“We come from windy places.
We make a network of community storytellers to share stories about climate change, racial justice and gender.
We do communication for social change, exhibitions with photos and writing by women from the periphery. We also embroider, make comics and publish interviews about inequality.
We come to sow seeds of radio, of being present and listening. We seek alternatives to share, to create, to consume, to recognize others’ space.
We unite skills and knowledge, because we want to get out of a competitive logic. To sow other approaches, other ways of relating to people and technology.”
– By Aída Naxhielly Espíndola, La Sandía Digital
This text is a summary of a collective sound exercise shared during an in-person gathering, where practitioners reflected on their wildest dreams for strengthening information ecosystems. The gathering was part of The Engine Room’s work to restore and strengthen information ecosystems in Latin and the Caribbean (LAC).
Supported by the Open Society Foundations, this project explored how civil society organizations are responding to increasingly hostile and complex information environments in the region, including political polarization, information disorder, digital surveillance, and attacks on journalists and media outlets. Together, we mapped these challenges and imagined new pathways grounded in resistance, care, and collective power.
What we’ve been doing
Over the past three years, we have supported knowledge sharing, collaboration, and experimentation across the region. This included:
- Hosting a series of three online events focused on restoring information ecosystems in LAC
- Convening an in-person gathering in Santiago with practitioners from across the region
- Providing hands-on tech and data support to 27 organisations
- Supporting the development of five stories, now featured on our new website
- Partnering with two organizations on longer-term work around narrative change and memory preservation
This digital space brings that work together. It showcases the people, practices, and ideas shaping more just, resilient information ecosystems. It is a living network of voices from Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean, imagining and building different futures for information, storytelling, and technology.
Beyond exchanging ideas, this work strengthened trust, solidarity, and practical collaboration. Participants built new alliances, developed creative tools such as the zines, and supported one another through a shifting and uncertain funding landscape. In the final phase of the project, memory, hope, and continuity became central, resulting in new processes, resources, and ways of working that continue to support journalists , communicators, and activists throughout LAC and hyper-locally in Colombia.
Ideas for the future, or how we are restoring the information ecosystem
The website includes reflections from our in-person event held in Chile, which brought together journalists, activists, and organizers from ten countries. Participants explored:
- Community-led information efforts and evolving relationships with media outlets
- Safety, care and sustainability for journalists and activists
- Building meaningful relationships with communities and audience
- The urgent need for sustained funding for grassroots media
- The importance, and complexity of building inclusive, justice-centred digital infrastructures
While all of these themes were critical, access to long-term, values-aligned funding and infrastructure emerged as one of the most difficult challenges to integrate into daily work.
Insights from the gathering
Participants highlighted that:
- Collaboration is essential. Building alliances across movements is key to navigating shrinking funding, rising authoritarianism, dependence on commercial platforms, and hostile media environments.
- Creativity is a strategy. Humor, storytelling, and experimentation, when rooted in community and care, can shift narratives and strengthen collective resilience.
- Technology is only part of the problem. Imbalanced information ecosystems are shaped by structural inequalities, exclusion, racism, and harmful policy decisions.
- Holistic approaches are needed. Sustainable change must be intersectional, justice-centred, and grounded in real community contexts, not just in tools or platforms.
“Our survival is working together”
During the Santiago gathering, a group created a zine that captures the spirit of collaboration and imagination. Facilitated by Hambre Hambre Hambre, the zine takes the form of a “recipe book”, using humor and creativity to illustrate strategies for change, including community listening, collective care, hope, experimentation, breaking political bubbles, and building alliances.
“Poder Jiji: Recetario” by Alharaca, Mutante, Latfem, and Proyecto Lava was produced during the Restauración colectiva de los ecosistemas de información gathering organized by The Engine Room in 2024.
In the spirit of intentional: a new digital home
Developed with sustainable WordPress agency WholeGrain Digital, this new website dedicated to restoring information ecosystems includes:
- Original contributions by participants including Laura Sofía Mejía (Baudó Agencia Pública), Haydeé Quijano (SocialTIC), Gisel Sánchez (Vita Activa), Aída Naxhielly (La Sandía Digital), and Bianca Pedrina (Nós, Mulheres da Periferia)
- Bold ideas for the future: strategies to mitigate harm and strengthen information ecosystem.
- Resources and reflections from civil society organizations across LAC. .
Visit the website and share your wildest dream for restoring information ecosystems in Latin America and theCaribbean.
We would love to hear what resonates with you. Share your thoughts with us at hello@theengineroom.org.