverty Week at MIT and Kathy's numerous experiences in international development. Kathy has been involved in GPI, a student organization at MIT dedicated to fighting international poverty and raising student awareness of the issues, since it began in 2007 during the planning for the Millennium Campus Conference. She has been able to travel to and work in both Tibet and rural India, and she lives in iHouse with Mary, a living community which fosters students with interests in international development.
October 2, 2009 Camp Kesem
Spherio hosts Jasmine, Mary, and Cat speak with guests from Camp Kessem, a camp for a student-run summer camp for kids whose parents have or have had cancer. Camp Kessem has two goals: one, to provide kids whose parents have or have had cancer with a summer camp experience that gives them a chance to be kids, and two, to allow college students to channel their passion for making a difference, while developing critical leadership skills for long-term social impact.
September 25, 2009 CubaGo!
Spherio hosts Jasmine and Mary speak via phone interview with Angelica Salazar, Cuba Policy Outreach Coordinator for the the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), who helped organize CubaGo!. CubaGo! is organized by three Washington-based NGOs, the Latin America Working Group (LAWG), the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), and the Center for Democracy in the Americas (CDA). CubaGo! is a grassroots effort to try to help Americans persuade Congress to end the travel ban to Cuba.
Summer 2009
September 18, 2009 Fernando Brandao
Spherio hosts Jasmine, Amy, Mary, and Cat speak with guest Fernando Brandao, professor of Music at Berklee, discusses Brazilian musical traditions, from choro (similar to jazz) to samba and bossa nova. Flutist, composer, author, arranger and educator Fernando Brandão is from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. An active musician versed in classical and jazz, he has performed extensively as a bandleader, sideman, chamber musician and as a soloist in Brazil and the US. Featuring a selection from his own ipod!
August 21, 2009 First Nations
Spherio host Amy plays music by female vocalists from the Americas, with a focus on Canada and the First Nations.
August 14, 2009 Guatemala Radio Project
Spherio hosts Amy, Jasmine, and Cat speak with Mark Kemp, the Director of Operations at the Guatemala Radio Project, part of Cultural Survival. Mark discusses the intrepid network of Guatemalan Community Radio stations. Mainstream Western entertainment has been flooding Guatemala‘s airwaves, hammering home the 24-hour-a-day message that Mayans should abandon their languages, their clothing, their spirituality, and their identities. Cultural Survival is partnering with Guatemalan NGOs to strengthen the network of 140 community radio stations across the country, many of which broadcast in one or more of the country’s 23 indigenous languages. The stations provide news, educational programming, health information, and traditional music, all reinforcing pride in Mayan heritage, in spite of federal governmental opposition.
August 7, 2009 Spherio: Professor Lykes of Boston College
Spherio hosts Amy, Jasmine, and Cat speak with Professor Brinton Lykes, director of the Center for Human Rights and International Justice of Boston College, which is an effort to pull together an interdisciplinary activist scholarship initiative that would bring together the schools of education, social work, and faculty of arts and sciences, particularly the ethics, theology, and human rights programs. Professor Lykes and her coworkers are trying to develop a participatory action research model, in which they partner with local community based organizations, advocates, and activists and university professors and students to begin a process of designing community-based interventions that respond to problems as articulated in local communities. These interventions can also draw on the knowledge base that comes from the academy. Their projects have focused on the great lakes region of Africa in the context of massive forced migration. Professor Lykes also discusses her work with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and how people rebuild their lives after traumatic events as different as Hurricane Katrina and migration to a new country.
July 31, 2009 Brazilian funk and hip-hop with DJ Gregzinho
Spherio hosts Amy and Jasmine speak with guest DJ Gregzinho about Brazilian funk and hip-hop and teaches the difference between the two as defined by the slum-dwellers and club-goers of Sao Paulo.
Spring 2009
March 20, 2009 AIDS
Action Committee
Spherio hosts Mary, Jasmine, and Jasmine's sister Bora speak with
Lissette Gauthier, an HIV Prevention specialist from the AIDS Action
Committee of Massachusetts. Lissette spoke about how she is involved
with the AIDS Action Committee and what it does to try and slow the
spread of AIDS in Massachusetts and give support to those affected by the disease.
