The goal of the event is “for youth educators, animators and catechists, to have the opportunity to grow spiritually and professionally.” They will only accept 250 participants and the registration fee is PHP 900 for live-outs and PHP 2,000 for live-ins.

Each day will start with the celebration of the Holy Eucharist at 8:30 in the morning. A plenary session follows at 10:30 AM and after lunch the workshops are held. Here is a list of the workshops and their respective facilitators.

]]> http://stephencuyos.com/salesians-to-hold-workshops-for-youth-animators-and-catechists/feed/ 1 http://stephencuyos.com/the-joy-of-sharing-knowledge/ http://stephencuyos.com/the-joy-of-sharing-knowledge/#comments Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:56:03 +0000 Fr. Stephen, MSC http://stephencuyos.com/?p=842 For three Saturdays now I’ve been going to a place called Paradise Heights. At first glance you couldn’t think of anything paradisaical about the place. Built at the foot of the infamous Smokey Mountain, Paradise Heights looks like nothing but a series of unfinished buildings rising above mountains of trash.

That's me showing a workshop participant how to use the mouse by playing a GCompris game.

Gawad Kalinga volunteers have not only built homes for the poor in Paradise Heights, they have also organized the community for a series of trainings. One of these trainings is a computer literacy program for adult women. I volunteered to be one of the facilitators of the said program.

The age range of the 17 computer workshop participants is from 23 to 55. Their organizer told me that most of them are former garbage scavengers. On the first day of the workshop, the participants made it clear to me that they’ve never held a mouse nor a keyboard before. So we spent the first Saturday playing GCompris – a collection of free and opensource games engineered to teach users how to utilize the mouse and keyboard.

As expected, they found it hard to keep the mouse pointer steady and hit the mark. But four hours of practice, patience and perseverance paid. I was happy to see them making double right-clicks at the end of our first session. So that they wouldn’t forget the assigned keys for each finger, the participants traced their hands on paper and wrote the corresponding keys on top of each illustrated finger.

A workshop participant practicing her newly-acquired skill. Take note of the drawing as her guide. Click the image for bigger size.

During my second session with them I taught them how to use OpenOffice.org Writer, a free and opensource word processor. I started by explaining to them the basics of word processing and then asked them to type “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” After four hours they were able to encode paragraphs and effect basic formatting such as bold, italics and underline all by themselves.

In response to popular request, I taught them how to navigate the world wide web during our third session. Something as everyday as websites for people reading this blog appears so out-of-this-world to the Paradise Heights women. I made an effort to slowly explain to them how to visit websites, how to search for virtually anything using google and yahoo, how to play educational games, and how to watch videos and listen to music online. I also taught them how to open an email account and send/reply/forward electronic messages. By now, almost each participant has an email account.

The participants helping each other to create their very first email accounts. Notice the smile and the excitement on their faces. Click the image for bigger size.

You can only imagine the joy I experience as their facilitator. Women who used to pick rubbish from dumps are now empowered individuals who navigate the internet and eventually, I hope, encode their stories and make their voices heard all over the world through online media.

The three Saturdays I spent with them taught me that it is never too late to learn anything new. It has also taught me that a garbage dump can become a “paradise” when residents envision and believe it to be so. Through their desire to be computer literate and their willingness to practice what they’ve learned from the training, I can say that in time they will take their “paradise” to new heights.

My thesis defense last Wednesday was both a culmination and a commencement for me. It culminated my three years of studies here in Italy and at the same time, it commenced a new stage in my communications ministry.

It was a beautiful sunshiny day. I arrived at my university two hours before the scheduled thesis defense.  I asked permission from the dean not to defend my thesis in a classroom but in the university radio studio. I told the dean that it was the place I felt most at home in and besides, my thesis is about participatory radio and video. Around 15 people were there, including the three panelists. I arranged the chairs in such a way that the whole set-up would be informal, warm, and interactive. I prepared audio and video clips and incorporated them into my powerpoint presentation. I did not use the school’s pull-down projector screen, instead I projected my presentation onto the concrete wall of the radio studio. I invited two Filipino migrant workers to give two-minute testimonies about the participatory communication I initiated with them.

