Legacy · Nicaragua · Feminist magazine · 1991–2019

La Boletina: the magazine that reached where no media did

It began in 1991 as a 12-page bulletin with 500 copies. It became Nicaragua's most widely circulated publication: 26,000 free copies per issue, passed hand to hand by a network of women to the farthest corners of the country.

In numbers

A magazine that became a network

104issues published, now digitized and freely available
26,000free copies per issue at its peak, more than any printed outlet in the country
150Kreaders per issue: each copy passed, on average, through six pairs of hands

Sources: external evaluations cited in Redalyc (Puntos de Encuentro, Nicaragua) and institutional archive.

How it worked

Hand to hand, from Managua to the last hamlet

La Boletina was never sold at newsstands. Twenty volunteer activists collected the 26,000 copies in the capital and delivered them to 500 organizations nationwide, which in turn carried them on foot, by bus or by boat to communities no newspaper ever reached. For thousands of rural women it was the only printed material they received regularly.

Its pages held everything that happened to women and nobody told: sexuality, health, violence, work, rights, humor. One section explained international summits on development and gender in plain language; others gave voice to feminist groups in every department. Each issue cost 25 US cents per reader: few investments in communication have paid off so well.

The archive

104 issues, 104 covers, one ongoing conversation

Tap a cover to open the full issue in PDF (in Spanish). Free to read and download. Issues 98, 99 and 100 are still being digitized.

100 issues in the archive

Digital archive of Puntos de Encuentro. You may quote and share the contents citing the source.

Why it still matters

Three decades of women's lives, in the first person

Read in order, the 104 issues are a chronicle of how Nicaraguan women named their struggles: violence, the right to decide, work, diversity, political participation. It is a unique source for journalists, researchers, students and for the new generation of communicators who today form the Central American Network of Young Communicators.

La Boletina proved that a medium can be at once mass and militant, popular and rigorous. That conviction still guides everything we produce.

Keep the archive open

Help these pages keep reaching new hands

Digitizing, hosting and sharing this archive has a cost. Your donation keeps 104 issues of women's history freely available and helps new voices write the next page.

Fundación Puntos de Encuentro Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization: donations are tax-deductible in the United States.