2023-06-07 22:15:00
Illustration: Angélica Herrera / ICRC Colombia
Having safe spaces for the use and use of free time by children and adolescents in Colombian territory is a real challenge. However, in the first peasant reserve area of the country, in El Pato-Balsillas (Caquetá), they are the ones who lead, with their creativity, the audiovisual training spaces to change the stigma of this place that for decades was the epicenter of the armed conflict In colombia.
Transcription
[Dramatizado]: Lights 1… 2… 3… Action camera…
[Adriana]: There are many ways of living in the Colombian territory, of feeling it and many others of looking at it, for example with the eyes, innocence and creativity of a child, that is precisely what is sought in the Voces del Pato audiovisual school, where children , girls and adolescents from Caquetá gather their imagination to tell the stories of their land.
Through videos that they post on their social networks, they have managed to show the daily life of its population, the beautiful places of this first peasant reserve area in the country, and the strength of its inhabitants.
As Lizeth Dayana, one of the members of the initiative, tells us:
[Lizeth Dayana]: We are in the village of Los Andes, municipality of San Vicente del Caguan. The audiovisual school means a lot to me because the audiovisual school teaches us things that in some other places they cannot teach us, they teach us to take photos, edit videos, record videos and they clear our minds when we leave studying, we can distract ourselves by taking photos, recording videos and editing.
[Dramatizado]: We are recording…okay
[Dramatizado]: Today Mr. Gonzalo accompanies us, who has lived his 48 years of life in this beautiful village… Mr. Gonzalo, what is it like to live in El Pato?
[Dramatizado]: Living in El Pato, is living with nature, is being able to have the opportunity to sow, take care of the animals…
[Adriana]: The International Committee of the Red Cross in Colombia (ICRC) found out about this initiative of the children and adolescents of El Pato and made contributions with materials and training so that these young people continue to strengthen their communication skills and occupy their free time.
[Omar Yesid]: My name is Omar Yesid Ramírez Quesada, I have been studying at the Los Andes rural educational institution for 13 years…
My job is to take photos and interview people who have been in this region for a long time because this audiovisual school started from very low, this audiovisual school started because it had nothing and little by little they donated cameras and computers and then they left. integrating more children.
[Adriana]: Now, Omar Yesid and many other children and adolescents have a safe place to dream, portray their territory, learn and reinforce their audiovisual knowledge, as Paola Andrea Reyes, the coordinator of this beautiful initiative, tells us.
[Paola Reyes]: Well, after organizing ourselves as a school, three groups were organized, which is the group here in Los Andes, the group that is from Selmira Valle and another group that was born in Balsillas, we have been working for approximately two years.
The idea was to make our territory visible as everyone knows it is a stigmatized territory because of the conflict for everything that the armed conflict in San Vicente del Caguan has entailed, the idea is also to raise awareness, show how beautiful, how pleasant this territory is Give it to the children, to the children, because, as they say, we are a school.
[Adriana]: Paola, what is the age range of the minors who are and can be part of this initiative?
[Paola Reyes]: We are guiding and training children between the ages of 8 and not so young children of 30, 25 years of age, giving them the vision that in El Pato you not only experience the conflict, but also the desire to improve yourself and that some One day these guys can be professionals and contribute to the territory.
So the idea is that Voces del Pato is another alternative for these young children to have other life options, to see a future in the audiovisual school in the field of communications, in the field of audiovisual production.
[Dramatizado]: The children and adolescents of El Pato want to tell our story…
[Adriana]: The dream of these children and adolescents from the Voces del Pato collective is to encourage and motivate others to continue betting on transforming their territory, also to continue growing as a school and to be able to reach every corner of the country with their stories.
[Dramatizado]: I want to be a newscaster when I grow up…
[Dramatizado]: Being a doctor…
[Dramatizado]: And you… What do you want to be when you grow up?
[Adriana]: For the ICRC, it will always be a priority to help children and adolescents who are victims of armed conflicts and other situations of violence, as protection officer Juliana Abdala explains:
[Juliana Abdalá]: It is an honor for us as the International Committee of the Red Cross to be able to support organizations and groups such as Voces del Pato here in the Pato Balsilla mountain range in the rural area of San Vicente del Caguan.
Our main purpose as an organization is to alleviate suffering in the midst of armed conflicts and it is for us the main thing to be able to support young people to find other spaces for recreation, other tastes, other interests and that they can make these interests grow more and more. For this reason, we support the Voces del Pato collective with computers for video editing and with some training provided by the Belén de los Andaquíes audiovisual school, taking into account that it is an audiovisual collective whose main purpose is to show the beauty of its territory, to show who are the Patuna people, who are the people of El Pato and how they, as young people of El Pato, are driven by the love of their territory.
[Dramatizado]: Off the air…
#Colombia #living #middle #conflict #season #episode #grow