Journal International des Quartiers [International Neighbourhood Journal] - Latin America & Europe

JIQ works to provide local communities with the tools to communicate and access information about their experiences. Films are produced that centre on a particular theme (like "how did my neighbourhood obtain its cultural space?"). The films tend to focus on local projects addressing particular issues or problems, with an eye to exchanging concrete, useful information about project development and best practices. All citizens - including women, young people, and children - provide information in these films, which are not narrated by a journalist, about their neighborhoods, their needs, their lives. Creative thinking is encouraged throughout film development.

Film planning, production, and editing occurs in a centre that is established by each local partner. These partners include advocacy organisations, community media, women's groups, local musicians, streetchildren, and troubled teens. A technical expert from one of the partners, Vidéon, will provide advice about what kind of tool are needed for the endeavour. This person will also facilitate access to free software conducive to the project by introducing participants to The Free Multimedia Program Bank on the Internet. This guidance will allow the centre to edit images and sounds and translate the film into several languages. Participants from the communities will participate in this process. As part of the goal of resisting homogenisation, each centre will have its own logo and infrastructure.

Three tapes were tested with Webcam software, which allows people in different countries to see a film at the same time. A film by the humanitarian project Merosathi was shown to people in France and Nepal. A second film focussed on the efforts of Narrowcast to establish a digital camera system. A third film focussed on creating links between members of Handicap International in different parts of the world. These films, and those currently in development, are designed give people within and between countries a glimpse into the lives of those who are very different. For example, a student might be able to see what life is like for a worker in a textile factory. These images are meant to provide an alternative to the images presented in the commercial media, and to both highlight and address social, economic, and cultural differences.

It is hoped that the short films produced by JIQ - one per month - will be shown on community television stations, on the Internet, and on video projectors in public squares. The latter approach will involve an interactive process in which community members' reactions inform later versions of the video shown (and future videos that are produced). They will also be distributed to NGOs and grassroots organisations that focus on "the local".

Community media, local culture and identity, community participation.

Organisers were motivated by the belief that private, commercial mass media tend to advance the image that highly populated urban neighbourhoods are dangerous and full of people on the margins of society. At the very least, they say, "the neighbourhood" is not recognised as a social organisation that has the potential to resolve problems through mutual support and common knowledge. Inhabitants are rarely thought to have the right to speak, let alone to be proactive.

A search is underway to find worldwide participants working in the field of video communication for social change with a participatory approach. Partnership is sought among those in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In addition to contributors, financing is also being sought (in November, 2002, organisers presented JIQ to the European Commission).