May 25, 2022 / Education, Culture and Communication / Community Networks
Regional meeting on popular communication coordinated by the NGO Fase in partnership with Terra de Direitos, Fundo Dema and Tapajós de Fato, was held on May 23th and 24th in the region of Eixo Forte in Santarém
Understanding the complexities and deepening knowledge about popular communication were the objectives of the training that brought together popular communicators from Santarém, Belém and Manaus. It was two days of immersion on the theme that counted with the participation of the Mocoronga Network and the School of Community Networks of the Amazon, both initiatives of the Saude e Alegria Project.
“It was an important space for us to talk about the forms of communication, to articulate with our collaborators to continue this very important communication in community and popular communication. It is very important to share this space, to share our experiences of community and popular communication in our territory” – said Sabrina Costa from the coordination of the School of Networks of PSA – which is organizing itself to start classes in the second half of June, after field activities in seven organizations in the Legal Amazon.
During the training day, each institution presented its projects. Through the announcer of the program Alô Comunidade do PSA, Raik Pereira, the participants learned more about the daily program, produced with the communities and for them. “This is an important moment for us to share with other communication members from other places, like Belém, Manaus. We can share how it is communicated here in the Lower Amazon”, she said.
Bio Cabano, a popular communicator from Belém do Pará, commented on the need to open space for the communities, making an accessible channel possible: “An important program that brings true information to the community, defense of the territory, and we come with this experience to participate in the meeting of communicators because we understand that communication is power. If we don’t talk about our problems, if we don’t strengthen ourselves as a people, as a community, we will only receive information from those who want to oppress us”, he says.
During the meeting, PSA also presented videos of communication trainings for young people. In one of them, Raquel Kumaruara, indigenous leader from Suruacá, appeared. For the young woman, it was an emotional moment: “It’s like a movie because I started as a child. I didn’t even know what communication was, and Health and Joy through the Mocoronga Network gave birth to this desire to have this taste for communication. It is very important for us young communicators in the communities, in the villages, and when we see a video like this, we see how much we have evolved. I was an adolescent, and now I am a young leader that does popular communication. It was a very emotional moment because at that time I felt very ashamed. Popular communication makes us lose this shame with time”. 
The journalist Alicia Lobato, who works with environmental journalism and the climate agenda in Amazonas, emphasized the greatness of the meeting, which provided the opportunity to understand how community and popular communication has been carried out in other territories: “For me it is very important to be in these spaces, to know the work of these communicators, the grassroots work.
The regional meeting of popular communication was a realization of Fase, Terra de Direitos, Fundo Dema, and Tapajós de Fato, according to Yuri Rodrigues, a popular educator from Fase: “The purpose was to promote debate, reflection on popular communication, bringing together communication collectives, young people who work in various rural territories, the city, urban periphery, people from other states to exchange experiences, dispute narratives”.
