LATIN AMERICAN WORKING GROUP

A TRIP TO THE LATINAMERICAN SKY!

We are a group of young Latin American people interested in space exploration. Our team is a regional branch of the international NGO “Space Generation Advisory Council” (SGAC), which supports the United Nations Programme on Space Applications.

This regional group was created in 1999, during a meeting called “UNISPACE III Conference” held in Vienna. The objectives were to create within the Space Generation a group that examines and tackles space-related problems concerning the Latin American nations.

Nowadays, almost ten years later, SGAC Latin America has members in many countries of the region, like Bolivia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil and Perú.

SGAC Latin America has three main goals:

• to motivate young people to participate in the local decision-making process related to space activities;
• to improve public and media communication regarding space activities and education programs; and
• to increase public awareness of space activities and the direct benefits to developing countries and humanity.

Some of the activities organized by the SGAC Latin America are virtual meetings through Skype among SGAC National Points of Contacts, Regional Coordinators and other members. These meetings are very important because there is a fluent exchange of ideas to develop different activities and projects in our Latin American region.

During one of the virtual meetings, all the participants agreed to create a regional Blog, which we called www.real-spatium.blogspot.com). It is a reference/discussion place, and contains information in Spanish, Portuguese and English about space-related activities, opportunities and scholarships, applications of space technology and also other information about us.

Some members have started to give talks and conferences in educational institutions in Colombia and Venezuela. The goal is to promote this kind of activities all around the region. In countries like Argentina, there has been an intensive promotion of space articles in the media (many SGAC Latin American members have participated as information sources).

Some of the remaining challenges are:

1. To advertise the creation and purposes of this group through local media in Latin American countries
2. To search for cooperation and communication agreements with universities and other organizations
3. To increase space education programmes in schools in order to motivate younger people.

Because, in the end, our goal is to see that there is also a “Latin American” sky to explore!

Although we are very aware that space exploration is an issue that gathers all of us - human beings - on the same trip directed to the stars.

Please note that the working language of this group is Spanish.

LATIN AMERICA
SPACE GENERATION ADVISORY COUNCIL
E-mail: latin-SG@googlegroups.com

Web:
SPATIUM: The Blog of the Latinamerican Group of SGAC (SGAC LA)
http://real-spatium.blogspot.com

ALE: The Latin American Space Association
http://www.alespacio.org/