Wayuu students team up to produce digital contents with the support of a tutor committee and a resident tutor. They learn to use ICT tools and explore their culture by making and sharing these multimedia products. The project encourages students to describe how do they perceive their community, how do they feel about being indigenous, how do they imagine their future.

Problem

Lifestyle of Wayuu people, the largest indigenous group in Colombia, has been rapidly changing. As they migrate to cities, their traditions and knowledge (they call it Sukuaipa Wayuu) may not survive for next generations despite recent efforts to preserve part of it (http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?lg=en&pg=00011&RL=00435). While attributes such as Wayuunaiki language are not practical for urban life, indigenous youth grow up surrounded by an upcoming availability of a global source of knowledge through information and communication technologies. Our challenge is to support Wayuu education and children to understand, use and explore the relations between ICT, safeguarding and Sukuaipa Wayuu diffusion.

Solution

We are looking forward to asking students to comprehend Sukuaipa Wayuu, by encouraging them to carry a dialogue with other community members and external agents, to draft up a film script, a website plan, blog ideas or similar projects where they would be able to tell the world who are the Wayuu people. They would acquire the tools to build an aesthetic definition of being Wayuu and would then release those views as a new discourse to be shared with their communities. We are expecting to have much attention from students as they have the chance of getting involved in the creation and production of multimedia contents.

Example

How to plan and make the best out of our resources: First step: To build a network of 10-12 people from arts, media and culture areas. They would be interested in participating as tutors in a five-week residency with a team of school students for the production of digital contents and be part of a committee that permanently advises on project decisions. Second step: To promote leaders and teachers to invite students to make a proposal. The organization would like to have a workshop with those spokesmen so they catch the entire vision of the project. Third step: To assess the proposals and make a wishlist of digital assets such as cameras, recorders, storage units, network devices, software and others that might be needed. Fourth step: Strengthen the most coherent proposals and evaluate the capability of the groups to improve and profit their idea. Select three projects that best comprehend the mission of the project and choose who would be the tutor for each team. Fifth step: Promote the residency of the tutors and walk aside the groups to develop the projects selected.

Marketplace

http://www.ethnosproject.org/site/?p=3524