20 January 2021, 0 Comments
We present the winning projects for #DreamLABChallengeEc
Samantha Romero was named the winner of the Relatography, Urban Reporting, and Photography Evelyn Bone received a special mention.
Committed to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the 2030 Agenda, DreamLAB pledges to quality education to achieve sustainable cities and communities. In line with this, the Communication for Development Workshop (C4D) served as a complement for young people from the LAB to develop their capacity for analysis and critical sense regarding their surroundings, become the voice of their projects, and know how to make visible and communicate their dreams through new digital platforms and art. GK School led the first three sessions: Relatography, Urban Reporting, and Photography. The last session on Urban Art was led by the illustrator and muralist Juan Sebastián Aguirre, better known as “Apitatán,” and offered an independent challenge.
The Challenge:
Each participant had to work together with a partner participating in the LAB; journalistically narrate their neighborhood’s issues; interview them; organize the information into the six learned moments: the initial situation, the trigger of the story, start and development of the story, climax, and conclusion; and finally, make a photostory or video.
GK School’s Challenge Winner
Samantha Romero
23 years old
“Everything you propose yourself to do you will achieve through persistence. Dedication is a powerful weapon to develop the different projects throughout our lives”
Empathy or Apathy? In search of community development
By Samantha Romero
In the Carapungo sector, some problems can be seen. For Evelyn, the greatest is the neighbor’s lack of empathy, which could be caused by a couple of factors, such as the fact that the neighbors have not really coexisted and do not know each other.
Other problems can become aggravated because of the lack of empathy. What happened some months ago was that garbage began to pile up because the garbage truck had not passed through the neighborhood. No one did anything about it,
so it all became chaos because street doggies tore the waste bags. Once the problem was solved, a group of neighborhood leaders decided to come together to combat the neighbors’ lack of empathy.
The solution they came up with was to address the neighbors and talk to them about empathy and why it is important to foster it within the neighborhood. Various spaces for cultural integration were also opened for both young people and adults to help them meet one another and develop closer relationships so that they may face any other problem—such as unsafe neighborhoods—and so that no one is afraid to act against them.
C4D’s Challenge Special Mention
Evelyn Bone
23 years old
“To do what we like the most, we must have passion, love, and discipline. These are very important tools that will lead us to fulfill our dreams”
Youth Lashes Out
By Evelyn Bone
For Samantha, a problem that afflicts her sector is insecurity. She told us that, before, Calderón was a parish known for its marzipan crafts and the warmth of its people. However, a few months ago, its peace and tranquility were interrupted by crime since there have been house robberies where thieves screened houses to known when they would be empty to break in and take everything of value they found. She told us that in the apartment complex—which we will call Sol 1—in front of where she lives,
three thieves in a pickup truck broke in and drove to a house empty of its owners. After entering, they took everything they could, committing their crime by pretending to be people who repaired cable TV.
Given the robberies that afflicted the sector, the neighbors took measures to counter the situation somehow. They came together and installed community alarms, cameras, and other external security measures—an effort that was possible thanks to the neighborhood’s organization and the security forces’ help.
The C4D Workshops with the GK School
The first session of Relatography was led by the general editor of GK, José María León. The group of participants learned about the importance of telling a story, its elements, and what parts a narrative must have to be memorable. Moreover, María Silvia Calvo, communication official for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Paraguay, shared some of her career experiences, 30 years in communication with a focus on rights. The session offered a contrast between theory and professional practice, evidencing the process of preparation, challenges, and accomplished goals.
In the second session of Urban Reporting, also led by José María León, the group learned about the basic practices to become citizen reporters, preparation and investigation before going out on the field, and practical techniques for note-taking. Finally, the third session of Photography was led by GK’s photographer and videographer, Diego Ayala. Adolescents and young adults learned about framing, planes, and cellphone features, including how to take pictures and how to take advantage of natural light.
What is DreamLAB?
DreamLAB is an initiative led by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), in partnership with Tandari: Youth Assembly for Sustainability, and implemented through ConQuito. Three parishes of Quito have been selected for this first implementation: Chillogallo, Calderón, and Tumbaco.
Adolescents and young adults between the ages of 15 and 24 have received virtual workshops and training to identify problems within their communities, discover their role as agents of change, and seek new alternatives to solve them. A path that will lead the group of participants to transform their ideas into viable and sustainable development projects to construct safe, resilient, and inclusive neighborhoods.
