Giving immigrant laborers an online voice

vormob is a new site launched by the University of Southern California and the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California, which works to organize and educate immigrant communities. The idea is to give immigrants, mainly day laborers, an online space to speak their minds and share their stories. They are also encouraged to document their work as a form of self-protection.

Organizers rolled out the program last month with a mix of grants from various foundations, including $40,000 worth of cellphones to train laborers. They fanned out to local job centers to teach workers how to upload text, photos and videos. So far about half a dozen laborers have launched their own blogs. Others are experimenting, transferring bits of broken audio and blurry images onto the Web.