Laboratorio de Ciudadanía Digital (CCS Mexico

Laboratorio de Ciudadanía Digital

The Laboratorio de Ciudadanía Digital (Digital Citizenship Laboratory, DCL) is a training platform that combines arts, sciences and information and communication technologies (ICTs) to offer a wide range of workshops helping children and young people exercise their cultural rights. Since its creation in 2014, the DCL has operated as a public-private partnership between the Cultural Centre of Spain in Mexico (CCSMx) and the Telefónica Foundation in Mexico. This alliance fosters synergies among Government, civil society, creators, artists, scientists and cultural managers to build alternative spaces for training and participation in the cultural field. The institutional design of the DCL, outlined in the Spanish Cooperation Culture and Development Strategy Paper, focuses on developing skills for the 21 st century and prioritises horizontal cooperation, in which children and young people are encouraged to play a leading role as agents of development. The overall aim of the DCL is to foster participation in cultural processes as a fundamental component of human development, using science, culture and ICTs as tools for building citizenship. It also promotes teaching and learning methodologies to enhance digital skills, contributing to the professionalisation of those who use culture and technology in order to reduce the digital literacy gap in marginalised areas. Finally, the DCL seeks to reinforce the STEAM competences (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) in formal and informal learning environments. In the last five years, the DCL has been used by around 19,500 people (14,000 children, 1,500 young people aged 13-25 years and 4,000 educators) and has provided over 1,000 workshops in the CCSMx and other centres, in eight of the sixteen neighbourhoods of Mexico City, as well as several other regions of the country. In the international scene, the DCL has been invited to present a guest project at festivals and meetings in Spain, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile and Peru, and in 2020 it will also operate in the Northern Triangle of Central America and in Cuba. The DCL has worked with more than 3,000 workshop monitors, teachers and programme managers, generating spaces for dialogue and facilitating the exchange of experiences and good practices. The workshops, thus, offer the opportunity for participation, solidarity, social transformation and real citizenship.

General framework

The CCSMx, as part of AECID, believes that in order for culture to generate development, it is not enough to instruct audiences or spectators. In addition, mechanisms of participation must be established, favouring the creation and production of cultural processes, the twin elements from which the agents of development are formed and which ensure its sustainability. For culture to stimulate human development, it must work in two dimensions: on the one hand, favouring access to cultural expression and on the other, ensuring the participation of children and young people. Accordingly, the CCSMx has developed programmes that meet these needs: on a permanent basis it organises activities in which boys and girls have access to a wide range of artistic proposals, approximately 400 activities per year, covering all formats and disciplines, which have been attended by about 12,000 young people. Furthermore, the DCL itself uses technology as a tool for consolidating a thoughtful, critical citizenry making full use of its rights. As mentioned above, the DCL was constituted taking the AECID Culture and Development Strategy Paper as a frame of reference, specifically concerning

the recognition of cultural rights, the relationship and complementarity among education, culture and communication, the reinforcement of human capital and the impact produced on development by these elements, individually and collectively. Moreover, questions such as gender equality, human rights and environmental sustainability are addressed on a cross-cutting basis. The design of the DCL is based on two main concepts. Firstly, it prioritises cultural diversity, a fundamental component of human development and instrumental in that it is a catalyst of sustainability. The second concept is that of soft skills, i.e. the capabilities needed for the 21 st century. In other words, the DCL enables participants to develop not only technical and/or artistic skills, but also generates experiences that allow them to consolidate their training and fulfil their development as critical citizens. The successful application of these factors has led to the DCL workshops being recognised as collaborative, innovative and creative spaces in which critical thinking, conflict resolution, horizontal dialogue, leadership, tolerance, solidarity and decision-making for the construction of knowledge are all encouraged.

Structure

The DCL acknowledges that children and young people are fundamental actors of human development and social transformation, and that only by ensuring the full exercise of their rights can we achieve a future in which they will transform the complex social reality experienced in Mexico today. The contents of the workshops are conceptualised in terms of the intersection between the three frames of reference considered: culture and development, the horizontal priorities of the AECID and 21 st century skills. Thus, the DCL effectively addresses the two lines of action defined as its priorities in the construction of a critical citizenry:

• The exercise of citizenship: the rights and obligations of citizens, ownership of public space, and the construction of identity and community. • The ownership and rewriting of the media: generating and enhancing the skills required by

ICTs, addressing the challenges posed by the paradigm shift in access to knowledge, education and new media, and exploring the potential of ICTs to enable us to become not just consumers but also producers of ideas.

