The project “Cumare – Voices of the Amazon peoples” in the Colombian Amazon and Orinoko region has been successfully completed. 40 local reporters from twelve Church and community radio stations were enabled to produce relevant journalistic content in a regional network and to improve their environmental journalism skills.
From May 2023 to April 2024, three experienced trainers accompanied and trained community journalists in practical production skills, environmental protection knowledge and civic participation methods. Local consultations in eight communities made it possible to further deepen the central topics from the perspective of the local population.
Five workshops at each rardio’s station’s site enabled the community journalists to produce their own radio series, for example, on „Harmful agricultural bonanzas in the Guainía region“ or „Attention on deforestation in the Guaviare region“.
The flagship publications of the project were the 40 radio programmes called “Radiorevista Cumare” which were co-produced and transmitted by the twelve radio stations. The programmes which each focus on a specific issue, are also available as podcasts here.
A three-day final meeting was held in Bogotá in April. Find more information here. During this meeting, the radio stations presented their advances in environmental reporting, discussed common learnings, and did practical exercises in programme production. In addition, guest speakers shared their approaches to the role of communication in environmental protection, including Óscar Bustamante and Yudy Natalia Córdoba from the Ministry for Environment and Sustainable Development and Diana Patricia Mora from the Environmental Research Centre SINCHI. At the closing session of the seminar at Santo Tomas University, Deutsche Welle Akademie, The World Association for Christian Communication, CAMECO and the Intercultural Communication Project of Santo Tomas University provided insights in their work.
The final evaluation session showed that the training and support process had given the participants decisive stimuli for improving their journalistic work. The joint programme production provided the impetus to continue working together in the future and possibly also to launch an association for the joint representation of interests, the implementation of training measures and the common development of further media products.
Nine months after the end of the project, 1,205 followers (as of January 1st, 2025) continue to use the Cumare Facebook page intensively to share information and experiences.
The project was a common initiative of the Colombian Non-Governmental Organisation “Comunicarte”, the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network (Red Eclesial Panamazónica, REPAM) and CAMECO. It was supported by the German Development Ministry BMZ and Adveniat.