If I were to summarize my thesis, it would be this: My own personal experience of catalyzing Filipino migrants in Rome has taught me that participatory radio and video are not about doing something for the people but about the people doing something for themselves. The role of the people and their communities is central to the realization of participatory dialogue and empowerment. They have to be fully involved, committed and in fact, take the initiative. They have to be totally convinced that dialogue and empowerment through participatory radio and video are not only possible but also necessary.

It took me 35 minutes to deliver my thesis presentation. And the question and answer portion took around 45 minutes. I received very positive feedbacks from my thesis adviser and from the panelists. My thesis was graded 30 lode, the maximum.

Thanks to all of you who prayed for me, inspired me and supported me in my endeavors.  

My thesis is principally based on my experiences of doing participatory communication with Filipino migrant workers in Italy.  The thrust of my thesis is to examine participatory radio and video as vital processes and tools for marginalized people to enter into dialogue with each other and to empower themselves.

Participatory communication is both a means and an end, both a process and a tool.  As a means, participation is a key ingredient of, and an essential requirement for, dialogue and empowerment. As an end in itself, participation is the fundamental need and right of the people to fully and effectively participate in the determination of the decisions which affect their lives at all levels and at all times.   

Participatory communication is founded on the “action-reflection-action” and conscientisation theories and practices of Paulo Freire as expounded in his classic work, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”.  The fundamental goal of the conscientisation process is to urge ordinary people to critically analyze their contexts and circumstances, come to understand themselves and their world, and ultimately feel empowered to better the world in which they live. In essence, participatory communication refers to the process whereby people effectively involve themselves in creating the structures and in designing policies and programs that serve the interests of all through participatory involvement, critical thinking and reflection. In more concrete terms, it means that at every stage of action, the participants have to reflect on their experiences, discuss and evaluate them, draw new learnings and conclusions, and then chart the next action. It thus requires active involvement in interaction, dialogue, sharing, group decision-making and collective action on the part of all, first and foremost of the ordinary people themselves.

The participatory model of communication views ordinary people as capable of critical reflection and analysis and that their knowledge is both relevant and necessary. It underscores the role of marginalized people as key agents of their own change. The participatory approach emphasizes dialogue rather than monologue, empowerment rather than disenfranchisement, catalyst communication rather than advocacy, sustainability rather than quick fixes.   The goal of participatory communication is to build a participative society where individual persons and communities are free and have equal access to the means to express themselves, their points of view, feelings, and experiences. But in today’s world, the media are mostly commercially-operated and are profit-oriented, not service-oriented. Commercial media are more interested in selling products and raking in profits than in fostering participation and empowerment. Thus there is an imperative need to move from profit-oriented approach to participatory approach in communication. Taking these facts into consideration, there emerge some very important questions – How can radio and video be transformed into participatory processes and tools? How can participatory radio and video be utilized to initiate dialogue and empower individuals and communities? How can participatory radio and video become viable alternatives to commercial media?

My paper explored the above questions. It particularly studied participatory radio and video as processes and tools for dialogue and empowerment. It is based on the premise that all people have a right to express themselves, to share their stories, to make public their views and become interactive participants in the processes that impact upon their lives and not be spoken for. And it is grounded on two assumptions: (1) that the process (the act of people coming together to decide who they are, what they want and how they will obtain what they want through participatory radio and video) is as important as the outcomes, and (2) that participatory radio and video can be used as tools to facilitate dialogue and empowerment. Aside from exploring ways in which participatory radio and video can facilitate dialogue and empowerment, it has also been the objective of my research to find ways how to evaluate and assess when genuine participatory communication is working or not.

