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Indigenous community communication has become, over time, a key tool for strengthening processes of self-government, leadership and local organization. Initiatives that take much more importance in contexts of historical social exclusion as has been the Colombian Amazon region, where according to figures from the DNP 2020, the development index of information and communication technologies is less than 2.1 compared to the national average of 6.37.
It was in this context that the community health journalism project was developed in the departments of Vaupés, Caquetá and Chocó, with the support of the international organization Internews and local indigenous organizations. A process in which the communities have strengthened their local capacities not only in the production of communicative content, but also in the investigation, reporting and monitoring of social, environmental and health processes that are important to them, such as intercultural health, mental health or leadership and self-government.
More than 30 indigenous people from the three departments have worked around different communication formats such as video, audio or photography, applying different journalistic genres and forms of narration. In this process, above all, spaces for dialogue and reflection have been generated around the importance of the representation of indigenous voices in the coverage of stories that are part of their own territories, as well as highlighting the importance of communication in their own organizational spaces.
The project also seeks to analyze the local communication ecosystems, understanding which are the main sources of information of the indigenous communities and whether there are processes of disinformation on health issues, taking as a moment of analysis what was experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic.
This process of community health communication also became one of the first spaces of organizational participation, representing their community, of many young people who are preparing to be the future leaders of their communities and who have discovered the importance of these communicative processes.
Interdepartmental Greetings
The community communication seedbed was carried out within the framework of Internews' Rooted in Trust project, which seeks to work on risk communication and health misinformation scenarios, focusing especially on rumors and pockets of miscommunicated information related to the COVID19 pandemic. In alliance with Internews, together with the communities, spaces were proposed to analyze the local information ecosystem in Caquetá, Vaupés and Chocó and to seek strategies to strengthen the local production of quality information and the identification of reliable channels for information consumption.
Additionally, information on health, with recommendations and data on rumors or disinformation was compiled for different audiences or key actors (humanitarians, journalists/media and communities) that can strengthen their construction of information related to these issues.
Additionally, we built a Manual of good practices for community health journalism coverage as a tool to strengthen communication and journalism coverage of health issues. Focused on institutions, organizations and all people interested in the territories. You can consult it here:
Photos of the process
All pieces produced
For capacity building in local production of health information, a theoretical-practical methodology was implemented that allowed participants to apply their knowledge in the production of communication pieces and products, here you can see everything they produced:
Additionally, we were working on a new season of El canto del tucán related to this whole process. Taking into account the topics of interest of the communities and participants we built radio episodes related to topics such as mental health, territorial governance, traditional medicine, among others.
Here you can listen to them:
We thank Internews for supporting this process that strengthens journalism and communication exercises. We also thank local organizations such as the four indigenous associations AATAC, AATIAM, ATICAM and ASOUDIC and the Sinergias team in Vaupés; the Interdisciplinary Foundation Nueva Ciudad, the radio station Coreguaje Estereo and CRIOMC in Caquetá; FEDEOREWA and the coordination from Chocó.