The project will provide a platform through blogs, YouTube and Facebook for speakers of at least 4 Amazonian languages in Peru. Currently, there is quite limited presence of the Asháninka, Nomatisgenga, Shipibo or Wampis languages on internet. These Endangered Languages and its speakers have been relegated in these new and important communication platforms. Using a bilingual approach and through these specific individuals, the project will provide these underrepresented languages a virtual space with the aim of nurturing some seriously Endangered Languages and empowering their native speakers
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Lima, and surrounding shanty towns and neighborhoods where these participants are living and develop their work.
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
In Peru there are around forty Amazonian groups, traditionally few have migrated and settled in Lima permanently, although this is changing rapidly. As they become urban, they remain invisible. In this sense providing an active virtual platform in mother tongue will help ease this invisibility and it will open an outlet for their voices to be heard. Most adult migrants speak the native language and possess excellent proficiency in Spanish as well. Participants in this project are strongly committed to their communities as singers, educators and language defenders. They have no training on digital or visual media practices. I want to work with them because they have important stories to tell, stories that speak of resisting linguistic assimilation and linguicism and the desire to use virtu
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
Miryam Yataco (Coordinator)
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
Internal migration from Peru’s highlands to Lima has increased in the past three decades, sparked by the armed conflict of the 1980s. Most research has focused on the Andean quechua-speaking migrants and much less attention has been placed on the Amazonian indigenous peoples — who were subject to ethnic cleansing in the 1980s. Their silent migration to urban areas, reflecting the trauma of relocation under such difficult circumstances are central themes to these untold stories. Additional topics include: rural-urban adaption, employment patterns, language shift, gender issues. These are stories still uncollected much less presented on virtual space in their own mother tongues. Many of the participants, have personally expressed an urgent need to be represented on public discourse. They
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.
As an experienced researcher, I have already established contact with the participants in this project. Asháninka singer [redacted] (whom I am working with teaching her English) is a trained classical singer who sings in her mother tongue and is being recognized internationally or [redacted] Nomatisgenga K-12th teacher working for the Board of Education of Peru in Lima, both are eager to participate in this project. I also will be consulting with Amazonian indigenous organizations such as the CAAAP (Amazon Center of Applied Anthropology), and community centers in the Shipibo settlement of Cantagallo, and group of awajun families in the shanty towns of Pachacutec and Ventanilla.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
The mother tongue Amazonian people involved as participants in this project are at least 5; however the results of their work might bring many other participants into it. The way I am framing this project is using a case studies styles. However since the project involve diverse speakers from different Amazonian languages; the amount will increase as members of their speech communities became involved and the numbers will increase. Additional participants could be included and population will fluctuate as the project develops.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
I bring my expertise as a person in the academic world who has produced audio-recordings, videos and in special I have experience doing script-writing, for a number projects using media around the world. I believe having them videotaped, and recorded will be essential as well as bringing them the possibility of self-photograph themselves providing them with equipment (photo- cameras).
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
Tapings (audio and video as well as photography) will be conducted in their own areas of residence, i.e. San Juan de Lurigancho, Ventanilla, Pachacutec. I will have to hire local transportation when needed and we will be using USBs and video cards to advance several (video-audio) recordings. I am also expecting to conduct at least two workshops during the first month and then 1 workshop every month. This workshop will provide citizen media training, conducted in one specific location, like a community center. I will videotape these workshops. Additionally, these two sessions will entail discussions on topics about the stories they will be telling. Also conducting tutorial session on how to use their cameras to photograph or tape.
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?
