May 2, 2022 / Education, Culture and Communication / Community Networks, Networks and Articulations
Event held at the Maromba Training Center in Manaus, integrated representatives of Pan-Amazonian institutions to discuss integrated communication actions
The Amazon News Network (RNA), a non-profit association of radio stations, aims to democratize communication in the Amazon region by prioritizing the point of view of social fighters through the disclosure of their political, economic, cultural, and social actions. From April 24th to April 28th, it promoted an important debate with third sector institutions and sixteen radio stations associated with the Amazon News Network to analyze the communication situation in the Amazon from the point of view of the mass media X the actions of popular communicators to discuss communication for social transformation and to strengthen bonds for the Network’s positioning.
The meeting was the stage for debates on strategies for the next ten years of the RNA, with a focus on forming partnerships with new institutions for national articulation. During the assembly, speakers like Father Edilberto Sena, Prof. Dr. Manuel Dutra, Prof. Dr. Guilherme Jitahy and Prof. Me. Paulo Lima, exposed the challenges of journalism in the Amazon and popular communication. The closing included a conference by the president of the Communication Commission of the CNBB – Dom Joaquim Mol.
Representatives of collectives such as the group of indigenous weavers stressed the need for articulation in defense of their territories: “We want to have our protagonism. To stop being the object of research and become the subject of this transformation that the media has been introducing here to us. We exchanged several strategies in which we work collectively, and the indigenous communicators need to appropriate the tools and the traditional media so that they can have visibility in their actions” – said Mariane, from the Mairuna people.
Learning with the peoples of the Legal Amazon to value the diversity of their cultures and the production of information that forms the critical consciousness of its listeners was one of the goals of the meeting that reflected on the commitment to projects aimed at the common good of the less fortunate, clarified the President Director, Father Edilberto Sena: “We are several fighters of the Amazon. But these struggles need to be shared. The Amazon News Network wants to open more and more the possibility that communication that seeks the good life, the truth, can be shared by social fighters and organizations that fight for them.
Father Gutemberg de Sousa, director of Journalism and Communication of the educative network of Maranhão, spoke about the need to cultivate the principles of the network in defending nature through communication: “We have this commitment to well inform our peoples and localities. A way of recognizing ourselves as Legal Amazon. When we meet here we exchange experiences, pains and joys, we reformulate our productions, strategies, and we can share content with teachers”.
The great challenge of producing quality information about the Amazon is central to the defense of the territory, considered the coordinator of Saúde e Alegria, Paulo Lima, who leads the School of Community Networks of the Amazon – a member of the international program Connecting the Unconnected in Brazil. “The most diverse interests seek, in the large conglomerates of national and international information, to guide the country and describe an Amazon without people, without conflicts and without resistance. They seek to transform the region into a huge warehouse where they can exploit wood, minerals, biodiversity, have access to cheap land illegally through illegal logging, and destroy all the heritage that the planet, with the preservation ensured by indigenous and traditional peoples, managed to maintain until today.”
During the assembly, the School of Community Networks of the Amazon was presented to the participants to establish a partnership. The idea is that the production of the participating organizations will be submitted for broadcast by the RNA stations. “The meeting was a space for sharing knowledge, interchanges, and partnership building with the purpose of strengthening the partnerships of the School of Community Networks and RNA. Training workshops were held on emerging agendas in the territories and especially on the socio-environmental theme” – said Sabrina Costa, from Saúde e Alegria.
The meeting also enabled the formation of directors and communicators of the Network and the election of the new board of directors. Father Edilberto Sena was elected President Director for another three years.
