News

Qualification course for youngsters promotes both acknowledgment and valuation of local culture

Tuesday March 24th, 2009

The 2^nd Course for the Formation of Young Agents on Video and Cultural Heritage shall be sponsored by Vale Registrar in March 2009. The course will be offered by AIC - Associação Imagem Comunitária (Communal Image Association), from March, 9^th through April, 3^rd and is directed at youngsters aged 16 to 24, residents of Ouro Preto and Mariana, who are already engaged in any kind of social mobilization within their own community. Based on this criterion, the team in charge of the course tried to select youngsters currently engaged by NGOs, cultural projects, associations, collectives and other groups which work on behalf of the population, thereby creating a network for exchange of experiences among the participants.

During the course, the attendants will learn how to use the audiovisual resource as a tool for registering and disclosing the local culture. Debates on themes covering historical, cultural and natural heritage shall be proposed as of the first meeting, aimed at awakening the attendants’ interest in the surrounding cultural assets as well as making them aware of the need to preserve these assets.

According to Ms. Áurea Carolina Freitas, one of the course’s teachers, the notion of heritage is carefully dealt with, aimed at getting as close as possible to the attendants’ reality. She believes that, since they live in historical cities, their imagination is surrounded by the heritage concept as an element forcefully present in both their lives and routine actions. Thus, the course aims at emphasizing how to appropriate and register these assets, whether they are material or symbolical, by means of audiovisual resources. Therefore, the proposed practical activities are directed at the production of video documentaries covering Ouro Preto and Mariana’s cultural wealth and diversity, represented by their own residents.

Following the end of the course, a closing meeting will take place aimed at awarding the certificates and DVDs containing the videos produced by the attendants. This will be a socialization moment for the participants while the videos are displayed and the reflection on the learning process experienced during the course is proposed.