EduTV@La Mesa

This project uses local or regional television production and broadcasting to offer basic education through a language, topics, and tools accessible to local residents. Media technologies support participatory production of programmes that feature locally relevant themes and that use local dialects in an effort to "change the established perception of the countryside as backward, replacing it with an awareness of its economic and environmental potential and encouraging rural inhabitants to discover new economic possibilities without the need to abandon the countryside."

Mobilised by these commitments, EduTV@La Mesa began its work by engaging in the following:

• Stage 1: Training students and peasants from the community in television production techniques, including camera, sound, editing, and directing skills.
• Stage 2: Obtaining a license from the government to operate a local educational television channel and the necessary funds to set up a broadcast facility. This non-profit local broadcasting station, called Canal 45, covers the Tequendama area (10 villages). EduTV@La Mesa produces and transmits at least 12 hours of programming weekly. A typical day begins with a press review (many people in the area are illiterate or do not have access to newspapers). The daily output also includes programmes for children and women, as well as programmes about health issues and farming.
• Stage 3: Facilitating the creation of independent video production companies by former students. Some of these companies include: Mujer TeVes (for and by women), TV Salud (health programmes), Teleonda (for and by young people), CONSTRUIMOS MUNDO (for small children), AGROTV (for farmers), and EduTequendama (specialising in ecology and social subjects).
• Stage 4: Developing an inter-institutional educational strategy that provides the basis for the educational television programmes. Recently the national federation of local television stations was created.

This programme is participatory in nature. In addition to the communication strategy described above, a note on the EduTV@La Mesa website invites collaboration: "If you have knowledge about new techniques in agriculture, applied techniques, a new insight how to teach, or anything we can broadcast to our audience to help them, please share it with us. If we can help you with our experiences, please let us know."

As of this writing, EduTV@La Mesa has approximately 120 videos for sale (Spanish language), some of which were produced for the Fund for Environmental Action, and combine fiction with animation.

Education, Agriculture, Environment, Economic Development, Youth.

According to organisers, many adults living in rural areas of Colombia, such as La Mesa, have no secondary education or means (e.g., transportation or money) to attend night classes in the main villages or towns. They are hampered by this lack of education and information. Organisers explain that many of these peasants "have difficulty in understanding many of the words used by 'city' people let alone grasp the concepts. Information given to peasants by experts charged with transferring new techniques generally has little impact."

EduTV@La Mesa has a clear youth-oriented focus, in response to the concern that "Young adults who continue to live in rural areas will forget what they have learned at school and stay behind in their general knowledge due to the lack of information. Their sole sources are commercial television and radio that only increase their desire to leave the rural areas."

EduTV@La Mesa is under the direction of a Dutch filmmaker who settled in La Mesa to manage EduTV@LaMesa and teach video production. (For more information on this filmmaker's background and perspectives, click here to read "Under Foreign Skies" by Eric Beauchemin, Radio Netherlands website, November 12 2003).

Based on an agreement with the local administration, EduTV@LaMesa set up a TV studio in a building in the centre of town, which has enabled it to be closer to its audience. The plan is to host workshops, a cinema club, conferences, concerts, and other cultural activities. The studio is located next to the town theatre and the open air concert place. EduTV@La Mesa has also opened a coffee shop to foster conversations and connections based on its broadcasts.