Breaking the Silence (Romper el Silencio) Edutainment Initiative

The ultimate goal of the "Breaking the Silence" edutainment strategy is to:

• Strengthen democracy and the understanding of the power structures behind the war;
• Contribute to identifying the social norms and practices embedded in Colombia's society that have normalised decades of armed conflict;
• Promote critical historic thinking and empathetic perspectives; and
• Strengthen democratic processes based on equality, respect for diversity, anti-discriminatory rights, and coexistence based on respect for diversity.

To achieve this goal, the strategy that was developed by the Breaking the Silence team and its partners consisted of the following key features and components:

Formative Research (2019-2020):
The initiative is based on extensive formative research (see Related Summaries, below) with the findings used to develop a framework to guide working teams around: approaches, objectives, messages, audiences, branding, testing, and monitoring and evaluation (M&E). For more than 8 months and thanks to a partnership between Imaginario, Citurna Producciones, and the Universidad del Norte (and with resources from the European Union through Redprodepaz), the project conducted focus groups and interviews in 10 macro regions across the country to listen to the experiences, thoughts, and feelings of adolescents, young people, fathers, mothers, caregivers, and teachers around the Colombian conflict. The messages and content developed from the findings were validated by more than 20 experts from very diverse disciplines and, importantly, by the intended audiences at each stage of the production process.

Ongoing capacity building:
Breaking the Silence has been accompanied by leaders in entertainment-education (EE). Heartlines (South Africa), BBC Media Action (Great Britain), and Singizi (South Africa) have shared their knowledge, tools, and experiences with the Colombian team in 15 workshops (in 2021 and 2022), strengthening capacities in story creation, script writing, and M&E.

The knowledge and experience gathered in EE and Communication for Social and Behavioural Change was captured in the guide "The Transformative Power of Storytelling: An Edutainment Guide".

Multimedia:
Based on the findings of the research, it was decided that the central focus of the strategy would be an invitation to the country to "break the silence". Each component would then work to open spaces for dialogue and generate informed debate and critical historical thinking about truth, justice, reparation, and new strategies of non-violent conflict resolution. A multimedia strategy was therefore envisaged with narratives that flow through its different components in a synergistic and interconnected way.

Each component of the EE strategy is pre-tested to systematically and rigorously check how messages are being communicated and received by audiences. More than 90 people participated in the development of the multimedia strategy: communicators, political scientists, sociologists, historians, psychologists, educators, anthropologists, audiovisual producers, and other high-level professionals, including many young talents committed to the country and to the work of moving towards the non-repetition of the armed conflict and supporting the legacy of the Truth Commission.

The multimedia strategy consisted of the following components:

• Fictional adventure miniseries called "El Silencio" (The Silence): This series is the centrepiece of the strategy and consists of 7 x 45-minute episodes for TV and the web. In partnership with Deutsche Welle (DW) Akademie, the creative team was trained in the Edutainment methodology and developed the storyline and scripts. The story, the characters, the plots of each chapter, and, finally, the first version of the scripts of the series were constructed and tested with audiences, following the EE methodology.
  
