Shine-A-Light

Kids are curious. It's one of their great virtues. Unfortunately, rote learning and the tedium of school often force this curiosity into dormancy, but it still lies just under the surface of any child or adolescent. Our Young Social Researchers project used the camera to help middle and high school students to see how the essence of learning is the desire to know.

Working in Usme, a refugee neighborhood south of Bogotá, we formed two groups of researchers and worked with them to think through what they wanted to learn and what they wanted to teach. Eleven teenagers, most of them refugees from the civil war, decided they wanted to create a documentary portrait of their neighborhood, The Faces of Usme, through interviews with people that represented the diversity of the neighborhood: a refugee from the civil war, an ex-child soldier, a grandmother who had lived in the neighborhood all her life, a night watchman, a peasant family, and young people affiliated with urban cultures. The result, a 40-minute long documentary, is perhaps the first formal study of this poor but vibrant community. This group, UsmeCultura, has now begun a second independent project, using film to document the history of Bogotá.

The second group included both refugees from the civil war and four ex- child soldiers. It was an experiment in living together and forgiveness, one that worked extraordinarily well, and that carried over into the theme the group wanted to research. They had seen that many people have strong prejudices about music, supposing that all young people who listen to rap or regguetón, for instance, are gang members, or that people that listen to Música Llanera are hicks. They created a series of short films on different musical styles, trying to address their own prejudices and at the same time, show other people how to think more clearly about music and society.

The films from both groups will be made available on the internet (at www.shinealight.org and at video.google.com) and on a limited distribution DVD for audiences and schools in Bogotá.

Films from UsmeCultura

Refugees in Usme (Taller de Vida and Shine a Light, Spanish, 2007)
Living together (Taller de Vida and Shine a Light, Spanish, 2007)
40 Years in Usme (Taller de Vida and Shine a Light, Spanish, 2007)
Between the country and the city (Taller de Vida and Shine a Light, Spanish, 2007)
Urban Cultures (Taller de Vida and Shine a Light, Spanish, 2007)

Films from Aclarando Pensamiento

La Champeta (Taller de Vida and Shine a Light, Spanish, 2007)
La Música Llanera (Taller de Vida and Shine a Light, Spanish, 2007)
El Reggaetón (Taller de Vida and Shine a Light, Spanish, 2007)
Vox Populi: what do you think of music? (Taller de Vida and Shine a Light, Spanish, 2007)
Rap (Taller de Vida and Shine a Light, Spanish, 2007)
Salsa (Taller de Vida and Shine a Light, Spanish, 2007)