March 13, 2009 Boston
Area Rape Crisis Center
Spherio hosts Jasmine, Cat, Froy, and Mary speak with Beth, who is
the Coordinator of Community Awareness and Outreach at the Boston Area
Rape Crisis Center. The Boston Area Rape Crisis Center (BARCC) is the
only rape crisis center in the Greater Boston area and the oldest and
largest center in Massachusetts. Beth helps to promote awareness of the issue of
sexual assault and the BARCC's services throughout the communities it serves.
March 6, 2009 Scot Frank and Caitlin Powers: One
Earth Designs
Spherio hosts Jasmine, Froy, Cat, and Mary talk with Scot Frank and
Caitlin Powers about their work with the new nonprofit they've started,
One Earth Designs. One
Earth Designs seeks to encourage communities to pursue their unique
vision of local sustainable development through science/engineering
education, design, and infrastructure development as well as through
innovative income generation strategies.
February 27, 2009 MIT
Habitat for Humanity
Spherio hosts Jasmine, Froy, and Mary speak with Grace Lee, a junior
at MIT and the president of the MIT Habitat for Humanity Club, and
Jessinda, the coordinator for Habitat's 2009 spring break trip to
Florida. MIT Habitat for Humanity, as a campus chapter of Habitat for
Humanity International, is a secular student-led group that seeks to
raise awareness in the MIT community about poverty housing issues, and
to encourage participation in service events.
February 20, 2009 Drug
Trafficking and Gang Violence in Mexico
Spherio hosts Jasmine, Kendra, and Mary talk about the issues of drug
trafficking and gang violence in Mexico. They play a clip from CNN of a
confrontation between gang members and the government, violence that is
rapidly evolving into a civil war in Mexico.
February 13, 2009 International Development in
Ecuador and Peru
Spherio members Jasmine, Mary, and Kendra speak about international
development projects that Kendra and Mary did during January. Kendra
continued a project involving art and water filtration in Ecuador that
she has been working on for several years now. Mary worked on a
project in Peru that she was able to participate in through D-Lab: Introduction to Development,
a class at MIT that introduces students to international development by
allowing them to travel to communities and do their own projects.
February 6th, 2009 Elections in El Salvador
Spherio hosts Kendra, Froy, and Jasmine discuss the recent elections in El Salvador with Boston CISPES' Lisa Fuller. FMLN, a former guerrilla movement turned political party, has the most number of seats of any party in the Salvadoran legislature after the elections on January 18th. We also discuss electoral fraud and the prognosis for the upcoming presidential election in March. The FMLN candidate has a strong lead over his right-wing opponent in polls, but right-wing ruling party ARENA is expected to continue its fraudulent and heavy-handed election tactics.
January 23, 2009 Latin American Reggae
Spherio host Amy speaks with Juan Bieta-Garcia about raggae of Latin
American countries. Juan is a DJ who does a show called Roots Reggae
and is a junior at MIT majoring in mathematics. Juan is from Puerto
Rico.
January 9, 2009 American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee of Massachusetts and Conflict in Gaza
Spherio hosts Amy and Froy play a radialistas piece and discuss
recent activities in Gaza, including what role Americans should have in
the conflict. They are joined by Merrie Najimy from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee of Massachusetts (ADCMA) and Muhammad Elahi, a Palestinian friend
of Amy. The ADCMA is committed to empowering Arab-Americans to embrace
their identity and advocate for their civil rights in the state of
Massachusetts. Froy also speaks about a program in Jerusalem that he
participated in over the summer, MIT
Middle East Education through Technology, which
brings Israeli and Palestinian high school kids together to learn
computer science.
Fall 2008
November 21st, 2008 Welcome
Project
Spherio hosts Amy, Froy, and Mary talk with Maria Landaverde,
director of the
Welcome Project in Somerville for youth, as well as Caitlin, Sonia,
Clivia, and Luana, four students in some of the programs of the Welcome Project. The Welcome Project helps
immigrant families to improve themselves; one way they do this is
through their youth program. Youth programs, like LIPS, the Liason
Interpreter Program of Sommerville, which trains bilingual students to
become interpreters, help students to become more active in their communities.