In Chapter 1 of my thesis, the historical beginnings and development of participatory video are outlined, principally from the perspective of communication practitioners, grassroots people and community organizers who have researched and applied participatory video processes.  Then it examines how participatory video can be utilized as a process to involve people in an interactive way, making all needed resources directly available to them so that they will acquire knowledge and skill necessary for them to empower themselves. It will also consider how participatory video can be used as a tool to share stories, to function as a new form of literacy, to stimulate community discussion and problem-solving, to expose social injustices, to archive indigenous knowledge. 

Chapter 2 provides details as to how radio can function as a participatory process and tool for dialogue and empowerment. It begins by looking at the essential elements that make radio participatory, namely, community ownership and community participation.  Then it discusses participatory radio as a process whereby every participant must be involved in all stages, from planning the program content and style to listening and giving feedbacks. Chapter 2 also takes into account that participatory radio can be utilized as a tool for rapid diffusion of important messages, for training and educational purposes, to give marginalized people a public voice, for dialogue and debate, and to develop greater community cohesion and participation. My personal experience of being a catalyst communicator for a participatory radio process with Filipino migrant workers in Rome, Italy is presented in chapter 2.

In Chapter 3, the ways in which participatory radio and video can facilitate dialogue is surveyed.  Then it delves into how both participatory radio and video can bring about empowerment.

Chapter 4 provides answers to the following questions: How do we know whether or not participatory radio and video are working?  How do we recognize that the participatory process is being manipulated or imposed? What are the ingredients needed to sustain participatory processes?

My thesis culminates with a conclusion of my yearlong research and some suggestions for future directions of participatory radio and video.  It also offers some concluding remarks on the main hypothesis of my study – that participatory radio and video are not about doing something for the people but about the people doing something for themselves.

Participatory video has been utilized by many groups and communities all over the world for various reasons and purposes. Indigenous peoples, grass roots organizations, marginalized women, youth, children have turned to participatory video to shape how they are presented to others, to preserve indigenous knowledge and culture, to raise issues, to uncover abuses, to give visibility to disenfranchised people, to present alternative perspectives about our world – in short, to empower themselves. The common thread that can be found in all participatory video experiences around the globe is that more importance is placed upon the process itself than on the product.

THE GENESIS AND DEVELOPMENT OF PARTICIPATORY VIDEO

The historical roots of the development of participatory video can be traced to the Challenge for Change program initiated in 1967 by the National Film Board of Canada. Two people are credited for the pioneering work, namely Colin Low, who headed the Challenge for Change program, and Don Snowden, who was at that time the director of the Extension Department at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada.

Colin Low and Don Snowden began their experimental work in an island called Fogo. The island was chosen because “apart from material poverty, Fogo… suffered from what Snowden had termed the poverty of information and organization, 5000 people lived in 10 communities in relative isolation from each other, further divided by religious denomination.” The main aim of Low and Snowden was to give the people of Fogo island the opportunity to define themselves and voice out their collective social problems through film. But instead of using the inhabitants of Fogo as resources for the film, Low and Snowden utilized the camera as a tool for community participation and empowerment. And thus the Fogo Process was born.

Together Low and Snowden made more than 25 short films with the people of Fogo. A quick look at the titles will give one an idea as to the content and main message of each short film: Tom Best on co-operatives, thoughts on Fogo and Norway, the songs of Chris Cobb, some problems on Fogo, the McGraths at home and fishing, introduction to Fogo Island, fishermen’s meeting, Dan Roberts on fishing, Andrew Britt at Shoal Bay, the Mercer family, a memo from Fogo, Joe Kinsella on education, Jim Decker’s party, Jim Decker builds a longliner, founding of the Co-operatives, the Fogo Island Improvement Committee, discussion on welfare, the children of Fogo Island, Brian Earle on merchants and welfare, Billy Crane moves away, the winds of Fogo, William Wells talks about the island, when I go–that’s it!, a wedding and party, two cabinet ministers, a woman’s place, Fogo’s expatriates, citizen discussions, the story of the Up Top, and the merchant and the teacher.

