Communication for social change

Influencing public opinion is a crucial element for social change. Broadcast and social media are vital, but communication is more than media.

It is a process of dialogue and exchange of diverse ideas, visions, realities and voices, which has the potential to connect people across distances and borders, create community, and promote a sense of belonging, beyond the individual act of reading, listening and viewing.

In the current context of extreme political polarization, we use different communications formats to build bridges, facilitate information and create narratives that support people in their personal and social lives, as well as in their lives as activists.

All of this contributes to creating favorable conditions for the social change we are seeking.

We are aware that terms such as “citizenship,” “equity,” “gender focus,” and even “human rights” are terms that can sound technical or legalistic and may even inhibit people –including activists themselves– from understanding and seeing the relevance of these concepts in daily life. That is why, in our communications products, we seek to define and “translate” complex ideas and analysis into simple, straightforward language to make it easier for people to form and express their own perspectives on issues that affect their lives.

DKY Digial is a digital media initiative that offers educational and entertaining content for urban 18-35 year olds throughout Central America. Through its audiovisual productions, DKY shares stories and realities, inviting viewers and listeners to reflect on issues relevant to their lives, such as sexual rights, sexual diversity, migration, and gender violence.

We develop reports, stories, and vignettes that are disseminated on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. As of 2023, we had reached more than 185,000 viewers and listeners, linking the power of narrative communication with interpersonal training processes for content creators, communicators and journalists in the region.

Miradas Moradas digital magazine

A digital magazine that contributes to the communication and exchange among activists of the women’s, feminist and LGBTIQ+ organizations and movements in Central America, with articles and stories that reflect and support their struggles.

Miradas Moradas shares the work of the many groups and organizations that Puntos is in contact with. It also has informative and analytical articles that facilitate groups’ own internal reflection and generate inter-group and inter-organizational dialogues

Magazine sections

• Women’s Faces: presents the lives of diverse women acting for the sustainability of their own and collective lives.
• Diverse: contains articles that inform, educate and raise awareness about diverse orientations and identities. It provides testimonies on discrimination and ways to support respect for their human rights. Visibilize the emancipating actions and strategies of the organizations.
• Central American: Includes analysis of specific problems in the region and ways in which they are manifested in each country.
• A tu salud: Includes analysis and information on integral health for empowerment, inviting to take actions for integral health: physical, sexual, mental, spiritual, providing practical tools.
• Together: Information on regional networks and their collective actions, achievements, agendas, challenges in articulation and how they have overcome them.
• Documentation: research, studies, books on women’s movements, women’s issues, feminist theorists.

The training program “My school, a safe place” for the prevention of sexual violence and suicide includes training for teachers and students to use the power of the spoken word through stories, narratives, fiction and dramatization to share experiences, generate learning and promote reflection as tools for empowerment.

Video: Hidden Power

Short film about sexual abuse in schools, produced by Puntos de Encuentro and high school students in Nicaragua, as part of a training process on storytelling. It was selected among the three best Nicaraguan films in 2021 at the ICARO International Film Festival in Central America

Hidden Power is available for open viewing at this link.

Theater: Little Red Riding Hood Story

A puppet theater play for prevention of childhood and adolescent sexual violence in schools and the roles of families in prevention, for children with hearing impairments.

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Children’s story: “Lili’s Knot”

Emphasizes the importance of recognizing suicidal ideation and talking about it, highlighting the power of social support systems to help in critical situations.

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Children’s Story: “Julian, the kitten who wanted to be a cook”

Contributes to children’s reflections on social gender roles.

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Children’s Story: “The river of gemstones”

Through this story, the emotions, feelings and experiences that children and their families have in their migratory processes are made visible; it highlights the appreciation that children have of their environment and social networks.

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