In line with these priorities, the DCL offers a programme of workshops, which operate in three broad areas:

1. Creativity workshops, generating initiatives, practices and models in response to the urban challenges of the modern world, siting participants as actors in and initiators of processes that directly impact on their community. These workshops are classified according to the age range addressed: • Children’s workshops: a space for fun and experimentation for girls and boys, where they can explore their creative abilities in a practical way. • Youth workshops: a space for encounter and for constructing citizenship, using technology as a tool to encourage reflection and to raise awareness of belonging to a community and to the global world. 2. The STEAM programme, to promote the study of science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics in childhood, fostering the development of analytical thinking and an understanding of the scientific method as the basis for knowledge construction. 3. Teacher training, a space to reflect on teaching methods, in which workshop monitors, teachers and cultural agents involved in the design and implementation of programmes for children and young people can acquire tools facilitating professionalisation. This programme is structured in three parts: • DCL Platform: workshops for trainers to reinforce their teaching processes through participatory methodologies and the use of technology as a means of generating reflection and fostering decision making, to produce a real impact on the community. • ¡Anímate! (Get going!): aimed at trainers working in participative processes, using techniques of animation and audiovisual production. • Encounters and forums: spaces for dialogue and reflection on alternative and innovative teaching and learning methodologies, and on

concepts such as digital citizenship, digital rights, innovation and sustainability. Aimed at institutions, cultural agents, groups, instructors and all others interested in this discipline.

To sum up, the DCL generates alternative spaces to traditional training options, in which workshops foster participation and encourage people to exercise their rights. In these workshops, the arts, sciences and ICT are all included in the toolkit for building citizenship.

Featured projects

Four projects, especially representative of the DCL, have had a very positive impact in terms of empowerment and raising the visibility of their participants. However, it is important to note that the programme Vamos a Aprender (Let’s Learn) and the News Agency of Indigenous and African-descendant Women (NOTIMIA) are no longer part of the DCL, as their activities are aimed at other audiences, outside the age range defined for the DCL. Nevertheless, these activities were initiated within the framework of its implementation.

Radio 2.0 and Radio with Imagination

Among the DCL’s programme of activities for children and young people, the workshops with the words “permanent” or “lifelong learning” in the title have shown that the medium and long-term outlook generates a much more profound learning process. These workshops each have a duration of ten months, and their five years of implementation have led to the graduation of various generations of skilled practitioners. Outstanding in this respect are the two radio workshops offered, Frecuencia 2.0 and Radio con Imaginación, which aim to give participants handson experience with ICTs, meeting their interests and providing an outlet for the content produced. These workshops are a space of encounter where children and young people learn soft skills and creative techniques to express their views on various issues, within the general scope of the DCL and CCSMx. These workshops have had a strong practical impact. Thus, some participants have subsequently contributed to public radio programmes for children,

1

1. Norma Torres, story teller, at the premiere of ¡Anímate! International Short Film Festival, held in the Vasconcelos Library, Mexico City, 2017

2

2. Second Encounter of Indigenous Communicators at the San Agustín Etla Arts Centre, Oaxaca, 2015 3. First edition of ¡Anímate! at the International Short Film Festival, National Arts Centre, 2015 4. Lola de Plaza Sésamo, in an interview with participants in the workshop Audiovisual Production for Children at the 37th Book Fair in 2017 when Spain was the guest country 5. Frida and David, participants in the Frecuencia 2.0 workshop, transmitted live from the CCSMx patio, in the June Full of Music Festival 2017.

such as Generación Z and Zona Aventura, transmitted by the Mexican Radio Institute (IMER). Others have presented Vientos TV, a children’s news broadcast on Channel 22 of Mexican public television, and one workshop graduate is now the official presenter at the UNICEF office in Mexico. The members of the Frecuencia 2.0 workshop for young people play an active role in CCSMx Radio. In fact, over 90% of its programmes are original ideas by these workshop participants, who investigate, write, produce, operate and edit the programmes. In addition to content production, these young people manage the station, organise its programme schedule, communicate on social networks and write notes for the web page about the reports produced. In short, it is these workshop participants whose voices and energy give life to the CCSMx Radio Station. About 100 children and young people take part in these workshops every year, generating content tailored for their peers.

¡Anímate! A animar (Get going! Get them going!)

The programme ¡Anímate! A animar is a teacher training space in which instructors who present workshops in animation techniques for children learn to do so more effectively, via participatory methods in audiovisual production. This programme is divided into three stages. The first is the workshop for trainers. The methods learned are then applied in the communities where they work (from its first edition in 2015, until 2019, over 400 instructors have received this training). Finally, the students’ work is shown throughout Mexico, at screenings for the participants, their families and the workshop monitors, which showcase the creativity and imagination of the girls and boys who take part in these audiovisual workshops. These productions have been premiered at the International Children’s Book Fair (FILIJ) and then broadcast on the children’s TV show Click-Clac! on Channel 22. The best short films are later shown in the ¡Anímate! International Short Film Festival, which has been presented in the AECID Network of Cultural Centres and in other cultural spaces and centres in Mexico.

3

4

6. Public presentation of the wall Lazos, developed in the Graffiti & Videomapping workshop, in CCSMx in 2017.

Some of the short films have been selected to be shown at national and international children’s film festivals, such as the International Film Festival for Children (and for no-longer-children) presented by the children’s film association La Matatena (Mexico City); the Juna Kino International Young Persons’ Film Festival (Morelos, Mexico); the ¡Ojo al Piojo! International Children’s Film Festival (Mar de Plata, Argentina) and the Educatiu International Film Festival (Valencia, Spain). The ¡Anímate! International Short Film Festival will soon complete its fifth edition of making audiovisual techniques accessible to instructors and children, consolidating their commitment to strengthening communication and media management skills, as tools for the construction of a critical citizenry. In 2019, the states of Jalisco and Oaxaca are expected to promote a regional encounter of participants in the Stop Motion version of the workshop.

