Instituto Interamericano del Niño

The Inter-American Children’s Institute, funded by the ICBF (Colombian Institute for Family Welfare), produced a video on children’s right to freedom of thought and the expression of their own culture and language entitled “We wish to be heard”, as part of a series related to the promotion and dissemination of children’s rights as provided for in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

“We wish to be heard” is a music animation video that lasts one minute and 26 seconds, produced in Spanish (lyrics) on an original idea of Julio Rosenblatt, the Coordinator of the Inter-American Child and Family Information Program of the Inter-American Children’s Institute. The production was directed by Walter Tournier, the lyrics and music were created by Leonardo Croatto and it was performed by singer Eddy Peñalver.

Article 14 in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) provides that all signatory states “shall respect the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion” as well as “the rights and duties of the parents and, when applicable, legal guardians, to provide direction to the child in the exercise of his or her right in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child.”

To enjoy such right contributes to integral human development and besides being the primary responsibility of the family it also involves the State through its various agencies with an aim to provide for the necessary opportunities for its full exercise without any discrimination whatsoever.

The major purpose of recreational activities is promoting skills and providing tools to children that will enable them to approach culture and to take hold of a set of benchmarking values created through history. Thus, culture connects them with social collective values and enables them to comprehend their environment and be prepared for their life therein.

Culture is a complex phenomenon that not only involves art expressions. Each social group uses symbols in order to express their own features that are the outcome of their unique experience. To take hold of such elements is essential for children’s integral development.

Nevertheless, there is in daily culture a rather deeply rooted perception where play and recreation appear to be a waste of time, a “non productive” activity” with a sport-related or socio-cultural approach that can only be admitted at times of leisure.

Developing a culture of rights implies the challenge of setting new – and more equitable – forms of child-adult relations. Adults should face a core and conflicting aspect of such challenge when they seek for a way to provide children a true support without turning them increasingly dependent or hindering the development of their autonomy.

Child participation in art and culture (as provided for in article 31 in the CRC) should be voluntary and well informed, and should respond to the patterns, levels and pace corresponding to their capacities and interest. For such purpose, listening to children’s views with respect and creating the proper environment for their participation without discrimination is of paramount importance. The quality of child participating and their capacity to benefit from it are strongly influenced by labor forms that should strengthen their self-esteem and self-confidence[1].

The video “We wish to be heard” look for conveying the distinct contributions of children and adults. Children reach a place where an adult music band is playing a nice music. Children intend to participate but in principle they ignore how to do it. They need adult guidance, the transference of a concrete technique. By means of “making music” adults provide them the necessary tools “to become a part of”.

Once children acquire a new technique for the use of musical instruments they are able to enrich and modify it by using whatever elements reflect their own interest. Finally, children are transformed by the acquisition of a new knowledge but their environment has changed as well: adults feed back from free child participation and a joint new music band is created.

It should be noted that this is not an exclusively adult knowledge, as particular as the may be, but a collective knowledge. The universal music language and the specific rhythm of candombe pertain to the social collective context. The rhythm obtained with the stick on both sides of the drum is known as the “maidera”.

Candombe is a musical genre that originated in Uruguay and resulted from African rhythms performed by black slaves brought into the country in colonial times. The cultural baggage of these people from various ethnic origins gradually came together and merged into candombe as a celebration of the different “nations”, clandestine at the beginning and then in premises assigned to such purpose and called “tangós”.

At present, although candombe is played the whole year round, most bands formed by percussion players, dancers and typical characters focus in February, during the so-called “calling parade”. It is played with three drums: “Piano” (deep note), “Repique” (medium note) and “Chico” (high note). Piano leads the pace, it is the earth; Repique mostly improvises and Chico follows a fix pattern made up of a four-quarter time divided as follows: 1) a semi-quaver silence; 2) a strong open beat with the left hand, and 3 and 4) two stick beats with the right hand. [2]

Some general questions arising from the overall analysis of the video “We wish to be heard[3]”:

· How does the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion benefit them?

· What other rights related to freedom of thought, conscience and religion are children entitled to?

“We want to be heard” is aimed at all children from countries in the region. The idea is to generate a communication strategy that focuses on the importance of the right to Life.

This video seeks to tell children that this right is inherent to all human beings y and that the incidence of its full exercise on children’s integral development should be understood. A familiar communication and visual language –both entertaining and educational– is used as part of the strategy to reach the target audience.