November 14th, 2008 Liberation Health
Spherio hosts Amy, Froy, Jasmine, and Mary spoke with three members
of Liberation Health, a group in Boston that tries to approach
healthcare differently: instead of just advising clients to adapt to
society, they try to achieve social change to overcome problems, in ways
like organizing rallies and demonstrations with their clients.
October 31st, 2008 Espiritismo
Spherio hosts Amy, Froy, and Mary talk with guest Deborah Garcia, an
espiritista in Boston. Espiritismo, or spiritualism, is popular in the
Caribbean and Latin America and is based around the idea that good and
evil spirits can affect health, luck, and other aspects of human life.
October 24th, 2008 MIT
Global Poverty Initiative
Spherio hosts Mary, Jasmine, Amy, Froylan, and John discuss the
activities of the MIT Global Poverty Initiative with MIT junior Spenser Skates and MIT sophomore Elli Pula. Global Poverty Initiative is astudent-run organization at MIT, which focuses on raising awareness about poverty as well as making poverty alleviation an institute priority. From October 17th through 24th, GPI hosted Poverty Week at MIT, hosting a series of events such as lectures, poverty-related study breaks, and simulations to raise awareness about poverty and give students opportunities to get involved.
October 17th, 2008 Three perscpectives on immigration and immigrant rights
Spherio hosts Amy, Froy, Mary, and Kendra discuss migrant and immigration issues with three different activist groups. Veronica from the Mexico Solidarity Network discusses the terrible human rights situation in Juarez Mexico where hundreds of women have been murdered in the last decade and where workers are losing their jobs due to the economic crisis. Carol from Matahari discusses the work of this Boston-based organization to support immigrants in struggles against domestic violence and labor exploitation. Carlos, Chris, and Uma share their experiences as immigrant students and the Student Immigrant Movement's work to change Massachusetts law to give immigrant students access to in state tuition for higher education.
October 3rd, 2008 Education outside the box in Paraguay
Spherio hosts Jasmine Park, Froylan Sifuentes, and Mary Masterman interview two MIT sophomores, Coco Agbeyibor and Juan Diaz, about their international development project in Paraguay. Coco and Juan worked with a local NGO, Centro de Informacion y Recursos por el Desarollo, on the topics of science education in high schools and technical career exploration. Coco and Juan felt that in their local schooling (in Togo and Colombia, respectively), they were taught only facts and how to follow directions, and never how to think for themselves or solve problems. They went to a few schools in Paraguay and gave the kids materials to build things such as water rockets and an electromagnetic generator in order to increase technological innovation there.
September 26th, 2008 David Bacon on Immigration
Spherio hosts Kendra Johnson, Froylan Sifuentes, Mary Masterman, and Amy Battisti-Ashe present a recorded talk by David Bacon on immigration (talk given on September 9th at the Jamaica Plains Forum and recorded by WMBR's David Goodman). In his talk, David Bacon shares first-hand observations on how the United States' trade and economic policy sets off a domino effect which ends in high immigration rates. In seeking to create a favorable investment climate for large corporations, socioeconomic conditions are created that displace communities and set migration into motion. Trade policy and immigration are intimately linked, Bacon argues, and are, in fact, elements of a single economic system. David Bacon has recently released a new book on the topic entitled "Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants."
Summer 2008
September 19th, 2008 Willy Barreno and his film Documigrante
Spherio host Amy Battisti-Ashe discusses two documentary films with Guatamalan filmmaker Willy Barreno. The first film "Voice of a Mountain" (available on youtube) documents the reality of life in rural Guatemala after the civil war officially ended in 1996. Willy Barreno is the producer of the second film "Documigrante" which traces the journey of Guatemalans coming to an living in the United States and explores the root causes of this migration and its impact on communities back in Guatemala.
September 12th, 2008 Bloco AfroBrazil with Marcus Santos
Spherio hosts Amy Battisti-Ashe, Froylan Sifuentes, and Kendra Johnson discuss Afrobrazilian music with the co-founder and artistic director of Bloco AfroBrazil, Marcus Santos. Bloco AfroBrazil gives performances of traditional street drumming in the AfroBrazilian tradition and works to teach drumming to several youth groups. They will perform with many other groups on Saturday September 27th at the block party of the Berkelee BeanTown Jazz festival, covering six blocks on Columbus street beginning at Massachusetts Avenue.
