IICD supported project: Multimedia Systems for Ethnographic Materials

Countries: Bolivia [BO]
Sectors: education

Summary

NGOs and Indigenous organisations in Bolivia have developed a large amount of ethnographic materials, which contain important Indigenous knowledge on culture and economic practises in Bolivia. These materials are available in writing, audio, images and video. Yet, these materials are difficult to conserve and cannot be presented and distributed in an integrated way. If this would happen, valuable material on these populations would disappear and cannot be reconstructed as some of the groups are loosing their traditions or because some of the groups are disappearing altogether. This would result in a loss of unique knowledge of important educational and cultural value.

Update

Updated: 2007-09-17

Started in 2001, NGO APCOB is developing multi-media based materials for basic, secondary and teacher training. The first pilot module on the indigenous group of Ayoreos is produced in 2002. A new series of modules on other indigenous people in Bolivia is in progress. The modules are tested and introduced to four secondary schools in the department of Santa Cruz, including a training program for teachers and students. Steps have also been made to mainstream the project and to secure future financial support by means of: 1) memorandum of understanding with the regional education authorities; 2) integration of the materials in the national curricula by means of active lobbying at national level; 3) presentation of a long-term proposal to the Ministry of Education for funding as part of the ICT policy for the education sector.

Update November 2002:

The focus is on the production of educative modules on the culture, political and economic practised by indigenous people in the east of Bolivia. APCOB has built up strong internal technical capacity to develop materials, has built a multimedia database with digital text, audio, images and video. A first pilot module on the indigenous group of Ayoreos is produced in 2002 with support of HIVOS and IICD. This pilot module is to introduce the multimedia services to the Ministry of Education and local and national levels and to NGOs interested in the integration and funding of custom-made modules in their programs. This way, the project expects to become self-sustaining on the longer term.

Introduction

Objectives

To address this issue, the project will assist in the enhancing the local capacity to produce multi-media based educational materials on indigenous cultural and productive practises. In detail, the project will focus on: 1) storage of existing text, audio and video materials on indigenous knowledge in digital format; 2) training of Indigenous groups in the joint development of new basic materials; 3) development of multi-media productions on selected issues, e.g. Cultural history of the Ayoréode; Forestry practices of the Chiquitanos, etc.; 4) distribution of the productions to national and international educational institutions and NGOs; 5) development of similar multi-media productions on request of other NGOs.

The primary beneficiaries of the project are the indigenous groups participating in the project. In addition, the projects' target groups of the multi-media productions are educational institutions including national and international schools, academic institutions and NGOs.

Development Impacts

The project is to assist in the conservation and transfer of culturally and economically valuable Indigenous knowledge in Bolivia. This will serve the education of current and future generations in the preservation of cultural identity as well as sustainable economic practises.

Market and finance

APCOB is looking for partial financial sustainability of the project by means of: 1) The sales of multimedia products including CDs, DVDs or HTML archives with selected and processed ethnographic materials or with non-processed materials. The project expects to sell between 400 and 500 final or intermediate products each year by fifth year of operations and 2) The production of multi-media productions on costs-bases on request of other NGOs and organisations working with indigenous people.

APCOB expects to increase the level of self-sustenance through revenues from 5% to 75% by the fifth year of operations. HIVOS and IICD will cover the financial gap in the first 2 years. For the following 3-5 years, co-funding is sought for a total amount of USD 33,400.

Project Owner : Apoyo para el Campesina Indígena del Oriente Boliviano (APCOB)

Project Partners : HIVOS
IICD

Project Contact : IICD