  The series involves a group of teens in a small town who find a skeleton in a cave and a map to a mysterious treasure. The adventure that follows opens windows into the largely unknown world of armed conflict and deeply affected lives. The series is designed to promote tolerance and empathy with others and seeks to help others to understand the past, as well as the values and aspirations of the different actors in the conflict. It seeks to stimulate dialogue and debate and, in this way, help to break the silence within families and communities. The series was produced in 2022 and will be broadcast, distributed, and promoted from 2023 onwards.
• Video profiles (16 profiles and 16 monologues): These fictional shorts explore the thoughts and points of view of the characters in the series who are involved in the armed conflict in order to trigger reflection. From the landowner who collaborates with the paramilitary groups to the demobilised ex-guerrilla fighter, 16 fictional characters allow audiences to enter into their lives and listen to those that are considered to be "the opposite".
• Documentaries (3 documentaries of 25 minutes and 17 short films): The documentary series seeks to create an understanding of Colombian history, allowing audiences to get to know those who have fought this war and those who have suffered because of it. Through archival footage, animations, testimonies, and original interviews, the series seeks to unravel the origins of the conflict and its consequences, while also showing the paths taken to resolve it.
• Breaking the Silence Toolkit [PDF]: Created for the education community, this toolkit is structured around dialogues on conflict resolution, truth and historical understanding of the armed conflict, and justice and reparation for victims. It seeks to foster democratic dialogues, based on empathetic attitudes towards all people (see Related Summaries, below, for more information).
• Podcast (7 episodes): Throughout the 7-episode podcast, issues of the armed conflict in Colombia are addressed through the music that has emerged in different communities as forms of resistance and memory. Voices from different territories are woven together, allowing audiences to understand the capacity and potential of music as a vehicle to show the realities of the territories and to open spaces for dialogue around conflict and peace (see Related Summaries, below, for more information).
• Romper El Silencio website: All components of the project are being brought together in one online space. The website will also function as a meeting point for a community of practice of teachers, social organisations, youth collectives, and in general, people interested in working for the non-repetition of the armed conflict.
• Radio: To break the silence at the local level, radio talkshows and public service announcements (PSAs) encourage local dialogue and conversations.
• Knowledge management: This component of the project seeks to foster partnerships, consolidate networks, and share experiences and lessons learned in communication and social change. To meet this objective, the initiative is working with La Iniciativa de Comunicación, a network and knowledge portal that has been doing this work for more than 20 years throughout Latin America. The Communication Initiative has a portal with more than 35,000 summaries of information - materials, documents, publications, communication models, strategic thinking, and more - that nurtures close to 100,000 subscribers worldwide, of which close to 40,000 are in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Mobilisation:
The Breaking the Silence EE strategy relies on social mobilisation, which is facilitated by a network of alliances that have been established with institutions and communities to promote sustainability and local ownership. In particular, the mobilisation strategy seeks to focus on the school community and the implementation of the "Week to Break the Silence" approach. Teachers from all over the country are invited to a free training course to strengthen their skills in edutainment and in conducting dialogues in crisis contexts. With the participation of students, fellow teachers, and parents, the teachers are then encouraged to organise a "Week to Break the Silence" in their educational institutions, using the toolkit (mentioned above) and the multimedia products to design their own activities. It could be a film forum, a fair, a screening in a public space, a round table discussion, a testimony, a conference with a local expert, or a mural. The best designs for the "Week to Break the Silence" are selected for a public award, which can include resources to expand the mobilisation activities - either in the educational institution or beyond, such as in the municipality.

See the following for more information on the Breaking the Silence Strategy:

• Breaking the Silence Brochure (in Spanish) [PDF]
• Infographic in Spanish [PDF]
• Infographic in English [PDF]

Peacebuilding, Democracy and Reconciliation

The context and problem addressed by Breaking the Silence EE initiative:
The Breaking the Silence brochure describes Colombia as a country "where more than 9 million people are recognised as victims of an armed conflict; where more than 8 million were forced to flee their homes; where children and adolescents fought instead of going to school; where women's bodies were used as war territory; and where massacres of unspeakable cruelty shattered the hearts and lives of entire villages."

The history of armed conflict within Colombia dates back to the early 1960s, when the first revolutionary guerilla groups assembled in defiance of the state. Throughout the following decades, the rise of new insurgency and counterinsurgency militias escalated the violence. Over this time, the rural areas in Colombia experienced persistent and increasing acts of violence, sieges, torture, kidnappings, and massacres. After 60 years of conflict, what is left is an "incomprehensible trail of civilian victims and a humanitarian tragedy that is difficult to fully grasp."

A peace agreement signed in 2016 with the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrillas set in place a transitional justice system. However, as stated by Adelaida Trujillo, Director at Citurna and Imaginario, there is a huge challenge ahead: "We need a narrative to address and help overcome the trauma of war, to question social norms that have naturalised the use of violence, to embrace truth and trigger a national conversation which is fact-based, democratic and asks what happened? why? And how do we avoid repeating it?"

Vladimir Melo, historian and message guardian of Breaking the Silence, explains the effects of the long protracted war on society: "An anaesthetic effect on social sectors that haven’t been directly impacted by violence, who became numb to the pain of others; an effect that normalises violence so its exercise is accepted as 'natural'; a polarising effect: the public debate between punitive justice vs transitional justice as a way of addressing and resolving the armed conflict has triggered opposite perspectives, which are stigmatised by both sides. This is permeating all spheres of the social, political, and electoral agenda. All of these effects have produced a kind of 'social silence' regarding what happened during the armed conflict across large sections of Colombian society. To construct peace it is necessary to have a permanent dialogue about what happened. It is necessary to break the silence and reflect about the truth of the war."

Related Summaries:

• Investigación Formativa de la Estrategia de Eduentretenimiento Romper el Silencio (Formative Research on the Breaking the Silence E-Entertainment Strategy)
• Diseño de Contenido y Fortalecimiento de Capacidades de la Estrategia Romper el Silencio (Content Design and Capacity Building of the Breaking the Silence Strategy)
• Estrategia de Eduentretenimiento "Romper el Silencio"