
More than 100 journalists, developers and designers gathered on October 22-23 in Mexico City to reach one goal: eliminating the gender gap in Latin American countries. The Mexican chapter of the Chicas Poderosas organization – created by Mariana Santos, interactive designer- reunited dozens of women from different countries and regions in Mexico.
- Chicas Poderosas Mexico
The Chicas Poderosas Mediathon developed 11 collaborative projects in less than 48 hours that portray the gender issue: obstetric violence, disappeared women, adolescent pregnancies, non equal political representation, among other problems.
The projects were evaluated by a jury formed by Elías López, Editorial Director of The New York Times in Spanish; Daniela Pastrana, from the Periodistas de a Pie network; Jordy Meléndez from Factual; Paula Daibert, from AJ+ Spanish; and Ricardo Alanís from Civica Digital.

During the Chicas Poderosas Mediathon in Mexico City, women achieved new skills to work in diverse teams, something not so common in traditional media outlets. In this occasion, they worked with women mentors from many Latin American countries. Some of them were: McNelly Torres, from the USA, Michu Benaim from InHouse a creative agency in Austin, Texas, Anca Matioc, from Engine Room, Milagros Salazar and Fabiola Torres, from Convoca and Ojo Público, Sol Lauría from Connectas.
During the two days of the #MediathonPower, the campaign #IDecide got a boost. This campaign seeks to empower women in any violence situation.
The women also developed micro-campaigns to boost knowledge about new digital media outlets. This allowed us to connect Chicas Poderosas with women all around the world.
To kick off the Mediathon, Vicki Hammarstedt, co-director of Chicas Poderosas, presented the vision for the future of the organization. Mariana Santos, founder of Chicas Poderosas, presented the developments and mentioned the new goals of the network as well.
Guest speakers included, United Nations FPA: presenting Sustainable Development Development Goals and many projects that seek to eliminate the gender gap.
To view the 2- day agenda of the 2016 Mediaton, click here. For access to the UNFPA presentation by Álvaro Serrano, click here.
The entire data sets used during the the Chicas Poderosas México event, is available on Github project: https://github.com/ChicasPoderosasMexico/mediaton2016
The event took place at the Spain Cultural Center during the Latin American Gathering of Journalism. The Latin American Forum organized by Distintas Latitudes and Factual, and the Regional Conference of the National Association of Journalist Hispanics.
Our Chicas worked in s creation process through brainstorming and gathered in working groups, looking to answer questions such as how might we make visible the women who attain power positions and how they do it? How might we evaluate the databases of disappeared women and how have they worked? How might we show data and cases on obstetric violence, specifically during cesarean procedures? How might we explain the role of women during and after an armed conflict?
Through research, data organization and data visualization, teams agreed in the need to make this issues more visible through their projects.
If you’re interested in the results and themes, you will be able to follow the conversation with this hashtags:
1) #MujeryPoder (women and power)
2) #Desaparecidas (disappeared)
3) #ViolenciaObstétrica (obstetric violence)
4) #MujeresYConflictos (women and conflicts)
5) #Discriminación (discrimination)
6) #PoderInvisible (invisible power)
7) #NoMásEmbarazoAdolescente (no more adolescent pregnancies)
8) #CáncerDeOvario (ovarian cancer)
9) #EmbarazoAdolescenteYTecnología (adolescent pregnancy and tech)
10) #Aborto (abortion)
11) #MujerIdeal (ideal woman)