¡Pacifista!

I’m applying for the Prize because it is a major opportunity for Pacifista and for me to amplify our message and our work, and impulse our efforts to continue creating the best innovation journalism and communication for social change, as no one does in Colombia or in Latin America. We firmly believe that in Pacifista we are advancing a behavioural changes’ agenda through call-to-action journalism. This is very relevant for the challenging Colombian context, in which violence, human rights abuses and a very heated and polarized political and social situation have been the norm for decades. We are pushing forward the youth, both rural and urban, towards a more aware, diverse and inclusive society, where all voices are heard. 

The support from Elevate will be used to fund our first digital activism and liquid journalism School for all young audiences, especially in the most vulnerable areas of Colombia. Also, the mentorship and connections, especially in areas such as social innovation, environmental issues and larger impact strategies will have an enormous effect in our missions and goals, for me personally as well as for my organization.

I am Juan Manuel Peña, Colombian, 40 years old. I would define myself as a skater and an experimental digital nomad, in between subcultures, journalism, digital mobilization, storytelling and the audiovisual world. I have always travelled along those all different languages. My purpose is to contribute to the transformation and renewal of the collective consciousness of the Colombian and Latin American youth.

I believe in the power of liquid journalism as a non-fixed, ever-changing discipline to tell stories and call the youth to mobilize for the reasons that matter. That’s what we have been trying to create in Pacifista! We are not only an independent media but a platform for content creation for peace, human rights and change in Colombia. We are an innocuous entity that can adapt to different realities and contexts and respond to it diversely.

My goal for the future is to help build a DIY-young, Latin American movement that would be able to understand the needs for the upcoming times and make a change to get back to a more nature-connected time, in which social struggles and communities are at its core I am convinced this is the only path to sustainability and to ensuring life.

¡PACIFISTA! is the world's first independent platform 100%-focused on reaching young audiences through issues of peace, gender, human rights, social impact and innovation and environment. It began as an independent media in 2014, with the aim of mobilizing citizens on causes such as the end of the armed conflict in Colombia, peacebuilding, environmental protection and gender equality.

Our content brings accurate information, practical tools for communication and ensures the audience's real approach to facts. We aim, thus, to achieve our young audience’s involvement in transformative causes by digital means as well as creative, peaceful and purposeful online-offline mobilizations.

For seven years we have been present in all regions of Colombia, carrying out initiatives with Afro-descendant, peasant, indigenous, young and demobilized people; as well as local and national authorities. Since its creation, ¡Pacifista! has become the young independent journalism platform in Colombia with the largest influence and engagement.

Our values:

Independence: We do not obey the interests of economic powers of any kind.

Information: Our work is always based on quality journalism.

Identity: Our audience knows who we are.

Innovation: We like experimentation; we are solution-oriented.

Impact: Our ultimate goal is not to inform, it is to transform.

Innovation for us is never standing still, never be satisfied and never feel that everything is already invented. In that sense, it is necessary for us to keep up with changes in the audience, changes in  media and political, social and cultural transformations, because we were born precisely during and for a moment of enormous changes in Colombia, the signing of 2016 peace agreement. Then, in 2020, during isolation, we reacted quickly by telling the ins and outs of the changing context in the confinement. Thus, we always want to be exploring. This exploration is focused, above all, on social change. We see change as a place of inspiration and we embrace change for innovation.

The reason for this is that for a few years we understood, and this is key in our path of innovation, that we do not only make journalism. We are a platform for creation of peace, human rights and social change content. We rely on multimedia, audiovisual production, art and capacity building with  social organizations, entrepreneurs and in alliances with private parties and international cooperation. We are an innocuous entity that can adapt to different realities and respond to it with various mechanisms.

We believe in diversity, and we strive for voices and representation from historically silenced areas. Our fundamental bet is the editorial decentralization with local allies and local ownership. This process has made us create content that provides an expression platform for excluded populations and minorities. For us, it’s a central strategy to do coverage outside the mainstream topics and sources, which includes looking for information where others don’t and try methods that others don’t. For instance, 1) our audiovisual content, that provides a platform for those whose voice is not heard anywhere else, and 2) our projects for communications’ capacity building for Afro-Colombian women leaders and guerrilla ex-combatants. 

We aim for inclusion, as the advancement of strategies and actions to overcome differentiated barriers to rights and opportunities’ access, based on people's different socio-economic conditions. To achieve this purpose, we create content that reaches all possibilities, all regions and is suitable for all distribution channels, as we understand that there is a large audience that struggles to access to a high-quality, stable internet connection as well as cognitive and social barriers. Thus, we spread our content and topics by our webpage, social media, newsletter, infographics, WhatsApp, subtitled content, among others.

In total numbers, when it comes to the engagement that our audience and public has with us, we serve: 

Instagram: 131.296 people (last 30 days)

Facebook: 604.776 people  (last 30 days)

Twitter: 3.881.586 people (last 28 days)

Webpage: 355.000 people

In a year, we aim to grow around 15% percent in total in each social media channel, which will be approximately:

Instagram: 150k people

Facebook: 695k people

Twitter: 4.46M people

Webpage: 408k people

Our three impact goals are:

• To democratize the access to free information, knowledge and independent, innovative journalism in all regions and social contexts for young audiences in Colombia

• To contribute to the empowerment of the rural and urban youth by providing them with tools and knowledge for doing journalism and communication for social change.