Both myself (a language rights advocate) and Gerardo Garcia Chinchay (a linguist, trained in Amazonian languages) have strong ties to a number of Amazonian leaders, artists and community members. Our love and interest for the languages and for the speakers of these languages is genuine and it is acknowledged by them. I think we are both a good team to conduct this project. Due to my work as a language rights officer in Peruvian Congress during 2010, where I met many of the participants and had the privilege to hear their stories first hand, while Mr. Garcia Chinchay, a professional with extended experience working with the Nomatisgenga community on site (Central Amazon) and also with a variety of Amazonian language speakers in Lima we will bring this project to a success.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
Balancing all the elements of a project – time, money, scope and people – is the project manager's job. Excellent project management training is essential to successfully dealing with the unexpected challenges that come with every project. Both people in charge of this project have experience conducting teams. I find that our project’s goals are well defined, the same as the scope of the project is under control, and we will adjust as we progress. We both have assessed our risks (as i.e. participants maybe withdrawing, or equipment being lost) we have seriously our worse pre-defined “what-if” scenarios. We will purchase insurance for equipment loss and will have additional people on a waiting list for these 5 case studies in case one fails to participate for any possible reason. We are p
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 I define success for this project is when I will see participants engaged in: developing hands-on video sessions, defining the script for their blogs, photographing (doing ethnographic research of their own families and communities). I feel that they are re-defining areas of urban Lima by their sole presence and use of their mother tongues in these contexts. Therefore in my training sessions I will target ideas, that will help them take ownership of the new spaces and describe all that in virtual spaces. The fact that we would be able to upload their digital products into the internet after careful editing the material, and provide translation into English will complete the fact they are now a visible digital community worldwide. This is to me the way I define success.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
The projected time frame is around 4 months for the initial phase and 6 months for the additional phases. We will have two training sessions the first month, possibly all day training sessions. Then we will outline our goals, stories they want to communicate and we will schedule visits to their communities.
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
Budget detailed list PRICE
5 small Sony Cyber Shot Cameras (Photographic camera of at least 16.1 Megapixels) $600.00
USBs, SONY HD SD cards, memory sticks $300.00
1 external hard drives (1TB) $90.00
1 digital HD video-recorder $550.00
2 Olympus Digital Voice Recorder $ 200.00
TRANSPORTATION to and from areas to visit and conduct interviews $500 for the time of the project.
Rent of space for workshops and refreshments and light dinner to be served $200.00
Miscellanous $60
Grand Total $2,500.00
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
I would like to be in contact with a program manager who can provide guidance in terms of digital new ideas on how to post the project on cyberspace. For example, training on how to use Google, Power Point, Google Cloud. I would like to learn how to upload Voice Recording Podcasts, to upload what their recordings in mother tongue. I am giving an example here on what has been done by a group of students at NYU in NYC a project called RIMASUN Quechua Podcasts. We can actually create small versions of this PODCASTS in the 4 or 5 Amazonian languages that are spoken by our participants and we as linguists can provide a much more complete information on each language, this will benefit these Endangered Languages greatly. See example http://clacsnyublog.com/category/rimasun/
Contact name
Miryam Yataco – Website: miryamyataco.com
Organization
Not applicable
8 comments
Hi, Miryam
We really apreciatte your proposal, cause; like us, you are working with people that have no or few knowledge about technology.
Let’s talk?
regards,
Bocapio Team
Ms. Yataco is a serious scholar/activist who returned to her native Peru to participate in–and make a difference in–current Peruvian discussions of the politics of language and of the survival of indigenous languages. She works outside the more usual venues for such things, and so has become increasingly known as an independent, critical voice and has contributed much to making this discussion more complex and nuanced–and more useful to speakers of Andean and Amazonian languages.
Miryam
This is an important and timely project especially because indigenous urban migration is prevalent throughout Latin America. Having documentation of these groups’ languages, stories and struggles in their own voices will be a great contribution to their communities and to the field. The bilingual media produced will not only provide a great source to maintain their languages and traditions but also document their adaptation in the urban environment. Such media will be mutually beneficial to community empowerment and will enable others to learn about and from their wisdom. I can think of no one better suited to carry out such a project than you . All the best,
Nancy Lemberger, Ed D.
Associate Professor of Bilingual Programs
Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY
It is widely recognised that migrants and indigenous peoples are among the most vulnerable segments of most societies around the world – this means that indigenous migrants are doubly vulnerable.
Their extreme vulnerability requires news tools of approaching, informing and connecting in often strange and foreign if not hostile environments. It seems to me that this project would be very useful in providing such tools, and of empowering indigenous migrants in enabling them to use them as proposed.
Best of luck, and let me know if I may be of any assistance.
Thanks for your words of support Fernand. Coming from you as an expert in language rights your ideas and moral support means a lot.
This Project will be important to empower bilingual communities, but most of all, it will be a great opportunity for the whole community to understand the importance of different languages and community in the same country with evidence (multimedia Access).
Sounds like a terrific idea. Social media and video are such enormously valuable resources for connecting diasporic populations and languages today. Miryam Yataco has a long track record of scholarship and activism on indigenous language rights and language preservation in Peru. I hope this project flourishes
I suggest the person responsible for the proposal “Living Testimonies of Amazonian Migrants in Lima”, comparing the challenge of language extinciñon Shipibos, awajum, ashanicas in the place of origin to Lima, my ask is Lima’s centralism the problem of acculturation?