Even if Colin Low was credited as director for all the films produced, the Fogo islanders themselves were involved in the different stages of the film production. They were taught how to use the camera, watched the raw footages, and gave feedbacks before the films were finalized. In short, the people of Fogo had control over the production and the final presentation of the films. The stories in the film were presented from the perspective of the islanders themselves. The positive effect of this process was that the people of Fogo were able to voice out their concerns to the decision makers in their government and eventually improved communications “both among island communities, and between the island and government”.

The innovations introduced by Don Snowden, Colin Low and the people of Fogo themselves that became the hallmark of the Fogo process are the following:

a. The process of filmmaking itself is more important than the films produced

b. Since the aims are participation and empowerment, the film should not only “be about the poor but by them as well”

c. The degree of community participation and empowerment have a direct effect on the kind and quality of films produced

d. Each context is unique and each member of the community is important

MAIN SOURCES

Stephen CROCKER, The Fogo process. Participatory communication in a globalizing world, in Shirley WHITE (Ed.), Participatory video. Images that transform and empower, London, Sage Publications, 2003.

McLaughlin Library, Audiovisual materials about Don Snowden and Fogo Island, in <<Don Snowden Program for Development Communication>> http://www2.uoguelph.ca/snowden/resources.htm.

>> Related to this post

>> TO BE CONTINUED

My research begins by exploring two opposites theories, namely the Top-Down and the Horizontal approaches to participatory communication and by defining key concepts in participatory communication (i.e., catalyst, collective action, community dialogue, empowerment, participation, process). The Top-Down Approach considers participation as a vertical one-way input from the knowledgeable (top) to the less-knowledgeable (down) while the Horizontal Model recognizes participation as a two-way mutual process by which people are agents of their own change.

I believe that my study is important because it is a relevant and useful contribution to the endeavor of facilitating dialogue and empowerment through participatory communication processes at the grassroots level and thereby transforming rhetoric into a reality. It is an unfortunate fact that even though the Top-Down approach is almost always rejected on conceptual ground it is still very much in practice. That is why the theme of my research paper centers on how participatory radio and video can be utilized to facilitate dialogue and empowerment.

My personal experiences in making a participatory documentary video with Filipino migrants in Italy and in doing participatory radio with them at the Vatican Radio will be widely used in this research. It is argued in this study that genuine dialogue can be facilitated through the process of coming together, decision-making, writing, producing, shooting, recording, editing, and broadcasting radio and video. And in turn, this dialogue will bring about the empowerment of the people involved in the participatory process.

I had a fast lunch today. That’s because I needed to be in school by 2pm. My classmate Stefano Bortolato (standing, wearing a roman collar) asked me to lend him a hand for his thesis defense. The main argument of his thesis centered on virtual networking community in the context of pastoral ministry.

My job was to say three words: convergenza, applicazioni, and ok, sono connesso. He explained to me what exactly he expected me to do. On his cue, I would stand and say those words one at a time, while pretending to be busy with my pocket pc.

His thesis defense was quite creative, not the lecture-type most students normally do. Aside from live “actors” like me and Sour Emanuela (the one in front of the computer) and Lucasz (with the cellphone), he had a multimedia presentation – complete with music, video clips, etc.

The professors and the other students present were well pleased.

The theme of my music video is “The Face of God”. The video is about God’s love but it does not show any conventional image of God, say a cross. It shows ordinary people doing everyday things – a mother taking care of her child, a young man goes out to buy pizza while on the street a beggar extends his empty hands, and two lovers having a spat and reconciling a bit later. Yet through the images of these generic folks, my music video shows that in a person who unconditionally loves another, in a person who forgives another, and in a person who does an act of charity, we discover the face of God.

My professors gave me compliments after watching the four-minute-and-a-half music video. Prof Tagliabue particularly noted the flashback part. He said he liked my use of the character’s eyes as the transitory image to his past. Since he had privileged access to all files in the university’s video studio, Prof Lever said that he had already watched my video a number of times. I felt that I had accomplished a job well done.

