PRIX JEUNESSE WATCHwords Winter 2010

This newsletter from the PRIX JEUNESSE Foundation describes the Foundation's Suitcase project, which is an offshoot of its bi-annual festival promoting quality in children's and youth television worldwide. The Suitcase models the spirit and creative atmosphere of the festival itself, and so aims to contribute to building awareness and understanding about quality children's programmes for TV and education professionals who could not come to Germany (where the 2010 festival was held).

Here are brief summaries of the contents:

1. Touring the World of Latin America's Children's TV, by Ellen Kleila - "My three-country Latin American swing - through Peru, Colombia and Chile - filled me with tons of impressions and a flood of information. As I arrived, I wondered what children's TV would be like in these three countries....My marathon started in Peru, where I found the children's programming landscape most confusing. There are 80 channels, but no TV programme magazine to guide you through this 'jungle'! As a result, critical selection is impossible and many people just leave the set switched on; this means children see many programmes intended for adults....Colombian children's TV still lacks a fixed slot; they, too, have a confusing 80-90 channel universe. Setting a children's hour is the next initiative for the Communications department of the Ministry of Culture....Quality in children's TV is a key topic right now, as Chilean television's switch to digital will create lots of new possibilities, maybe even for a specific children's channel..."
2. Television for Citizens of Tomorrow, by Uwe Reissig - "...By organizing this three-day conference, Goethe Institute Rome tried to confront pessimistic prognoses by considering television's positive, educational potential....Children's TV experts from the public broadcasters in The Netherlands, Italy and Germany agreed that youth television has to transmit positive values to comply with its mission. Entertaining aspects must be in the fore with the values transported along naturally. Further, children need to be seen as partners and not as passive viewers..."
3. EBS/Korea Workshop Makes Sweet Seoul Music!, by David Kleeman - "I suggested that, as we watched PRIX JEUNESSE Suitcase videos and talked about the growing importance of digital media, workshop participants should think constantly about South Korea's children. What kinds of content and formats would help balance their future roles in a global economy with their need to be students, citizens, friends and neighbours in a unique culture?....By the workshop's end, I felt that we'd created a new group of committed content creators, eager to develop new ideas and test them with Korean children..."
4. Ghana Broadcasting Corporation Celebrates Jubilee with PRIX JEUNESSE Suitcase, by Kirsten Schneid - "Ghana Broadcasting (GBC) is 75 years old! To celebrate..., GBC hosted the PRIX JEUNESSE Suitcase to inspire both professional TV makers and Ghanaian children..."
5. TV Professionals and Children Enjoy PRIX JEUNESSE Experiences in Argentina, by Aldana Duhalde - "...during the last winter holidays, hundreds of children experienced 'a new way of watching TV' through the Suitcase as part of the lll Semana de Arte para chicos....The activity is truly participatory: children can talk, ask questions and discuss the programmes during the screening, but the real debate begins afterward, with guessing games about the geographical origin of each story, new possible endings to the fictional stories, other alternatives for resolving conflicts, or just applause....As an essential part of the Suitcase experience, children are asked to leave their 'signature' by drawing their favourite image from all the scenes and characters encountered during the screenings. They take their creations home, along with a small printed guide of tips to see and judge TV..."
6. A Visit with Commitment, by Ricardo Casas - On August 6th, in the...Uruguayan city of Montevideo, many institutions and people interested in childhood and mass communication signed the 'Commitment for Training the Audience and Promoting Audiovisual Quality.'....To begin the process, Maya Götz held a workshop for producers at the Goethe Institute Montevideo, featuring studies on children's viewing behaviour and concrete examples, international and from Uruguay..."
7. The PRIX JEUNESSE Suitcase Visits Silicon Valley, by David Kleeman - "...At a Suitcase screening, the ideal audience is wide ranging in all respects, as it guarantees a variety of experience, perspective, expertise and opinion. That's just what we had at Santa Clara [California, United States], and it paid off in active discussions of over 20 programs and clips from PRIX JEUNESSE 2010..."
8. PRIX JEUNESSE Conflict Management Suitcase at Summer Camp in Jamaica, by Jacqueline Ann Huie - "...For three weeks in August, boys and girls ages 11-17 learned acting, simple animation and basic filmmaking techniques. They and younger children screened selections from the PRIX JEUNESSE Suitcase and the PRIX JEUNESSE Conflict Management Suitcase, and took field trips to the library and the TV studio at the Creative Production and Training Centre, Ltd. (CPTC)....'Operation X for Kids' and 'See Something, Say Something' empowered ...[the] groups to speak out on bullying and misbehaving....At the start of the workshop, the general consensus was that no one listens to children; after seeing the programmes, campers listed ways they could deal with a problem..."
9. PRIX JEUNESSE Suitcase Screening for the BBC Children's Leadership Group, by Alison Stewart - "On June 29, David Kleeman presented a Suitcase of 2010 PRIX JEUNESSE programme highlights at BBC Television Centre for the Children's Leadership Group - an audience of 30 Producers and Executives who specialise in creating multi-platform content for our young audience....These shows promoted much lively discussion..."
10. Pacific Islands Eager to Improve Children's Media, by Barbara Kolucki and Tomas Jensen - "...The August 16-20 workshop in Suva, Fiji, included a wide range of 60 people from Fiji, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, and Vanuatu...Workshop facilitator Barbara Kolucki took participants through the importance of holistic early child development, and what is age-appropriate for toddlers as well as older audiences. She shared guidelines for presenting sensitive topics of critical importance to UNICEF [the United Nations Children's Fund] and the Pacific families, such as HIV/AIDS, death/illness/grief, lifesaving hygiene practices (like hand washing), respect for diversity, and inclusion of and positive attitudes towards children and adults with disabilities. For each theme, participants studied films, books and other media, some of it produced at workshops similar to this one. Including young, deaf adults was pioneering....when these creative and resilient young people shared their life stories, taught a bit of sign language, and contributed their wisdom and ideas, it resulted in ideas for books, radio and television spots either about or naturally including disability..."
11. PRIX JEUNESSE Films Inspire Teachers at Kolkata 'Tools in Schools' Workshop, by Subha Das Mollick - "...A group of teachers enthusiastic about alternative approaches to learning, organized a unique workshop in Kolkata called 'Tools in Schools,' encouraging teachers to bring cinema into the classroom. Cinema can illustrate portions of a textbook, grab students' attention when a topic is boring or difficult, make the abstract tangible, and seep dry arguments with human emotion....Arguably, the most exciting part of the workshop was the group work. Participants were divided into five groups, by the subjects they teach; each group was to develop a lesson plan around a unique short film or clip. The workshop's final presentation was from the Life Skills group, based on the Mongolian PRIX JEUNESSE film 'Friend.' The group designed interesting activities to promote inclusion and how to change a difficult situation..."

For more information, contact:

PRIX JEUNESSE Foundation

Rundfunkplatz 1

c/o Bayerischer Rundfunk

D - 80335 Munich

Tel: 49 89 5900 2058

Fax: 49 89 59003053

info@prixjeunesse.de