- During two days of binational virtual meeting, journalists from Mexico and Colombia shared experiences, learnings and recommendations on how to inform and report with a focus on children's rights.
The initiative Weaving Childhood Networks in Latin America and the Caribbean in collaboration with the Alliance for Colombian Children, the International Seminar on Childhood Journalism was held through the Data-Based Incidence model, simultaneously in Mexico and Colombia, aimed at representatives of the media, communicators and independent journalists in order to establish connections between journalist networks and civil society organizations in the region, as well as learning to incorporate the child rights approach in data-based journalistic work.
The Meeting was inaugurated by Angélica Cuenca, Executive Secretary of the Alliance for Colombian Children; who thanked the media that for years have been added to make visible the situation of children in Latin America and the Caribbean. Immediately, the message came from Jorge Giannareas, UNICEF Social Policy Specialist, who pointed out that the protection of children began to be registered at the beginning of the 19th century, but the world of the s. XX is much more dangerous for children and therefore requires greater dissemination and understanding.
The theme “From encouraging averages to invisible inequities. What the figures on childhoods in Latin America have and what they hide ”, was presented by Diana Pineda, Master of Science in Food and Human Nutrition. "Journalism is key to make visible situations that are not seen, for example, I mention that in neuronal terms, there are differences in well-fed girls and boys compared to those who are not. One in nine malnourished children is at risk of having 14 percent lower IQ ”.
Mayra from Colombia, a member of Children International's 'We are all protection' campaign, said that they have taught her that while adults speak, children are silent. We have to build a criterion on our own opinions and if they do not tell us about them, how are we going to inform ourselves, as he mentioned during the presentation of the topic “Experts in our own realities. From adult-centeredness to childhood as the subject of information ”.
Of all the situations that socially affect a country, childhood is the most affected, and unfortunately not all affected girls and boys reach care. "The most vulnerable families do not approach the institutions to receive care for fear of family disintegration, they fear that the state will remove the guardianship of their daughters and sons," reported Angela Rosales, National Director of Aldeas Infantiles SOS Colombia, during the presentation “Violence and protection systems. Challenges and challenges in Latin America to comprehensively protect and strengthen families, for reunion ”.
On the topic "Migrant Children in Vulnerable Conditions", María Paula Martínez, Director of "Save the Children Colombia" asked the media to make clear and explicit the situations of vulnerability of children, such as the phenomenon of large migrant caravans in Latin America and the Caribbean, "What we never thought would happen is happening, the flows of unaccompanied migrant children have increased."
Why is it important to dialogue with children and adolescents? Dayanna, a law student, mentioned that “One of the mistakes of adults is to think that we all live the same circumstances. They give us the opportunity to speak, but they don't listen to us ”.
Ximena Norato, who has directed the PANDI foundation for 15 years, and Alexandra Correa, social communicator and journalist, spoke about: “The challenge of covering children from newsrooms"; there they invited to report and denounce cases through journalism, "Communicators and journalists have the power to tell stories, but also to change stories, pointing out the responsibilities of the state and the authorities", they reflected.
On What is the situation of Recruited Children in the absence of their rights? William, a young Colombian who was recruited by two illegal armed groups and in his reintegration process has been working with Unicef helping other young people who have also managed to escape of armed groups, shared that, tired of assassinations and armed attacks in Colombia, he accepted the invitation. "I was not born with bread, nor with a weapon under my arm, they threw me into war", shared.
At the opening of the second day activities, Jérôme Poussielgue. Minister Counselor, Head of the Cooperation Section, Delegation of the European Union in Mexico, said that young people face a global crisis. "From the European Union we work to defend the rights of children and the protection of freedom of expression."
For his part, Juan Martín Pérez, Regional Coordinator of Tejiendo Redes Infancia, presented the presentation, “Advocacy with the use of data, with a human rights approach”. He recommended using four basic principles to verify when childhood journalism is practiced: contemplate the active participation of children, adolescents and youth; question whether what is reported contributes to their quality of life, not reveal sensitive information such as personal data and think about what that information will contribute to the digital footprint of the person about what we are reporting.
In the same vein, Georgina Jiménez, Director of Content at Data Cívica, spoke of "Data that denotes changes: the generation and use of data as a tool for the defense of human rights." He pointed out that the use of data to report or inform about childhoods allows us to have a clearer image of the situation being addressed and allows us to do so without bias.
"Changing the narrative: childhood and youth in the media" was the theme of Ximena Canseco, from the Collaborative project. “The data is not the stories we tell. We need to build narratives providing options to generate positive changes in our society and always think about what values we are creating and paying attention to generate our stories ”, he claimed.
Fernando, a Mexican activist for the rights of children and adolescents, said that most of the media are made by adults, being themselves the only point of reference, "From time to time we appear in the media as victims, heroes, but the next day no one remembers, we do not appear continuously". His presentation was titled What's up with the current adult-centered representations of girls, boys and adolescents in the media? How do we improve them?
“On the web we find everything, good things about technology and how to improve our environment, but not all pages are secure and not everything we are looking for is viable. We young people have in our hands the opportunity to create valuable content and raise our voices in favor of our human rights for a common good ”; was the message of Judith, an 18-year-old Mexican girl, concerned about the world and our society, in her presentation "Let's shorten the gap between youth and adults."
The journalist Daniela Rea, shared that etymologically the word childhood means "The one who does not speak" and that through activism we learn that childhood is not the one that does not speak, but rather the one that is not listened to and that in that sense journalistic exercise is relevant to looking at childhood as whole people.
For her part, the journalist Mónica Garza, invited that when we want to communicate about a situation that violates the rights of the child, it is important to reflect and avoid re-victimization. "Many times we show unnecessary violence, in the spirit of denouncing".
In journalistic work, one of the biggest challenges is that there is little preparation or professionalization regarding childhood journalism. When it comes to covering so much, it is difficult for us to have detailed knowledge. Therefore, journalist Pamela Cerdeira recommended approaching the work of civil society in order to transmit messages with greater depth and reflection. From their perspective, "Journalists go after the story and sometimes immediately we don't stop to think if we are damaging someone's life, we don't use the ethical and social responsibility filters", mentioned.
María Idalia, journalist and editor-in-chief of EjeCentral newspaper, said: "I have realized that we are building a new journalism, previously in the journalistic field we had the belief that children were the people we have to protect, but we still need to be able to influence."
Finally, the meeting was closed by Juan Martín Pérez, thanking the representatives of the media for their interest in approaching #PeriodismodeInfancias.
The event broadcast is available here:
Day 1
Day 2
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Ollin.TV is an Internet television channel created as part of Weaving Childhood Nets in Latin America and the Caribbean an initiative co-financed by the European Union, which seeks to contribute to the strengthening and consolidation of a platform for the defense of children and adolescents in 20 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.
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