Rejoice:Intro

Welcome to this Comundos podcast where we interview digital storytellers and people involved in Comundos.org We ask them questions related to their stories to deepen our understanding of the content and messages.

My name is Rejoice Aniemeka.

For this episode we have the pleasure to invite Bart Vetsuypens who has been coordinating Comundos for over 8 years now.
It´s a pleasure to have you Mr. Bart

Rejoice Aniemeka: What is Comundos really about?
Bart Vetsuypens: We promote media literacy and “Digital Storytelling”, using (free) software and accessible technologies, connected or not. This has been our strategy to teach young people to tell and share their 'digital stories', making them critically reflect on their role as citizens, in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Rejoice Aniemeka: : Who has Comundos been teaching too?

Bart:: We started in 2014 with a network of agricultural schools and Ngo´s in the Philippines, Mozambique, Guatemala and Brazil. That was our first 3 year program with the NGO Disop. We gave them insights on what to do with a computer who has no internet .. using audio, images and video for better teaching methods. after that we got involved in a rural network of schools in Cameroon, to insert technology. So, we started with digital inclusion .. to end with digital stories. And now, we are even teaching post doctoral researchers on how to disseminate their research in a popular way to a greater public.

Rejoice: It seems a lot of information at once ? How do you teach?
Bart: The course is set up in 4 days, where everyday we dive into a new practice. Theoretically and practical skills. well, we teach them on how to teach to make a compelling story , record their voice- over, put a background sound .. And at last, adding pictures to the story and edit it all in a videoprogram.

Rejoice: What do you want to achieve with this?

Bart: We know it makes people happy when they go through the course. it demistifies how communication works. They have a better view on what professionals are looking for when a journalist wants to make a story. But it also makes them to know themselves better. their talents, and limits .. which is also part of education. some discover their writing talents, oth ers love to play with technology.

Journalism in most developing countries is still too much left to a group with higher incomes .. who have acces to good but expensive education. In many countries commercial TV channels are being the best referecences for TV. It is time that people are aware of the necessity of good public TV and that it should be cherished. I remember the time when I was in Recife, Brazil . that public TV was somewhere hidden in a classroom of the university.

As in Belgium, the best mediachannels are public tTV, with lots of good documentaries, debates that helps you make your own opinion, based on facts, it molds Belgian society in a critical but healthy way.

Ending:
Thank you Mr. Bart to enlighten us about the work of Comundos/
I hope the listeners learned a lot about the activities of Comundos. More information can be found on comundos.org.
I remain Rejoice Aniemeka. Thanks for listening.