Legacy · Videos · 2015–2016
Diálogo Ciudadano: when young people take the floor
Between 2015 and 2016, Puntos de Encuentro accompanied young Nicaraguans in debating citizenship, the rule of law, environment, employment and participation. These videos are part of that conversation: short, direct and made with young people themselves.
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Diálogo Ciudadano
In Spanish.
The context
91 dialogues, more than 2,250 young people
The Citizen Dialogues program, launched in 2015 by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) with Puntos de Encuentro —leading the women's rights track—, Cáritas and the Nicaraguan Development Institute, held 91 dialogues with more than 2,250 young people across the country. Three out of four participants reported continuing the conversation with family and peers.
The videos preserved on this channel show the agenda young people themselves put on the table: water, waste and recycling, jobs, migration, violence and what they would do if they governed.
Method
Why short videos made by young people themselves
Diálogo Ciudadano put into practice one of Puntos de Encuentro's working principles: involve audiences in creating the content. The topics were not set by a scriptwriter but by the youth groups that took part in the dialogues: the polluted water in their community, waste, unemployment, migration, violence and what they would do if they governed. The Puntos team supported the recording and editing so that each piece was short, direct and able to circulate on phones and social networks, where the youth conversation already was in 2015.
The format left two lessons that still hold. First, participation cannot be decreed: it is built by handing over the camera and the floor. Second, a two-minute video made in one's own voice generates more conversation at home and among peers —three out of four participants kept it going— than a polished but borrowed message.
That experience feeds today's Central American Network of Young Communicators, which trains young people from the five countries to produce their own content, and GenGen, which supports organizations in opening real decision-making spaces for young people.
From the channel
What they said
The channel's most-watched video.
35 videos produced between 2015 and 2016.
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Youth participation is still at the center
Today that work continues through GenGen and the Central American Network of Young Communicators.
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