Spring 2008
May 16th, 2008 Minga Youth Combat Commercial Sex Exploitation of Children
Spherio hosts Amy Battisti-Ashe, Froylan Sifuentes, and Kendra Johnson interview three of the founding members of Minga, a youth group based in Newton, MA that works to combat commercial sex exploitation of children. They have raised around $40,000 so far in order to support shelters for children in the Philipines and here in Boston. On May 31st and June 1st they will hold their next major fund raising event: a family friendly art fair in Newton. For more information about this amazing youth organization, you can visit www.mingagroup.org
May 9th, 2008 Displacement and Land Reclamation in Colombia
Spherio hosts Kendra Johnson, Amy Battisti-Ashe, Jasmine Park, and Froylan Sifuentes present a discussion with Eustaquio Polo, an afro-colombian man who was violently removed from his land by paramilitaries in 1996 and has been fighting to get his land back ever since. He is from the Choco province, a region of unparalleled biodiversity, and Eustaquio tells how the vast tracts of land stolen from communities are being turned into Palm oil plantations with tremendous consequences to the environment. Although the situation remains bleak Eustaquio also gives a first hand account of the tremendous success of "Humanitarian Zones" set up by the InterAmerican court and foreign observers to protect the rights and lives of displaced Colombians.
May 2nd, 2008 International workers day
Spherio hosts Jasmine Park and Amy Battisti-Ashe discuss International workers day and labor rights violations in Colombia.
April 25th, 2008 Youth Latino leadership
Spherio hosts Amy Battisti-Ashe, Jasemine Park and Kendra Johnson discuss Latino youth organizing in the boston area with Lorenzo, Asha, and Daisy.
April 11th, 2008 MIT grad students work with first nations
Spherio hosts Kendra Johnson, Froylan Sifuentes, and Amy Battisti-Ashe interview two MIT graduate students who have recently done work with American Indian groups in the United States. Nick Buchanan is a doctoral candidate in the Program in Science, Technology and Society and is writing his dissertation on negotiating environmental management. He has primarily been working with the Klamath tribes in Oregon. Amit Sarin is a Masters in City Planning candidate in the department of Urban Studies and Planning who went to Navajo Nation over January of 2008 to explore how traditional peacemaking can help resolve conflicts over coal plants and point the way toward an alternative path of renewable infrastructure development. Over the course of the hour we explore different understandings of the environment, discuss the underlying social causes of environmental degradation, and examine the implications of working toward restoration and green energy development.
April 4th, 2008 Urban planning for community rebuilding in Peru
Spherio hosts Froylan Sifuentes, Kendra Johnson, and Amy Battisti-Ashe discuss the work of graduate students in MIT's department of Urban Studies and Planning to assist in the rebuilding of a community wrecked by an earthquake in Peru. Our guests include MIT Professor Phil Thompson and visiting scholar Sebastiao Ferreira who both work on the program.
March 28th, 2008 A human perspective on the combatants in the Colombian conflict
Spherio host Amy Battisti-Ashe discusses the Colombian conflict with Carlos Marin who just finished his doctoral thesis on why individuals join militant groups in Colombia. The results of his interviews are fascinating in that very few join because of a strong allegiance to the militant group's ideology, but rather because of social, family and community factors. Many are searching for a way out, but once they become part of a group they know too much and no longer have a choice but to stay.
March 14th, 2008 One year anniversary of New Bedford ICE raid
Spherio hosts Kendra Johnson, Jasmine Park, and Froylan Sifuentes share some segments of an event commemorating the one year anniversary of the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in New Bedford, MA where 360 workers were detained because they could not prove their immigration status. We hear from lawyers working on the cases of detainees, activists, and a short excerpt from a documentary with the voices of detainees themselves.
