Eddie Avila

Joined June 2, 2010 · 20 posts

Current Director of Rising Voices. I have also worked as Regional Editor and Spanish Language Editor for Global Voices, as well as a volunteer author. I have been part of GV since 2005.

Topical focus:

Arts & Culture

Country:

Ecuador

What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?

La Troncal

Describe the specific community with whom you will be working.

The population with whom we will work is the children and teenagers of our community, La Troncal. Many of them already use the internet and have the need to share something valuable, making the internet more productive. The youth will be virtually represented thanks to this project, and will allow them to have an online presence. They will be able to share their musical songs, as there voice of alert, protest, gratitude, and happiness. The majority of the online population is teenagers and adults, and for that reason, we have the need for our young community to reach each one of them through their musical creations.

What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?

What the youth will create are: stories and songs with lyrics, that can be accompanied with photographs in order to late create photo-documentaries. Each song will have a story, a request, a dream, or a complaint. The participants will have the opportunity to write and sing, in order to be shared over digital media. The songs will have social and familial interest, talking about children's rights, adult obligations, and the global citizens’ responsibilities. It will all be accompanied by musical learning in each of the activities previously mentioned, achieving an integral training, thanks to music and art. The joy of each family will be their first achievements, later the community and the world.

What technologies and digital tools do you plan to use in the trainings?

Audio Podcasts

Describe the connections that you or your organization have already established that will contribute to the success of the project.

The connections that we currently have are first with our community, because they know the work we have been doing with children and teenagers through art and music. Once this project begins, we will make a connection with the Ministry of Social Inclusion (MIES) and the Institute of Children and Family (INFA) of our city to have legal support and access to more children and adolescents. Another important connection will be with the City Administration to ask for support from the Culture Department. It is also important to make a connection with families and citizens in general. Currently we are already working with children and adolescents, as stated in our social blogs.

How many participants do you think will be involved in your project?

The number of participants will be approximately 15 to 20 children and teenager representatives from our community, who will take part in the first phase of our project, and then reach more participants. Their participation will be guaranteed, as we will be in constant communication with the parents, to achieve a shared responsibility in fulfilling our project.

Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.

The tools used will be whiteboards, musical instruments, computers with audio recording software, headphones, microphones, computer with internet access to share content and the process of the project. As organizer of the project, I have the education and teaching experience to train the participants. I teach music and I have an art school for children. I have composed and recorded songs with different themes. I am a composer and author, this experience will be shared with children to help them use music to make their voices heard.

Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.

The place where the workshops will take place in an appropriate location for this project. will have four concrete classrooms, a recreational space, there are musical instruments, and learning materials. It has an independent entrance and exit. We have a laptop computer with a LAN internet connection, our download speed is 0.98 Mbps and an upload speed of 0.48 Mbps, and there is an administrative desk.

What is your current relationship with the community with whom you plan to work? What makes you the most appropriate individual or organization to implement this project?

I was born in my community, I am a native of this place. Since my childhood I participated in art and use it to express myself and help others. I used art as an excuse to be strong in the absence of my father. I am the right person for this project because I know the needs of my community, I know the situation of each family, and I know the issues facing children and adolescents. Everyone knows where the workshops will take place, and where we currently already work with children. Our long term commitment to this project is to strengthen and allow many children to benefit from this. We will create a children's institution and make art the best tool of expression and support for reflection.

What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?

The challenges are to make the community understand that music is one of the best tools of communication and expression. The lack of support from educational institutions will be another challenge. The lack of technological equipment acquisition will be another challenge.
The lack of support from the media will be another challenge. The way to overcome these challenges our project is running slowly, to demonstrate the results and benefits that children have acquired. We strive to make each participant remains active. We will have public demonstrations for each of the obtained achievements. We will create our own media. And to ask the digital community for support.

How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?

The way to measure the success of our project will be to analyze the results obtained with each of our participants and their families to then measure success in the community. Once this is done we can expand the results to the entire city and the digital community.

If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2013?

The schedule of activities is as follows: For the month of April or May.

Census within the community to choose the new participants. (10 days)
Conversation with each family to explain the project. (2 days)
General meeting with participants and trainers to define and work schedules for lessons (1 day)
Start of workshops, to work with each participant.
Each workshop will provide art classes and training in the use digital media to share content.
Classes will be held for podcast creation
Classes will be taught for audio recording.
Classes will be taught for composition and music.
Singing lessons will be taught to record future songs.
These activities will divided in groups for classes during the week.
Each workshop will be recorded and and saved as a digital file, photo and video.
After each module will be report on the activities and planning for future workshops.

Detail a specific budget of up to $4,000 USD for operating costs.

Costs will be:
Census with families $ 100
Activity with families $ 100
Acquisition of recording programs $ 100
Acquisition of computer accessories and internet $ 100
Acquisition of pedagogical materials $ 100
Workshops $ 1,000
Workshop practice $ 500 (recording of the songs)
Travel and coordination costs $ 200
Presentation of results to the community $ 300 (cost of operation and team)
Extra payments to professors $ 500

Besides the microgrant funding, what other resources and support are you seeking for your project to ensure its success?

A great help will be to disseminate our project results through digital media. Use of the songs created by the youth to be used in each social campaigns around the world. Contacts with others related to our project. And advice and support to each participant, as this will motivate the community and feel the support and friendship.

Contact name

Jhonny Antonio Castro Campoverde

Organization

Creciendo al compás de la música

Email Eddie Avila

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