During the shooting for the music video entitled “Power of Your Love”. As director, I rehearsed Barbara for her lines and showed her the storyboard. Barbara was the main actress of the video.

Explaining to Barbara the path and movement of the camera to give her an idea how I wanted the shot to be choreographed.

Making sure the camera had the correct settings – exposure and aperture value, white balance, etc.

My most favorite moment – saying, “Action!”

A frame for the shot wherein Barbara lipsynchs “Lord, unveil my eyes”

The brilliant and influential but long and rather technical Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Logische-Philosophische Abhandlung) is the only book Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) published in his lifetime. In the preface he says that the value of his book consists in two things: “that in it thoughts are expressed” and that “this value will be the greater the better the thoughts are expressed.” And at the end of the book Wittgenstein says, “My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless.” The book deals with the problems of philosophy and endeavors to show that traditional philosophical problems can be avoided entirely by application of an appropriate methodology, one that focuses on analysis of language. But the fact that the author himself assesses his book as senseless makes it obviously clear that to understand the whole sense of Tractatus and the propositions contained in it is no easy matter.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.
As Wittgenstein himself writes, the whole sense of the book can be summed up in the words: “What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent.” The Tractatus consists of numbered propositions in seven sets. Proposition 1.2 belongs to the first set and is a comment on proposition 1. Proposition 1.21 is about proposition 1.2, and so on. The seventh set contains only one proposition, the famous line just quoted above. The main schematic structure of the Tractatus is as follows:

1. The world is everything that is the case.
2. What is the case, in fact, is the existence of atomic facts.
3. The logical picture of the facts is the thought.
4. The thought is the significant proposition.
5. Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions. (An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.)
6. The general form of truth-function is: [ , , N( )]. This is the general form of proposition.
7. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.

It is the conviction of Wittgenstein that language mirrors the world, and that things that are in the world are expressible through language. The world is a collection of facts, which are comprised of states of affairs or atomic facts . States of affairs can be reduced to a collection of objects. Language is also reduced in this fashion and each level of the structure of language matches a level of structure in the world. So, language can be reduced to a collection of propositions, which match facts in the world. These propositions can be broken down into elementary or atomic propositions, which correspond to states of affairs in the world.

The first proposition of the Tractatus states that “the world is everything that is the case.” As has already been mentioned above, on Wittgenstein’s view, the world consists entirely of facts. This means that the world is a representation of what is not incorrect: a representation of what is incorrect can always be clarified by replacing the incorrect elements with correct ones.
The second proposition states that “what is the case, in fact, is the existence of atomic facts.” Everything that is true—that is, all the facts that constitute the world—can in principle be expressed by atomic sentences. Imagine a comprehensive list of all the true sentences. They would picture all of the facts there are, and this would be an adequate representation of the world as a whole. In other words, the fact is a representation of what is not inappropriate: the fact with redundant elements can always be clarified by simplifying it.

The third proposition states that “the logical picture of the facts is the thought.” Human beings are aware of the facts by virtue of our mental representations or thoughts, which are most fruitfully understood as picturing the way things are. These thoughts are, in turn, expressed in propositions, whose form indicates the position of these facts within the nature of reality as a whole and whose content presents the truth-conditions under which they correspond to that reality. In short, the picture of a fact can always be clarified by reconstructing it logically: it cannot be illogical.

The fourth proposition states that “the thought is the significant proposition.” Wittgenstein asserts that reality is dependent on our use of language. This precisely means that the thought can always be clarified by its application to the appropriate representation of the true facts, giving it sense.

The fifth proposition states that “propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions.” According to Wittgenstein’s picture theory of meaning, it is the nature of elementary propositions logically to picture atomic facts or states of affairs. He claimed that the nature of language required elementary propositions, and his theory of meaning required that there be atomic facts pictured by the elementary propositions. On this analysis, only propositions that picture facts—the propositions of science—are considered cognitively meaningful. Metaphysical and ethical statements are not meaningful assertions.