March 7th, 2008 Colombia: free trade, plan Colombia, and attack on FARC in Ecuador
Spherio hosts Amy Battisti-Ashe, Kendra Johnson, and Froylan Sifuentes present news, opinion and analysis about Colombia's attack on a FARC camp in Ecuador on March 1st. Bush supports Uribe's actions, the Organization of American States called it a violation of Ecuadorian sovereignty and Venezuela points out the similarities between Israel and Colombia. For background we turn to the second half of last week's interview with Diana Gomez from Colombia. Diana is a member of the "Movimiento de hijos e hijas para la justicia y contra la impunidad" the movement of children for justice and against impunity. She discusses the effects of Plan Colombia on the country and the reasons she is against the proposed free trade agreement.
February 29th, 2008 The victims movement in Colombia
Spherio host Amy Battisti-Ashe presents an interview conducted by Kendra Johnson with special guest Diana Gomez from Colombia. Diana is a member of the "Movimiento de hijos e hijas para la justicia y contra la impunidad" the movement of children for justice and against impunity. She tells about her work with womens organizations in Colombian, the suspected murder of her father in 2006, and the work of the victim's movement to raise awareness and speak the truth. Unless without understand the past we cannot construct a better future.
February 8th, 2008 Physicians for Human Rights campaign against torture
Spherio hosts Amy Battisti-Ashe and Kendra Johnson interview Nathaniel Raymond, a senior communications strategist for Physicians for Human Rights. We discuss the efforts of the "No Torture Campaign" in the context of the growing focus on CIA torture policy in the news. Nathaniel shares his expertise on the history of the current "enhanced interrogation" policies, the magnitude of torture and its health impacts on the victims, and the role of psychologists and medical doctors working for the CIA. See the Physicians for Human Rights website for more information.
Fall 2007
December 14th, 2007 Salvadoran Liberation Front
Spherio hosts Amy Battisti-Ashe and Kendra Johnson discuss the current political situation in El Salvador with Ricardo Calderon of the Frente Sindical Salvadoreno, the Salvadoran Union Front. Topics include the recent anti-terrorism laws and resulting crackdown on activists protesting water privatization, the International Law Enforcement Academy, and Ricardo's hopes for US Congress to take action and end US support of ILEA and repressive Salvadoran policies.
December 7th, 2007 Cooperatives
Spherio hosts Lyndsay Carslile and Kendra Johnson discuss cooperatives with Lynn Benander, director of Coop Power. Cooperatives offer a model for member-owned business in which individuals can combine their resources to achieve together what the could not alone. Coop Power is a New England cooperative that applies this model to renewable energy projects, from installing solar water heaters in the tradition of barn raising to community wind, solar, and biofuel installations.
November 23rd, 2007 Immigrant Rights and the Other Campaign
Spherio hosts Froylan Sifuentes and Kendra Johnson interview Mexican native and organizer on both sides of the border, Mario Canek, along with Corry Banton from the Mexico Solidarity Network and three students who have participated in one of their study abroad programs. The discussion focuses on what is happening in Chiapas, the Zapatista model of organization, and what it can offer as a model of organizing from below and to the left.
November 16th, 2007 College Students Fight Against Global Warming
Spherio hosts Froylan Sifuentes and Kendra Johnson interview climate activists Alana Miller from Smith College and Jennie Hatch from Wellesley College about what youth are doing to fight for global warming legislation in Massachusetts. We discuss campus efforts such as the presidents climate commitment www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org and the recent national youth climate conference "Power Shift." Alana and Jennie also present information about a newly formed network called Massachusetts Youth Climate Action (MYCA) and their lobbying efforts in favor of the Global Warming Solutions Act sponsored by Senator Pacheco to pass in the Massachusetts Legislature. see www.gomyca.org for more information.
November 9th, 2007 Global Health Equity
Spherio host Kendra Johnson discusses health inequities here in the US and abroad with medical school student John Rose, Dr. Dan Palazuelos, and Dr. Michael Herce, two physicians in the Global Health Equity residency program at Brigham and Women's hospital in Boston. John, Dan, and Michael share their stories of how they became involved in issues of health inequities and their experiences working with EAPSEC (the team for community health and education) in Chiapas Mexico. They also share their perspectives on what role US physicians and international organizations like Partners in Health should take in providing health care to under-served communities. There is a new project that PIH is working to get going in La Sierra in Chiapas to support the community health promoters in that region. To make a contribution or get involved, you can visit the Partners in Health website: www.pih.org. For pre-medical and medical students, check out the American Medical Student Association www.amsa.org.
