Image: Adolfo Izquierdo
AUDIOVISUAL CREATION FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH
This community socio-cultural project was born in 2013 as a result of the existing collaboration between the Cuban Ministry of Culture and the British Council, with the purpose of motivating children and young people to use new technologies to create and share stories about their lives and reflect what happens in their communities through audiovisuals.
The project involves children and adolescents in the entire creation process, always guided by the professional support of their mentors. Currently, Cámara Chica works as a Collaboration Agreement with Terms of Reference signed with the Centro Nacional de Casas de Cultura.
Although having as prime goal to develop artistic skills, the program also seeks to promote an inclusive teaching model through new technologies aimed at allowing Cuban children and youth (up to 18 years old) to become the true protagonists of creation of those stories that they really want to tell.
The program also functions as a resource for community participation, appropriation of reality, intergenerational communication and an approach to key themes in human development, allowing children to build their own discourse through audiovisual creation.
A BIG DREAM
As a result of the effort of these 8 years, the national network for Cámara Chica has 11 centers in cultural community projects in 9 provinces of Cuba. And what is more important, it treasures an archive of filmic materials that are a reflection of Cuban reality, from the perspective of the children's public as its main creators.
Thanks to the efforts of many people and institutions, the community cultural project Cámara Chica has become a benchmark for Cuba and also in the Caribbean region, due to the use of this new methodology to work with boys and girls from the universe of new technologies and through the healthy and didactic use of mobile devices and other contemporary elements.
BRITISH COUNCIL IN CUBA
We are the UK's non-governmental organization for cultural and educational relations. Since 1934 we have created opportunities and built capacities around the world by supporting the development of art and education in more than 100 countries.
In Cuba we have worked continuously for the past 20 years in close collaboration with the Ministries of Culture, Education, Higher Education and the ICRT. Our close working relationship with the collaborative and International Relations departments of these ministries has allowed us to establish cooperation agreements through which we support dance, film, music and training programs for English language teachers, among others.