ABOUT US
We are popular, community based and social communicators who integrate open, free media through out different places in Latin America and the world (Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Germany). We met for the first time in 2015 and we recognized in each other a common grassroots way of communicating. To find each other in the same search for media and communication as a process, as knowledge exchange, in an integral and horizontal way, has pushed us to continue to organize amongst ourselves, in order to increase and strengthen our actions and projects. This is how caravans are born, where communicators travel to talk about the conflicts and knowledge from within the very territories where they take place and shape, accompanying voices and perspectives of those who live and resist there.

WHY & WHAT FOR

The urgent need to project the situation lived today in the Wallmapu (Mapuche territory) towards the rest of Latin America and the world comes from the silence perpetuated by mainstream, hegemonic, capitalist media outlets. As well as the superficial treatment of information in the face of mobilizations and struggles which take place in the Mapuche territory.

We travel with the urgency of the need to share the stories we will be documenting along the way in order to counter the criminalization of the Mapuche people and their struggles. With the challenge of opening a window to the world so that others may learn about their history, their culture and their way of life.

The caravan will begin on Tuesday, January 15, 2019 in Bariloche, Argentina. The total duration is 4 weeks, with three main goals:

• The production of an audiovisual document containing the world view of the Mapuche people
• Technical training on the creation of audiovisual and radio material
• Open media as well as self learning processes.

WHAT DO WE DO WITH YOUR CONTRIBUTION

To make our project a reality we need financial resources to cover costs of travel, sleeping places and food (which will be provided by the communities) for more than 20 people from the different media collectives. We will also need equipment and resources that the communities can keep and continue to use to create their own media and spread their voices. All the members of the caravan participate from their desire to create a more just world, it is not a for profit project so no one will receive money for the work they will do. Everything is built with the effort of all the media activists traveling and those from within the Mapuche territory, and the communities themselves.

HOW DO WE DO IT

To reach the goals the project is organized horizontally through plenary sessions (with representatives of each participating media) and task groups; and with two types of workshops: technical and theoretical training and self education.

Based on the experience of previous years, the workshops start from a basic necessity to share and circulate knowledge. Acknowledging the importance of media as a tool for struggles and the construction of our own history.

The workshops will be facilitated by the media collectives in the caravan to the members of the communities and social organizations which work to further the struggle and resistance in the Mapuche territory, and, the protection of natural resources. We understand that the processes of organizing for the defense of the land are outside of the agenda of mainstream, hegemonic media sources, which is why we think it is important that these struggles incorporate new digital tools in order to make their resistance known.

The self learning workshops will be facilitated by the media collectives in the caravan, but they will be guided by the necessities of the different media projects present in each territory visited. The goal is to professionalize the media work of each participant, while at the same time we want to strengthen the communicators already working in the territories visited.

In both cases, audiovisual and radio tools will be used, in terms of technical training and in terms of communication language. Similarly, there will be virtual support which will help spread the progress of the project on current time as it develops during the caravan.