October 26th, 2007 Conversations with a Mayan Elder
Spherio hosts Kendra Johnson, Froylan Sifuentes, and Jennie Riley bring you all the usual spherio features -- news, announcements, a radialistas.net production, and immigration news -- plus an interview with special guest Juana Pacheco, a Mayan elder and healer from Guatamala. We discuss her role in the community as a teacher, historian, and healer, as well as the current threats facing the Mayan culture, with Juan Gonazales as the interpretor.
October 19th, 2007 Blue Energy
Spherio hosts Amy Battisti-Ashe, Kendra Johnson and Froy Sifuentes discuss renewable wind/solar energy in Nicaragua with Mathias Craig, MIT alumnus and founder and executive director of Blue Energy . Blue Energy is a nonprofit organization that has set up renewable electricity systems in 6 rural communities on the Caribbean side of Nicaragua. They manufacture the wind turbines locally, do the installations, give technical and administrative training, and provide ongoing support for the systems they put into place. As always, the Spherio hosts also discuss recent news, play some music, and share a Spanish language radialistas production.
October 12, 2007 Community Health in Chiapas, Mexico
Spherio hosts Froylan Sifuentes, Kendra Johnson, and Amy Battisti-Ashe interview guests from EAPSEC -- el equipo de apoyo en salud y educacion comunitaria (the team for support of community health and education), a community health organization in Chiapas, Mexico, working in collaboration with many international organizations, including Partners in Health. Dr. Dan Palazuelos is resident at the Brigham and Women's hospital in Boston and continues to work with EAPSEC in Chiapas, Mexico. Dan introduces and translates for his colleagues from EAPSEC: Leonel and Dagmar who share their story of the origins and ongoing activities of EAPSEC, focusing on the idea of health as something that must be built upon community rights and participation. EAPSEC does extensive training, especially for women, in everything from women's health and dental health to traditional herbal medicine. In their clinics, patients are able to choose the treatment methods they would like to receive, be they Western, the local herbal methods, or acupuncture and massage. For more information see this information on the Parnters in Health website.
September 27th, 2007 Radio in the Carribean
Amy Battisti-Ashe and Kendra Johnson interview former Spherio host Luis Melendez about his new radio project in Vieques, Puerto Rico. Also appearing on this show: guest Eugene Godfried discussing politics in the Caribbean and his audio visual project: Regi radio (regiradio.org).
October 5th, 2007 Che Guevara
Spherio hosts Froylan Sifuentes, Amy Battisti-Ashe, and Kendra Johnson July 26th Coalition's Charlie Welch about the timeless figure in the history of the Western Hemisphere: Che Guevara. As always, we also present some of the week's headline news stories, announcements, a radialistas.net radio production, and a "no your rights" interview the July 26th Coalition's Charlie Welch about the timeless figure in the history of the Western Hemisphere: Che Guevara.
September 20th, 2007 Reforestation in Tecpaco, Mexico
Spherio host Anna Bernsteyn and Kendra Johnson discuss with Froylan Sifuentes his work on reforestation in the small farming community in Tecpaco in Central Mexico. Froylan chose to work with this community because his home town of Huejutla, farther down in the same water shed, is now really suffering from water shortages as their rivers dry up. The principle cause of this is deforestation in the region. Froylan worked with the community to build a tree nursery and set up a reforestation project.
September 13th, 2007 Welcome Back
Spherio host Amy Battisti Ashe interviews returning co-hosts Kendra Johnson and Lyndsay Carslile about their summer work in Mexico and upcoming plans for the semester, including a project on affordable housing in Lawrence, MA.
Spring 2007
May 24th, 2007 Combating Domestic Violence
Spherio hosts Amy and Kendra discuss domestic violence and resources for survivors in the boston area. Domestic violence advocate "Melissa" and Sabrina, the director of organizing and education with "The Network/ La Red" share their perspectives and advice on issues of power and control in relationships -- not just heterosexual relationships but LGBT relationships as well.
Contact us: spherio@wmbr.org
