Many initiatives of community and citizen journalism aim to strengthen people, their rights and liberties, but that is impossible with private technologies and under a “copyright” perspective. That’s why we want to train communicators, journalists and teachers in the use of free technologies and open licenses. The training will begin with a virtual part, followed by an in-person part to produce stories of citizen participation.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Quito
Describe the specific community with whom you will be working.
We will work with active journalists, mainly from small communities, who collaborate in citizen and community media. We will also work with communications teachers from several colleges, as they will be training the communicators of the future.
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
At the beginning, the participants will have to study online training modules. Then, in their communities, they will have to gather information in text or audio formats about positive stories of changes achieved thanks to citizen participation. In the two days in-person workshop, the stories will be edited and publicized. They will work with free tools, software and on line platforms, also with free licenses.
What technologies and digital tools do you plan to use in the trainings?
Other tools
Free tools, software and on line platforms
Describe the connections that you or your organization have already established that will contribute to the success of the project.
Radialistas works with several community radios and media from Ecuador to educate people in issues like human rights (with PNUD), preventive medicine and heath promotion (with DYA) or gender violence prevention (with ONU MUJER). It has agreements with several universities (U.Central, U.Católica, U.Salesiana) to train their teachers and achieve the official recognition of the workshop’s certificate with some of those universities.
How many participants do you think will be involved in your project?
50 individuals will participate in the course: 25 communicators and 25 communication teachers. But the course on line will be released in the Radialistas web so more communicators can benefit from this initiative. As part of this project, RadiosLibres.net will be launched, as a space for education, reflection and training in software, technologies and free culture, in which we will keep on working with the course participants.
Besides the microgrant funding, what other resources and support are you seeking for your project to ensure its success?
The RadiosLibres.net project benefits from another microgrant to launch the web on line and ensure material production for two years. With Rising Voices’ help we would be able to make handbooks of tools and free platforms, as well as both workshops, so in the future more courses like those could be given with significantly smaller funds.
Contact name
Clara Robayo
Organization
Fundación Radialistas para el Desarrollo Social (Radialistas Apasionadas y Apasionados)