| Posted: April 29 2005,13:06 |
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PROGRESS: Has your organization seen
progress toward a culture of peace and nonviolence in your domain of
action and in your constituency during the first half of the Decade? |
Once
one understands the importance of media in social life, one will notice
that education must incorporate elements which will enable people to
express themselves in a wide range of ways. With this on mind,
Associação Imagem Comunitária (AIC), a not for profit non-governmental
organization from Belo Horizonte (Brazil), promotes workshops of
mediatic education, researches and advisories on the area of communal
communication. It also produces communal educative audiovisual products
and organizes meetings and conferences to discuss issues related to the
democratization of communication. Finally, it tries to foment the
creation and establishment of communal medias.
AIC promotes and
supports the creation of means of communication and communicational
products entirely managed by the communities. The association has been
developing projects in the communitarian communication area since 1993
aiming visibility to the initiatives related to citizenship promotion
and social mobilization. Therefore, AIC strengthen the public debate of
important issues for the communities through media, contributing to the
democratization of means of communication, of citizenship and of
culture of nonviolence.
Researches about the projects impact
on the youngsters’ lives demonstrate improve in the participants’
self-esteem; participative conduct; disposal for collective and
cooperative work; fluency in expressing ideas through written texts and
audiovisual languages; interest and search for information on subjects
related to culture and citizenship; improve in the performance at
school – more motivation and involvement with curricular and
extra-curricular activities, bringing up new issues and subjects for
discussion. Besides, they are more active in the processes of local
communitarian mobilization, such as contact and participation in
association’s activities, cultural groups, social projects, and acting
as regional representatives in children and adolescent Human Rights
defense councils.
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OBSTACLES: What are the most important obstacles that have prevented progress?
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Belo
Horizonte is a 2,1 million inhabitants city, 29,9% of which are 10 to
24 years old. Recent studies (data from Brazilian Institute of
Geography and Statistics (IBGE) – Population Counting 1996, Belo
Horizonte City Hall 2000 and Lúmen Research Institute 2000) show that
42% of this audience consider the neighborhood where they live to be
insecure; 41% consider it to be violent and 72% consider Belo Horizonte
to be a violent city.
Fear of a hostile and dangerous city,
isolation and need of sympathetic relationships are factors that make a
culture of fear to last. A determinant intervention factor is to
encourage youth leadership projects promoting citizenship. The city has
about 500 organizations that involve children and adolescent, promoting
social and cultural projects to improve the quality of life. Most
initiatives, however, are not valued by the mass communication mediums.
Without visibility, these entities have difficulties promoting their
projects and their citizenship and cooperative projects.
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ACTIONS: What actions have been
undertaken by your organization to promote a culture of peace and
nonviolence during the first half of the Decade?
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AIC
works mainly with groups disadvantaged socially. It was born in 1993,
in a project called TV Sala de Espera (Waiting Room TV): an experience
of communal television in the northeast of Belo Horizonte. The idea was
to produce with the community, a television program that was shown in
the health centers’ waiting rooms of the region. Ever since, AIC
develops workshops and create publicly accessible means of
communication, with the participation of numerous groups: homeless,
mental health service users, slums’ inhabitants, schools and NGO’s, as
well as communitarian groups that struggle for human rights and promote
cultural and mobilizing projects. The main objective is to promote
exchange between subjects as members of a collectivity who work towards
a more nesting city, creating a network of solidarity and citizenship.
It is only the expansion of this spontaneous network to will enable to
conquer effective and long-lasting results in the process of
constructing and settling a culture of peace.
AIC is strongly
active in the media education field, through the development of
communication workshops in public schools. A communitarian video
produced in one of those workshops, “Fight between Schools” (“Briga
entre escolas”), was the winner at the Hague Youth Video Festival,
International Video Festival Youngsters for Peace: “My vision of a
world without war”, USA/Netherlands, 1999. It is important to highlight
that the organization’s work priority aims children and adolescents.
Throughout its history, it has developed several actions targeted to
people from 12 to 24 years old.
Throughout its history, AIC
has been recognized by several prizes and awards. Some of them are the
Human Rights Award 2003, Journalism category, awarded by the Special
Secretariat for Human Rights (SEDH) from Brazilian Presidency;
International Betinho Communication Award 2003, promoted by the
Association for Communication Progress (APC); Social Technology
Certificate, awarded by Banco do Brasil Foundation and Unesco;
classification amongst the NGOs with better inclusive practices for
youth in Latin America, by Educative Action NGO (ONG Ação Educativa);
finalist at the Yeomans Award for Local Contents, promoted by the
international networks Open Knowledge Network and Global Knowledge
Partnership; selected by the UNESCO program “Se Buscan ! Searching for
Good Ideas and Best Practices in Local Content Production and
Distribution in Latin America”.