The sixth proposition states that “the general form of truth-function is: [ , , N( )].” Since propositions merely express facts about the world, propositions in themselves are entirely devoid of value. The facts are just the facts. Everything else, everything about which we care, everything that might render the world meaningful, must reside elsewhere. According to Wittgenstein, a properly logical language deals only with what is true. Aesthetic judgments about what is beautiful and ethical judgments about what is good cannot even be expressed within the logical language, since they transcend what can be pictured in thought. They aren’t facts. Therefore, the proposition can always be clarified by reference to its general form as a logical representation of the appropriate elements: it is not correct alone.

The book concludes with a single statement: “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.” This shows that what can be represented at all can be represented clearly; and what cannot be represented is beyond the boundary of propositional language. In more simple terms, what Wittgenstein means is that there is simply nothing to be said about what cannot be said. It is essential, therefore, to say nothing except what can be said.

——————————–

It appears that the central claim of the Tractatus is that propositions are meaningful insofar as they picture states of affairs or matters of empirical fact. Anything normative, supernatural or metaphysical is to be considered nonsense. In other words, to talk of things that fall outside reality is to engage in meaningless discourse, because there is nothing for such thoughts to picture. That is why it is necessary to say nothing except what can be said.

To say nothing except what can be said
My general assessment of the Tractatus as a book is that it is very technical and requires great effort to understand. Wittgenstein’s arguments and conclusions are difficult to follow. He asks many questions an
d his views are complex and not easy to grasp. I find it ironic that he is attempting to understand and explain the functions of language by using a language so technical that it is only accessible by a few. I think the only way to understand what Wittgenstein tries to convey is to let go of some of our intuitions. We need to know and always bear in mind that the meaning of our thoughts and expressions do not exist independently of language. Only in this way can we appreciate and understand what Wittgenstein wants to elucidate to us.

What I appreciate very much about the Tractatus is that it is a sincere attempt at acquiring an understanding of how language functions. A good understanding of how language works is very important because I believe that before we can even begin to solve philosophical problems we need first to understand how we use language and how it relates to the world around us. Our main weakness, it seems, is that we fail to notice that we are always doing things with language.

What is the function of language? Wittgenstein defines reality as the totality of facts about the world. And for him, the function of language is to picture reality. Words only gain their meaning by naming objects in the world. I agree with Wittgenstein when he concluded that reality as we know it is dependent on our use of language. It is our language that shapes reality, not the other way around. We cannot represent the world to ourselves before acquiring language and we cannot mean anything without language. It is only by learning language are we able to understand and conceptualize the world in which we live and to make sense of our existence. I am totally in accordance with Wittgenstein when he said that the limits of our language are the limits of our mind. All we know is what we have words for. That is why if we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.

As has been stated in the first part of this paper, Wittgenstein maintains that a properly logical language deals only with what is true, with what is real. To speak of things outside of reality is to speak nonsense. That is why Wittgenstein himself said that philosophers are oftentimes engaged in nonsense talks – they attempt to solve problems that are not really problems and answer questions that are not questions at all. In Tractatus he says, “Most propositions and questions, that have been written about philosophical matters, are not false, but senseless. We cannot, therefore, answer questions of this kind at all, but only state their senselessness. Most questions and propositions of the philosophers result from the fact that we do not understand the logic of our language.”

Philosophers, I believe, should be self-critical. They must admit that sometimes their theories are nonsense. It is my opinion that one of the main tasks of philosophers is to present the logic of our language clearly. This will not solve important problems but it will show that some things that we take to be important problems are really not problems at all. Through it we will be able to focus only on things that really matter and are meaningful to our everyday existence. As Wittgenstein himself said: “The right method of philosophy would be this: To say nothing except what can be said” (proposition 6.53).

And I think that is the essential function and value of language – to make sense of our lives and of the world we live in. Without language, our lives and our world would be empty and meaningless. And as people who are always communicating with others, the least that we can do is to say nothing except what can be said.