We live in an increasingly media-oriented society in which the media (chiefly radio and television) reach everyone, even the most marginalized sectors of the population. The rational use of those tools is a good way to promote the rights of children in the region.

In order for this video to be able to reach its target audience, we suggest that “We wish to be heard” be mainly broadcast at times when children are able to watch it.

The Inter-American Children’s Institute (IIN) is a specialized organization of the OAS founded in 1927 in Montevideo, Uruguay.

The new 2005 – 2008 IIN Strategic Plan was approved on the occasion of the Extraordinary Meeting of the IIN Directing Council held in Brasilia in April 2005. Amongst other strategic objectives, this Plan includes the development of a communicational strategy that promotes a culture based on the Rights of children.

It is precisely in connection with these strategies that, for the last four years, the IIN has been promoting the development of short videos of approximately one minute in duration, on issues related to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. These videos are being shown on open-access and cable television channels all over Latin America.

The activity of the Inter-American Children’s Institute revolves around three substantial programs:

The Program for the Integral Promotion of Children’s Rights (PRODER), based on the development of a Prototype of Targeted Public Child Policies, is engaged in promoting actions and intervention projects to address the problems and needs of children in situations of vulnerability, risk and social exclusion.

PRODER has developed its Prototype of Targeted Public Policies to address the problems mentioned in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, specifically Article 23 (Disability), Article 32 (Child Labor), Article 33 (Drug Abuse) and Article 34 (Sexual Exploitation).

PIINFA’s main objective is the production and promotion of information systems aimed at persons and institutions working in the field of child affairs, in order to create pools of comprehensive information that will help change the living conditions of children in the Americas.

PIINFA’s projects provide targeted services to deal with the primary needs of institutions, decision-makers and planners working in the field of child and family affairs. This Program has also developed flexible tools for processing information, which generate data on the system itself, thus facilitating continuous evaluation, adjustment and change. All the projects are tailored to the specific needs of each country, avoiding the rigidity of information-technology solutions which would seek to provide a generic answer to wide-ranging, diverse realities.

- The updating, professionalization and computerization of the civil registries of the Region, to ensure that, among other rights, the right to identity is upheld and respected.

The Legal Program (PROJUR) provides OAS Member States with services such as training, information, monitoring, research and specialized technical assistance to reinforce and support national child protection systems in the hemisphere.

It also seeks to provide governing bodies on child affairs with key legal information, facilitate research, train system operators in areas that are important for institutional development and enforcement of rights, and provide direct technical assistance in the still-unfinished task of harmonizing national legislations with the principles of international law in the field.

WALTER TOURNIER – Director

Uruguay (1944)
Educated in Uruguay and Peru
Animator, Director of Animation

WALTER TOURNIER – Director

Uruguay (1944)
Educated in Uruguay and Peru
Animator, Director of Animation

FILMOGRAPHY:

AWARDS:

1978          Bilbao International Festival (Spain)
1979          Jean Vigo Prize (France)
1980          Prize awarded by the Peruvian Episcopate (Peru)
1981          CETUC Prizes (Peru)
1983          Prizes of the Association of Filmmakers of Peru
1980/84     Two Prizes at the International Latin American Film Festival (Havana, Cuba)
1990          SODRE Prize (Uruguay)
1990        Latin American Video Prize (Rosario, Argentina)
1990          Latin American Video Prize (Asunción, Paraguay)
1992          Prizes at the International Children’s Film Festival (Uruguay)
1992          Prize at the Latin American Film Festival (Caracas, Venezuela)
1992          Prize at the International Children’s Film Festival (Chicago, USA)
1992          Short Film Prize (Oberhaussen, Germany)
1998          UNESCO Prize, International Children's Film Festival (Uruguay)
1999          “Campana de Oro, a campaña mayor un minuto” (Uruguay)
2000          Golden Prize for Advertising Film Production (FIAP – Argentina)
2000          Best Short Film, Best Latin American Film, UNESCO Prize and Children's
                 Jury Prize for "EL Jefe y el Carpintero,” at DIVERCINE, International Film Festival for
                 Children and Youth (Uruguay)

LEONARDO IVÁN CROATTO

Composer, Performer, Sound Engineer

Born in Montevideo in 1959. Completed his studies in music in Argentina and Italy, at the University of Bologna in the Music Department of the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, receiving the degree of "Doctor of Arts, Music and Entertainment” in 1987.

