To train 39 young people from different “comunas” of Medellin in a co-creative storytelling process related with a formative electroacoustic music community project that involves musician children. The idea is to guide participants in creating stories with multimedia formats like video clips, audio and video streaming, online radio and photography, made with free software and low cost tools so these young people can replicate what they learned. This project will also train participants in creating a citizen blog in which they will publish the stories and connect it with social networks.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Medellín
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
These young citizens are involved in the creation of this proposal through a recent training process called Critical Focus on Platohedro Cultural Organization, which seeks to empower youth through open social communication.Because traditional media publish mostly negative stories about the ‘’comunas’’ of Medellín, these young people are interested in giving a different voice to their communities, creating a medium that allows them to tell stories about cultural and citizen initiatives that are positively transforming the city.We support this proposal because we believe its an opportunity that allows them to explore and share new meanings of their communities in a critical and creative manner. Participants understand Internet as an autonomous citizen tool to highlight these type of stories.
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
-Lina Mejía: training coordinador of Critical Focus of Platohedro Cultural Organization.
-Natalia Restrepo: social communicator of Platohedro Cultural Organization (https://www.facebook.com/platohedro)
-María Juliana Yepes: social communicator, who has experience with social appropriation of knowledge through communication processes, documentation, and implementation of multimedia, hypertext and interactive content. (https://twitter.com/MariaJulianaYB)
-Estefanía Piedrahita: social communicator, who has experience in promote citizen participation in cultural, educational and community projects under the gaze of communication for human development and free culture.(https://twitter.com/Estellania)
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
The stories created by the participants will document the formative process “learn to compose creating sounds” of a co-creative electroacoustic musical project that involves children from the “Comuna 6” of Medellin, and the way in which the communities connect different territories of the city as a manifestation of non-violence through artistic expressions.The creation of these contents will follow the philosophy of free software as an analogy to communicate and share the stories of communities that do not have visibility in traditional media. These stories will be compiled into a blog in multimedia format (video clips, audio and video streaming, online radio and photography), and will be shared through Facebook, Twitter, an autonomous mailing list and alternative community media.
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.
We established a connection with the “Red de Escuelas de Música de Medellín” (Medellin´s Musical and Public School Network), which is going to develop in the “Comuna 6” of Medellín the formative electroacoustic musical community project that involves children musicians. They are very excited to support proactive young people who are interested in exploring, communicating and connecting cultural and citizen projects. We also have an alliance with the “Terre des Hommes Foundation”, which is continuously making a little contribution to the Critical Focus formative group.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
This project will train 39 youth citizens from different “comunas” of Medellín who are part of the open social communication training process -Critical Focus on Platohedro Cultural Organization, and it will sustain their participation helping them discover their roles in the project according to what they like most, and guiding them in how to multiply their knowledge with other citizens, personal an collective iniciatives.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
We will train the participants in how to:
1. create fun, critical and informative stories with open source technologies and formats like video clips, audio and video streaming, photography and online radio. 2. assemble these stories and publish them in a blog. 3. connect the blog with communicational medium such as an autonomous mailing list, Facebook, Twitter and alternative community media, to inform more citizens and co-create with them and other cultural organizations 4. replicate and transform what they learned with others in another projects.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
Platohedro Cultural Organization has a house that consists in 2 open collaborative workspaces and its equipped by technical resources like Internet access, 3 computers, 2 video cameras, 3 photography cameras, 2 mics and 2 journalists voice recorders.
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?
We are coordinators members in the communication training process -Critical Focus on Platohedro Cultural Organization, in which the participants are active members too. We work together and gather to talk about how through community media we can transform with the other citizens the negative city imaginaries into a better ones, taking into account values and habilities like creativity, critical thinking and collaborative horizontal work. So this is why this microgrant funding is a great opportunity to the young people to make real their ideas.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
The main challenge is that participants achieve to create their own digital narratives to document and share the stories about the formative electroacoustic musical community project.
That´s why we are going to offer them a constant experimentation process with the communicational tools and technologies, in which they will can find errors as new learnings and new ways to create and tell stories.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
We´ll measure the project´s impact counting and documenting: 1. significative stories made by the participants 2. posts on the blog 3. posts on Facebook and Twitter 4. comments and likes about those posts on those social networks 5. publications on community media. And we´ll evaluate the project´ś impact making a qualitative and quantitative survey to the primary participants, in which they will express what they learned about: 1. telling stories (narratives, tools and technologies), 2. the importance of creating citizen contents, 3. the value of making a community medium with-and-for the community and the world, 4. co-creating with other citizen project, 5. the significance of artistic projects in the city´s and world peacebuilding.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
Schedule of activities:
-1st Month (June): introduction to the formative electroacoustic musical community project and it´s components (1. construction of electronic musical instruments, 2. “learn to compose making sounds” training fase with the musicians children, young university composers and the Youth Symphony Orchestra, 3. electroacoustic concert).
-2nd Month (July): experimentation workshop with communicational techniques and technologies. This workshop is going to be applied during the next months, allong with the storytelling creating process.
-3rd Month (Agoust): Creation and publication of the construction of the musical instruments stories.
-4th and 5th Month (September-October): Creation and publication of the “learn to compose making sounds” stories.
-6th Month (November): Documentation and publication of the electroacoustic concert.
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
-4 Workshops costs (transportation, refreshments, equipment rental): $1200 USD
-Coordinators expenses: $1000 USD
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
To join our communicational iniciative publishing in your blog and your social network accounts the stories made by the participants through out this project. And connecting us with other similar projects to co-create with them in the future.
Contact name
María Juliana Yepes Burgos
Organization
Corporación Cultural Platohedro