In the five years of its history, the DCL has made 200 short films, in which more than 2,300 children have participated. ¡Anímate! represents the first step in the transfer of the DCL project to other scenarios. With the assistance of the Cultural Centre of Spain in Lima and of the Telefónica Foundation, the DCL took part in My First Festival, in Peru, presenting the teacher training workshop and the Stop Motion activity for children. In 2019, in the second year of its presence, the DCL will play an important role at the Ojo de Pescado Festival in Chile.

Let’s learn ... Applications for teaching indigenous languages

This programme promotes the use of ICTs for the preservation, conservation and promotion of indigenous languages. The three apps that have been developed, for the Nahuatl, Mixtec and Purépecha languages, are entertaining and practical, enabling users not only to learn the language, but also to become acquainted with the cultures of indigenous peoples. Altogether, these apps have been downloaded by almost 130,000 people worldwide. The media coverage obtained, with over 160 appearances in national and international media, has greatly raised awareness of these communities’ efforts to strengthen the use of their languages. In the framework of the International Year of Indigenous Languages, work has begun on the development of a fourth app, for the Zapotec language, which is the sixth most spoken in the country with more than 400,000 regular users. Oaxacan artists and musicians, together with the National Institute of Indigenous Languages, will contribute to the development of this app.

Indigenous and African-descendant communicators: NOTIMIA

The main objective of the NOTIMIA (News Agency of Indigenous Women and African-descendants) project is to strengthen the role of female indigenous and African-descendant communicators in promoting the cultural diversity of the peoples and communities of Mexico and Central America, through the use of ICTs. Among other aims, the project seeks to expand these women’s participation in the media, through communication proposals that are sensitive to gender issues, interculturality and the promotion of human rights. The three editions of this encounter held to date have brought together over 120 communicators representing the indigenous peoples of Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, El Salvador, Argentina, Colombia and the United States. NOTIMIA, in its two years’ existence, has received €100,000 funding from the AECID to implement a permanent training programme, which will culminate with two further encounters of indigenous and African-descendant communicators, to be held in Mexico and Guatemala, in 2019 and 2020 respectively. This DCL initiative was undertaken in parallel with the Alliance of Indigenous Women of Mexico and Central America, and has been supported by UN Women Mexico, the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples, the National Institute of Women and the Simone de Beauvoir Institute of Leadership.

Other perspectives

Miguel Faustino Obiang Asumu, dancer from Equatorial Guinea, interpreting Abok, directed by Luz Arcas in 2016

Sergio Ramírez Network of Cultural Centres, a house for literature

The writer and Cervantes Award winner, Sergio Ramírez, at the International Book Fair of Buenos Aires, 2019 From the moment we first considered organising the Festival Centroamérica Cuenta (Central America Matters), we had a strategic ally: the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), which through its Network of Cultural Centres generously opened the way for our initiative. Both organisations have actively participated in the editions of this festival, which is committed to supporting literature and writers from Central America and to strengthening ties between them and their European counterparts. Since the first edition of Centroamérica Cuenta, a space for reflection and dialogue on the reality and culture of Central America, our alliance with Spanish Cooperation has enabled it to grow and thrive, over six editions, and to help make the literature and creative expressions of the region more widely known. Thanks to this collaboration, established and emerging writers from Latin America, Europe and the United States have been able to meet annually to discuss issues reflecting the Central American reality, contributing to the construction of our identity, which of course is very diverse; although they are such small countries, each one in Central America has its own specific weight. This very diversity underscores the importance of our connections with the Network of Cultural Centres, whose numerous programmes encourage the exchange of cultural and literary expressions throughout Central America and other Spanish-speaking countries. The doors of the Cultural Centre of Spain in Nicaragua (CCSN) were opened to us in 2014, so that the authors participating in our second edition could share memorable round tables such as “God is spherical”, a relaxed chat about football and literature with Juan Villoro from Mexico, Manuel Vilas from Spain and sports commentator Edgard Tijerino from Nicaragua. In subsequent years, that encounter was followed by others, together with performances, photographic exhibitions and workshops, among other activities jointly undertaken in Managua and San José. José Ovejero, Berna González Harbour, Carlos Pardo, Javier Cercas, Almudena Grandes, Ángel de la Calle, José Manuel Fajardo, Luis Eduardo Aute, Juan Cruz, Carlos Zanón and Juan Bolea are some of the Spanish authors invited by CCSN to talk with Latin American authors about literature and more. In our fifth edition, in 2017, we made use of the special conditions offered by the CCSN auditorium to present the Objetivo Mordzinski exhibition, a journey to the heart of Hispanic American literature. This anthological exhibition consisted of over a hundred photographs of the most important faces in Spanish literature, taken by Daniel Mordzinski, who was invited to Managua by Spanish Cultural Action and was warmly welcomed at CCSN during his stay in the city.