Lapapaya.org

Social Networking Site for a better world

They are everywhere. In a society crammed with hyperlinks and virtual-parallel realities, social networking sites have become one of the most popular ways to connect people. Many times, they are the only tool we have to keep in touch. But, what happens when we use pictures, videos, sounds and quick messages for more than just having fun?


By ISABEL BENITEZ (isabel.benitez@wavemagazine.net)
from Seville, SPAIN


"Help as many people as possible". This is the principle a user can discover after typing on the Internet, LAPAPAYA.ORG. What this surfer finds is a website where friendship, cooperation and solidarity join forces to change the world, yet its main raison d'ętre is its faith in social evolution, in social metamorphosis. It attempts to change society's vision of life.

Far away from a conventional web, LAPAPAYA.ORG appears as a social networking site. It reminds of Facebook, Twitter and similar places, since it allows people to create a profile, add contacts to this profile and interact through it. However, it has different motivation. It's not made for fun or just for communicating, it's made for becoming the origin and roots of social projects. It makes the most of social networking technical features to connect people with similar interests.

Everyone, everywhere

Telefonica's study on "ICTs in Spain 2010" shows that social networking sites users have increased 430 per cent in the last year. Three out of four Internet users access this kind of sites which take up 22 per cent of the time they surf the World Wide Web. Just Facebook counts 10 million users in the country, and the social networking site par excellence reached 500 million users all over the world in June.

Like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Haboo, QZone, Linkedln or Tuenti, are integrated into our daily practices and routines. Plenty of young people prefer sending a quick and short message through a social network rather than writing an e-mail. There are so popular that webmail services, such as Gmail, have decided to create its own network. It is the example of Google Buzz.

Since social network sites are so popular, it is no surprise that LAPAPAYA.ORG chose this format too. Felipe Velasquez, project coordinator, says that, on the one hand, he decided to create LAPAPAYA.ORG because his doctoral thesis had to join theoretical knowledge and reality; it couldn't stay forever in a library shelf.

- On the other hand, it was necessary to combine communication, art, technology, entrepreneurship... But the most significant reason was that people spend more and more time surfing and logging on Facebook. And our intention was to employ those hours to increase social awareness and solidarity - says Felipe and adds: We are just seeing the top of an iceberg whose magnitude we cannot sense. Information technologies and Internet are changing how we communicate, how we live, how we work.

Just for dreamers

LAPAPAYA.ORG places at dreamers' disposal these new tools. Felipe Velasquez explains: "It is a social networking site where people express their dreams, that can become true, and help other people to achieve theirs". He is an architect and he is studying for his doctorate in a Spanish university, Pablo de Olavide, in Seville. This website is a part of his doctoral thesis.

In 2003, he travelled around Europe and in 2005 he visited Latin America. What he found there, in Europe and Latin America, what he observed in their cities and streets, invited him to fight for more harmonious social models. And LAPAPAYA.ORG was born. And it was necessary, according to his colleague, Bonny Fernanda Valencia, its multimedia designer:

- World situation is chaotic, and I think that people are more and more worried about themselves. And they forget or they don't know there are other people they can easily help to. There are also people with very good ideas but they don't know where or how to express them. LAPAPAYA.ORG is a bridge for all these people who want to build a better world.

In 2007, it started working; a beehive of people cooperating to get their personal dreams. Each one gives what they have. Some of them offer their free time; others donate knowledge; others, contacts; others, creativity. It's a barter. All is possible and necessary. It depends on the dream and their own enthusiasm. Felipe insists: "Any person, any initiative, any dream, can join our virtual network. We all will try to make it come true. But selfish dreams, those which need less people, which benefit less people, are not given as much visibility as social projects. It is not the same to build an ecological village in India as your desire to become rich".

But how does it work?

"Vitamins for your dreams"

Dreamers drink hope and eat a mix of courage and ambition. When somebody wants to build a new world he needs ideas but also, of course, support. Spreading a different vision of life, politics or economics, seems to be a harder task when done alone. It is estimated that the population of the world exceeds 6.800 million people. Consequently, social change needs more than a person tilting at windmills.

LAPAPAYA.ORG tries to help those who think change is possible, so its motto makes sense: a network which works as vitamins for dreamers, a network which gives dreams strength and vitality.

LAPAPAYA.ORG goes further than computers and websites. Inside, a user can write e-mails supporting each other dreams, offering help, "Opportunities". To get these e-mail addresses, user and dreamer have to become "accomplices". If the person who receives the e-mail finds useful the information, user gets points, "little stars", to make his own dream come true. Of course, it is possible thanks to the Internet; however, there is a place where its projects materialize. From its foundation, this network acts in three levels: personal, social and environmental issues. Three groups of "dreams" people can join depending on their interests.

For instance, Pedro's dream was to be an artist, a painter. This social networking site helped him to do it, as it tries, now, to develop a platform to exchange knowledge for cooperation and voluntary work with Mamen. At the same time, there are users thinking about technological alphabetization of children in Latin America, social economy shops, ecological houses, responsible tourism in Amazonia and poverty eradication.

"El Amor de mi Sabana"

But the greatest initiative born in LAPAPAYA.ORG is "El Amor de mi Sabana" ("The love of my sabana"), builder Elmer Restrepo's dream. It looks for a sustainable town planning in the north of Colombia - 450 houses:

- We are going to build houses but they are not the most important thing. The most important thing is the people who are going to live in there. Through our social networking site, we meet people. And users don't choose their house, we do it for them, according to their profiles, their needs, the dream they published, or their involvement in the network. This social networking site let us gather information, so that our town planning answers dreamers' desires but keeping in mind future tenants. It is architecture designed for people, not for its designer - explains Restrepo.

LAPAPAYA.ORG gives this builder the opportunity to put together, in the same virtual place, all the candidates for a house. These tenants are registered with a "Desire", an "Exchange" and an "Obstacle". Psychologists and social workers make groups with them: Personal Development, Social Work and Sustainable Development. The houses built will match with these profiles or groups.

But they are not just houses to live, they are houses to work, too. Those people worried for Sustainable Development will have a house with a big garden, to produce fruits and vegetables - to community's self-supply -; those worried for Social Work, will have a special room to prepare the excess products to the market; and those worried for Personal Development will have equipment to sell the products on the Internet. Job and life join and, definitely, reach sustainable town planning: it analyses user's professional profiles and makes its best to save energy in travelling and consumption.

Future plans

At this very moment, LAPAPAYA.ORG counts 500 users. Most of them come from Latin American countries. As it was born in Spain it is easier for Spanish speakers. Nevertheless, its designers assure that there are users from Asia and Europe. English begins to be usual in this solidarity network and they hope they can improve it. Bonny explains: "When I joined Felipe, we didn't have so many users, but this year there are positive news and things that are waking up this giant".

Project coordinator also has a dream: "Building the biggest network for a social change". Is it possible? Felipe is sure. He just needs support and, of course, new people joining the project through the World Wide Web. People are the engine of LAPAPAYA.ORG and also the engine of global change. Its dreamers are confident that they can fight social injustices and this unsustainable way of life. Nothing stops society, except society itself.



(Published: 12.07.2010.)