ACLO/Bolivia: Training Rural Youth as Social Communicators

ACLO Director Rafael Garcia Mora with THP investors.

Summary of the past 6 months

This period represents the first half of the third and final year of a three-year partnership of The Hunger Project and ACLO to train an greatly expanded cadre of young women and men as “people’s reporters” and community leaders in rural communities across the three southern Quechua-speaking departments of Bolivia: Chuquisaca, Potosí and Tarija.

This is an historic period, as the new government of Evo Morales began its term of office, and began involving representatives of citizen groups in policy formation for the first time, including launching a Constituent Assembly for creating a new constitution, and addressing extremely delicate issues such as who benefits from Bolivia’s hydrocarbon reserves.

As ACLO director Rafael Garcia Mora stated – “Everything we have worked for over these 40 years has now come true. Now we must create the next vision.”

To facilitate people’s participation and the government’s accountability in this process, ACLO, along with ERBOL radio network, has established a Constituent Forum – an ongoing dialogue over the radio, between rural communities meeting at various locations with their representatives in the Constituent Assembly.

This period culminated in the participation in August of a delegation of Hunger Project investors in the celebration of the 40th anniversary of ACLO and the launching of ACLO’s new 5-year plan.

Activities from January through June

Two technical workshops to establish the basis for the training of people’s reporters in the production and transmission of radio programs.

Women people's reporters meet in Tarabuco.                          Radio ACLO at Potosi.

Work in each of the three departments to rewrite the training materials to incorporate the unique opportunities presented by the Constituent Assembly. This included:

• In Tarija – 5 internships by people’s reporters, 28 radio programs, and 8 workshops to train 80 reporters to reformulating materials.
• In Potosí – 8 internships by people’s reporters, 2 workshops to train 44 new reporters, and the production of 18 radio programs.
• In Chuquisaca: 29 training workshop across 18 municipios of the department, with 614 participants – 451 men and 163 women, 3,120 new stories by 606 people’s reporters.
• Publication of the May issue of the ACLO magazine “On the Move!”

Opportunities for interchange among the people’s reporters and people’s organizations:

• In Tarija - Two meetings and six radio forums with the participation of the federations of farmers and indigenous women.
• In Chuquisaca – one department-wide assembly of reporters

Establishing partnerships with farmer’s associations in each department.

• In Tarija – 4 meetings to organize work for the Constituent Assembly
• In Potosí – maintain the existing partnership, plus establish a partnership with the movement of the landless.
• In Chuquisaca – meet periodically with the farmer’s federation to coordinate trainings.

Investors discuss with people's reporters.                                Products from an ACLO-generated producers' association.

Forge networking agreements with other institutions of alternative training – this is what resulted in working with ERBOL to create the Constituent Forums

Capacity building in partnership with local government.

Established a system of certification and monthly evaluation of the process of training people’s reporters. During this period – in order to overcome the many obstacles blocking women’s increased participation, ACLO established all-women trainings for people’s reporters, beginning in Chuquisaca.