WHERE WE REPORT


In 2018 and 2019, more than 30 young Indigenous people participated in Amazônia Real workshops in Manaus, Brazil, among them students from the Wapichana people, from Roraima; the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau people, from Rondônia; and the Juma, Parintintin, Tenharin, Wanano, Tukano, Baré, Arapaso, Witoto, and Sateré-Mawé people, all from Amazonas. The project had the support of the Ford Foundation and the Climate and Land Use Alliance.

As a result of the workshops, Amazônia Real created the Young Citizens Blog, supported by the Pulitzer Center's Rainforest Journalism Fund, to publish materials produced by the students in their communities. Using a software application developed by Cajuideas, each young person sent images and short stories to be published on the Amazônia Real website. In exchange for their stories, they will receive content production scholarships and project equipment.

The Young Citizens project was inspired by the Brooklyn Movement Center in the United States, founded by people focused on education, youth issues, media, and social networks. The creator of the project, journalist Kátia Brasil, started a project of citizen communication workshops in 2018 for students of traditional and Indigenous populations of the Amazon. In these workshops, young people learned to work with media, photography, and video to create their own narratives, allowing them to preserve their culture, identity, and ethnic belonging in the internet era.