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Side Event

FUTURA Channel: a platform for education and community outreach in Brazil

Organizer
Roberto Marinho Foundation

Date and Time
28 October 2010 16:30 - 18:0

Meeting
Tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 10)

Founded in 1997, as the first private TV channel in Brazil totally dedicated to education, FUTURA is committed to providing quality information and addressing the most challenging subjects in the agenda of the Brazilian society. Thus, a large portion of FUTURA’s programs aim at encouraging sustainable development and environmental conservation. FUTURA’s programs are based on four main pillars – community spirit, ethics in public and private relationships, entrepreneurship and pluralism – bringing different aspects of Brazilian environmental issues to light. In order to provide updated and consistent content about environment, FUTURA organizes forums with educational and research institutions, NGOs, communities, educators and environmentalists on a regular basis. The result of the permanent exchange of experiences results in a mix of innovative programs and educational activities that mobilize communities all over the country. Besides producing and broadcasting high-quality educational programs, FUTURA has a unique characteristic: The Community Outreach, a special FUTURA team that works directly with institutions such as schools, day care centers, NGOs and associations, with the objective of advising them on how to use the content provided by the channel for educational purposes. The experience in community mobilization provides feedback to the production and programming teams allowing content improvements and innovative approaches of educational series. By means of these two lines of work, FUTURA proposes and applies a personalized way of offering environmental education. SPECIAL PROJECTS – FUTURA Environment Suitcase and Biodiversity Projects At the CEPA Fair, we would like to present some of the Special Projects conducted by FUTURA and other Units of the Roberto Marinho Foundation, in partnership with a range of private and governmental institutions in Brazil. The first project is the FUTURA Environment Suitcase, which comprises a special collection, including a selection of the most recent and exciting programs of the channel as well as other audiovisual resources (short films, movies, documentaries, books), placing a high value on the stimulating potential of the audiovisual approach to the environment. Despite its definite thematic framework, the Suitcase is based on a broad concept of the environment, which is defined as a net of social relationships and the interdependence of all living beings on Earth. The Suitcases are distributed among regional leaders and facilitators of educational activities in different social institutions. The content of the FUTURA Suitcase also helps communities to produce their own content by creating communication and educational products that reflect their own perspective of sustainability. As a final product, Suitcase users complete a detailed database describing purposes, methodologies and results generated by the content specially selected for a specific theme in a certain community. Therefore, FUTURA has developed indicators to measure the real coverage of the material in the kit, its efficiency, limitations and potentialities, including feedback for new products. The Environment Unit of the Roberto Marinho Foundation in partnership with FUTURA Channel has developed a series of educational projects to assist teachers in their role of stimulating learning of the natural and cultural heritage existing in the Brazilian biomes. Conjugating environmental and musical activities, the ‘Tunes of the Brazilian Biomes’ (The Tune of the Atlantic Forest; the Tune of Pantanal; the Tune of the Amazon; the Tune of Caatinga; the Tune of Cerrado – the later in production) have reached over one million young students in several regions of Brazil. The project begins by putting together a large group of partners to produce the ‘Tune of the Biome Kit’: content specialists; educators, producers. Then, it creates a network of Education Secretariats to implement the content in the public educational system, which includes capacity building to teachers. The videos are broadcasted at FUTURA Channel and finally the implementation of the project by teachers is monitored and evaluated for the improvement of future series. In the side event and the CEPA Fair, we propose to share the methods that allow us to mainstream the discussions on biodiversity and sustainable development into the Brazilian educational system and in communities throughout the country.