To Increase the presence of indigenous women in community radio as spokeswomen and content creators to promote both gender equity and justice in all spheres of life, through the production of radio spots that put indigenous women as expert spokeswomen for this; it is necessary to have minimal materials that permit the production of spots such as audio recorders.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Federal District (Mexico City)
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
The proposal is aimed at 15 Mexican indigenous leader women from economically lower class, participating in a community organizing process, who defend and promote human rights of women ranging in ages from 25 to 40. This group of women should have internet access and a basic level of social networks management, as well as access to media, thus medium educative level and a broad organizational work in their communities setting them as leaders in different themes.
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
The team will be composed of experts in communication and gender, including the general director of CIMAC and CIMAC Inter Press Service (Cimacnoticias), Lucia Lagunes Huerta (@ lagune28 , @ Cimacnoticias); Cirenia Celestino Ortega, CIMAC’s Communication Strategies Coordinator (@ CireCelestino) and Blanca Ibelles Fernandez, who manages CIMAC accounts “Communication Strategies” and “Press” (/Estrategias-de-comunicación-y-prensa-CIMAC y @prensacimac) and the Coalition for Women's Health (/ coalicionporlasaluddelasmujeres.blogspot.com and coalicionporlasaluddelasmujeres.blogspot.com)
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
Series of radio spots in which indigenous leader women will be positioned talking about the enjoyment of human rights of women in their communities. Making use of social networks and links with other community media and civil organizations allied to CIMAC, the spots will be positioned thus the voice of indigenous women as well as their agenda.
What technologies and digital tools do you plan to use in the trainings?
Describe the connections that you or your organization have already established or plan to establish that will contribute to the success of the project.
CIMAC is a journalistic civil association that aims to contribute to the visibility of the status of women and girls through the development of press products with gender perspective and capacitating workshops taught nationally and internationally. At this CIMAC has developed a partnership with civil organizations for the human rights of women and community media to ensure that their needs are heard in their own voices at their communities. Currently, the information produced by the multimedia news agency Cimacnoticias is taken up by 361 media releases, radio, television and digital spaces national, state and local wide, thus 127 news programs in 24 countries.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
Initially, the project is intended to position the voice of 15 indigenous women however, the radio spots are pretended to reach a much larger population since it will use all means of communication and dissemination of CIMAC and Cimacnoticias. It is intended that indigenous leader women have all the necessary inputs to make their inserts and radio spots such as audio recorders.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
The project will finance inputs for the production of radio spots. Community radio stations in Mexico are facing huge deficits for the production of information by both the lack of funds and the absence of information sources to use, which translates into a window of opportunity for indigenous leader women who can be interviewed and provide their own inputs for radio programming. In addition to the work of community radio, social networking and information technologies allow us to generate an information stream of greater impact since it diversifies the recipient people thus will allow to set indigenous women beyond their communities.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
The pre-production and production of radio spots will be CIMAC responsibility, so the theoretical work will be performed at the facilities of our organization in Mexico City; a person will monitor the process and will give support to the indigenous women in production of their materials. Indigenous leader women should have audio recorders that allow them to generate their own products and send them to CIMAC, or generate inserts to share them with the means at their disposal.
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?
In 2013 we began a process of training indigenous community promoter women. Preparation for training showed the needs of indigenous women as communication promoters so that the contents of the workshop addressed to provide the promoters an analytical view of the importance of improving your skills as spokespersons for their organizations and being able to generate an rapprochement with media. Given the need to place the voice of indigenous women in public spaces and on the agenda of the media, there is a need to continue to undertaken in 2013. In CIMAC we consider vital to provide tools for women to contribute to leadership development, strengthening internal processes of women with respect to ownership of their own voice and increase their communication skills both personal and community
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
The biggest obstacle we face when performing the project is part of the current political and media context in Mexico that would criminalize the actions of community and alternative media thus reduce support and extend the restrictions on the exercise of freedom of expression. At this CIMAC in partnership with civil organizations, media and journalists promotes and defends the right to freedom of expression and promotes statements, alerts and actions when these rights are violated, in addition to ongoing monitoring of institutions whose action should focus on enforcing such rights. Internet access in some communities may be a next obstacle, however CIMAC will monitor to bring indigenous leader women to communication channels and technologies.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
The evaluation will be conducted in three ways: the process of each participating indigenous leader woman in the project in order to know their perception and the degree in which the project strengthens her leadership and empowerment process thus her positioning as a spokesperson in her own community and in the media; monitoring the production of radio spots with the inputs of indigenous leader women and the joint development of radio scripts; and a final evaluation to test, measure and have qualitative and quantitative elements of the positioning of the radio spots and voice of indigenous women in the media, especially community radio. Throughout the project a log of activities will be recorded.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
Strategic meeting with indigenous women and community radio stations on june
Previous diagnosis of participants on june
Pre-production of radio spots on july
Elaboration of Radio scripts on august
Recording radio spots on september
Production of radio spots on october
Production of spots, broadcasting and positioning in social networks on november and december
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
For the implementation of this project will need a total budget of 2 390 USD will be distributed as follows: a person liaison whose duties consist of monitoring and support to the 15 indigenous leaders over seven months leading to support them to resolve obstacles and doubts about the use of social networks (420 USD). The radio producer in charge of radio production over six months and will be watching the leaders shipments and use of tape recorders and radio production programs (570 USD). The purchase of seven recorders will be distributed strategically among indigenous leaders to use and, with them, to produce their own radio content (1.400 USD). With this budget we could guarantee a very important part of the preparation, training and professionalization of indigenous leaders in radio communication.
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
Entailment with funding that can provide the necessary equipment for this project or the support for transporting indigenous to ensure that their voices are leaders in community radio.
Contact name
Lucía Lagunes Huerta
Organization
Comunicación e Información de la Mujer AC (CIMAC)