He has been teaching at the University School of Music since 1989 and at the School of Communications, where he teaches "Music and Sound in Film and Television" since 1997. He was a collaborator for the magazine "Musica/Realtà" in Milan, Italy between 1984 and 1987, and a music critic for the weekly publications "Alternativa" and "Brecha" in Montevideo between 1988 and 1992.

Staged music for theatrical plays: "Varela, el reformador," "Los Grillos,” "La secreta obscenidad de cada día,” "Veinte años no es nada,” "Ah Machos,” “Raúl aprende a bordar,” "Peer Gynt" (music nominated for the Florencio Award 1991), "Rompiendo Códigos" ( Florencio Award 1994), "Paquete de mentiras.”

Music for audiovisual productions: ”Bañados, el secreto de las aguas,” ”Pantanal,” "India muerta,” “La quimera de la costa” (documentaries by Hilary Sandison, prod.); "Imágenes,” 1990-1996; "Color de Tristecías" and "Dudosa Pasión” (short films by Pablo Rodriguez, Producciones del tomate, 1990-1991).; "Amigo invisible,” from the series of short films of animation "Madre Tierra”; "Imágenes,” 1991; "Tierra Olvidada,” "Arrinconados,” “El camino de la madera,” “Gente en obra” (documentaries by Mario Jacob); "Imágenes,” 1991-1992; “Héctor” (in co-authorship with Rubén Olivera, Directed by José Pedro Charlo, 2000).

Other compositions: "Mina" and "L'immaginario erotico nell'arte,” background music for a fine arts exhibition in Bologna, Italy 1986-1987. Electro-acoustic works: "Digital number one for violin and tambourine" and "Digital number two for bandoneón shows,” Premiere at Núcleo Música Nueva, 1995-1996. "Entrelíneas,” for Marimba (1998), premiered in Buenos Aires by percussionist Ángel Frette.

Active in the popular music scene, performing as a guitarist and singer with different groupings in various cities of Europe, United States and Latin America from 1980 to 1987. Recorded two records, in Puerto Rico (1984) and in Italy (1985), published in Italy (1984 and 1985) and Peru (1987). Musical arranger and instrumentalist for Uruguayan recordings (Eduardo Darnauchans, Esteban Klisich, Mauricio Ubal, Washington Carrasco and Cristina Fernández, Antimurga BCG, Javier Cabrera and Julio Brum, Jorge Bonaldi, Laura Canoura, and Rubén Olivera).

In 1992 Leonardo Croatto and Carlos da Silveira founded a company ("Mambo/Sonus") to provide postproduction audio services for films and videos, as well as musical productions for advertisements. Since 1992 they have worked with large advertising agencies and firms in this medium.

Other musical productions by Mambo/Sonus include: "Distracción Fatal,” fiction directed by Mayda Moubayed; “El jefe y el carpintero,” from the Series ANIMATED TALES OF THE WORLD, directed by Walter Tournier, co-production of RAL (Latin American Network) with S4C-Wales, United Kingdom, and Discovery Kids, USA, 2000; “Yo Quiero”.
(“I Wish”), Rights of the Child campaign, animation, directed by W. Tournier and produced by RAL with the support of the Inter-American Children's Institute, 2000; “Porto Alegre – Una experiencia de autogestión,” documentary directed by Hilary Sandison, Uruguay-England co-production, 2001; series of micro-programs in animation: “Los Tatitos,” Artear-Color 9 co-production, Montevideo-Buenos Aires, 2001.

[1] Save the Children: “Child Participation Standards”.

[2] See http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candombe

[3] These lines of thought should be obviously adapted to the needs of specific children.

WALTER TOURNIER – Director

Uruguay (1944) Educated in Uruguay and Peru Animator, Director of Animation

WALTER TOURNIER – Director

Uruguay (1944) Educated in Uruguay and Peru Animator, Director of Animation

FILMOGRAPHY:

AWARDS:

LEONARDO IVÁN CROATTO

Composer, Performer, Sound Engineer

Uruguay (1944)
Educated in Uruguay and Peru
Animator, Director of Animation

Uruguay (1944)
Educated in Uruguay and Peru
Animator, Director of Animation