Amongst the projects supported by the organization, we highlight:
Rede Jovem de Cidadania (Young Web of Citizenship)
Through
Rede Jovem de Cidadania, project developed since 2002 and sponsored by
Petrobras, adolescents that belong to cultural and social movements
from the nine regions of the city of Belo Horizonte (Brazil) create
communicational productions, which reach large audiences. The proposal
is developing spheres of expression so that youth movements which
usually have scarce visibility on conventional media make their ideas
public. The youngsters produce a weekly television program (broadcasted
by Rede Minas de Televisão, a public, educational and open channel), a
weekly radio program (broadcasted by local educational stations), a
newspaper (freely distributed, in the public schools of Belo
Horizonte), a website (www.redejovembh.org.br), a webzine
(www.aic.org.br/rede/webzine) and news agency (that sends weekly
bulletins to conventional media and NGO’s).
Juventude e Direitos Humanos (Youth and Human Rights)
Promotion
of Human Rights by active groups and movements is the base of the
project started in February 2005, targeting young people. With the
support of Ecumenic Service Coordination (CESE), the project involves
creating a educative campaign including documentaries for television,
radio shows, a website and a CD-Rom. While developing and producing the
campaign, the youngsters are intended to increasingly assume the role
of creator of his/her own means to understand acquired rights and to
organize themselves to conquer new rights.
Cuco – Juventude, Cultura e Comunicação (Youth, Culture and Communication)
Fostered
since 2004, and financially funded by Instituto Credicard, Cuco is a
project in which young multipliers implant, through a partnership with
popular movements and public schools, experiences of communal radio
stations spread over the whole city of Belo Horizonte. The experiences
vary from school radios until web-radios, including also mobile
stations and programs to be transmitted on already existing local
communitarian stations.
Rádio São Rafael (São Rafael radio station)
Supported
by Instituto Ester Assumpção, this Project takes place on Instituto São
Rafael, an educational institution dedicated to blind people from Belo
Horizonte. From the year 2005, a group of blind youngsters has been
passing through an educational process in which they produce radio
programs to be broadcasted on an internal communal station. The
programs will also be recorded in CDs and distributed to other communal
stations. The main goal is promoting a discussion about the social
inclusion of this public.
Recording
Fight between Schools” ("Briga entre escolas"), winner at the Hague
Youth Video Festival - "My vision of a world without war".
Adolescents
producing a radio show for the Young Web of citizenship (Rede
Jovem de Cidadania), at Radio Favela, in Belo Horizonte.
Brazilian teenager, part of the Young Web of Citizenship project producing a television program.
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ADVICE: What advice would you like to
give to the Secretary-General and the General Assembly to promote a
culture of peace and nonviolence during the second half of the Decade? |
Communal
Image Association will continue working toward the democratization of
the means of communication and promoting citizenship among the socially
excluded groups. Part of AIC’s plans include the expansion and
strengthening of communitarian communication networks that are being
created and effective implement of new alternatives for public access
to communication.
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PARTNERSHIPS: What partnerships and
networks does your organization participate in, thus strengthening the
global movement for a culture of peace? |
The
hundreds of communitarian workshops in video, radio, newspaper and
internet promoted by Communal Image Association have educated an
audience of about 2,5 thousand people towards a critical and effective
relationship with the social communication means, targeting the
promotion of citizenship and of a peace culture. By having access to
media products, the information broadcasted by the solidarity networks
reach thousands of people more.
Besides the companies and
institutions that support the projects, Communal Image Association has
partnerships with institutions and organizations for Human Rights and
Citizenship promotion. There are over 250 partners, to be quoted
specially: Special Secretariat for Human Rights, Health Channel (Canal
Saúde, Health Ministry, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation), National Forum of
Youth Movements and Organizations, National Forum of Human Rights
Education, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), State Forum
Against Child Labour For Child Protection, Child and Adolescent City
Board, Youth Observatory, Belo Horizonte City Hall, among others.
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PLANS: What new engagements are
planned by your organization to promote a culture of peace and
nonviolence in the second half of the Decade (2005-2010)? |
Communal
Image Association will continue working toward the democratization of
the means of communication and promoting citizenship among the socially
excluded groups. Part of AIC’s plans include the expansion and
strengthening of communitarian communication networks that are being
created and effective implement of new alternatives for public access
to communication.
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Postal address of organization
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Rua Tabaiares, 62, 2º andar. Bairro Floresta. Belo Horizonte - MG / ZIP CODE: 30150-040
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E-mail address of organization
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aic@aic.org.br
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Website address of organization
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www.aic.org.br
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Highest priority action domain of a culture of peace
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Free flow of information and knowledge
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Second priority action domain of a culture of peace
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Democratic participation
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Highest priority country of action (or international)
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Brazil (Belo Horizonte)
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Second priority country of action (or international)
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