• To support the process of creating and strengthening local and regional citizen journalism and media networks for peace and social change

To achieve them we want to create and improve some of our main projects and initiatives that we have been dreaming of for a long time. On the one hand, we want to consolidate the Pacifista as a platform for youth empowerment by 1) expanding our audience and potential of reach of our contents, but also 2) by creating an e-learning platform that ensures the youth can also learn tools, techniques and methodologies to become citizen journalists and active communicators for change themselves.

On the other hand, we want to encourage the strengthening of Pacifista Films, our own audiovisual content producer, to make all people and audiences deeply engaged in our innovative, visually-sensitive way of understanding communication, one that encompasses journalism, artivism and social mobilization.

The main barriers and the strategies to overcome them are:

• Serious physical/psychological risk of doing journalism and human rights defense and social change in Colombia.

• Great connectivity, technological and social barriers that are faced by the youth, especially in rural and peripheral areas and contexts, to access to educational and learning opportunities.

• The very restricted access to independent media in rural/peripheral areas.

To overcome these barriers it's necessary to amplify our message to all regions. We are already doing it, making the conscious decision of expanding ourselves geographically, thematically and demographically. That is allowing us to provide a higher level of visibility to endangered communities. Also, that has meant to bring to young communities  tailor-made alternatives to strengthen their capacities to create citizen and communitarian journalism.

However, we cannot do this on our own, given our relatively small capacity and resources. To make these efforts continuous and sustained the support from the Elevate prize will be key, not only for the economical resources, but also for the link to experts in networking, methodology and power to inspire others. We aim to become the ultimate platform for the least represented young sectors of society, and Elevate multidimensional expertise would be essential.

There are large areas in Colombia in which the youth do not have or cannot access civic participation and initiatives for social change. In that sense, there are topics, content and areas that our audience can only approach to them by traditional, non-youth sensitive discourses, means or actors. 

Therefore, there is the need to bring Pacifista’s messages, know-how and ways of work to these silent areas. As Pacifista is already a well-known, nation-wide brand for some, mostly urban youth audience segments, we want to inspire even larger young audiences, especially those that don't have enough voice or representation, to themselves take action and build up themselves for doing independent communication for social change. 

Nevertheless, our expansion in themes, regions and audience is a long-run bet. Thus, we hope that this recognition and amplification of our work provided by Elevate will have a greater impact on the youth, so they can be inspired by us and autonomously create new and better local communication, innovation and mobilization platforms. We aim to collaborate in the best possible way we can to support the youth to find their voice and their own channels of communication. We aim to support a new generation of change-makers.

In regards to these values, some policies and actions have been put into practice gradually, both internally and externally. First of all, an almost equal number of women and men currently work in ¡Pacifista!, and this is not a mere coincidence but the result of a conscious process of understanding the needs and benefits of a workplace that reflects the actual society. Moreover, this parity is also present among strategic and executive levels. Therefore, area directors and the executive board are also equally represented in gender terms. We also include in here a gender payment parity policy.  Moreover,  a very specific and tailored-made protocol against gender-based violence in the work environment has been put in place in recent years. On the other hand, our content has become more sensitive to the issues of diverse and least included audiences and populations.

That being said, we are aware that it is key to strive for a work environment that reflects more comprehensively these values, in particular when it comes to diversity, and becomes a platform for all ranges of underrepresented voices, i.e., in terms of socio-economic status, race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation, age, urban and rural background.

Clearly, me and my team have a distinctive way to communicate with the youth and that’s our greatest asset. On my side, I’ve always belonged to the streets and to the urban youth subcultures. Even in my 40s, I have a great connection to the topics that truly matter for the young: gender equality, climate action, a more sustainable life.

At Pacifista, we address the youth in their language and create content and actions in line to their needs and interests. No other youth communication platform connects by means of a change-oriented social innovation lab, with innovative approaches and formats, especially audiovisual ones, widely recognised as groundbreaking. In that sense, we can account for 140 video pieces produced. Our audience truly acknowledges that also in smaller, peripheral regions.

Additionally, one of our fundamental bets is to editorially decentralize and expand our work with local allies and local ownership. As such, we’ve created information and content that provides an expression platform for least-represented and vulnerable groups LGBT community, human rights defenders, among others. An example: Afro-Colombian well-known young leader Leonard Rentería has participated in several of our initiatives. One of his appearances reached 20,3k retweets and 31,2k likes.

Pacifista initially started as Vice Media Colombia office’s project in 2016. However, in 2018, we made what has become our best decision: to depart from Vice and continue as a sole initiative on our own. We transformed from being a section inside a global media, into an independent communication platform for social innovation and change. Therefore, we moved from a consolidated brand to a small, on-the-making non-for-profit with a devoted fanbase and some major challenges to confront. First, to understand how to consolidate ourselves internally in technical, financial and team terms. Second, how to build a distinctive identity. Third, how to start growing autonomously without the support of a major media behind.

In these years we have been able not only to survive from this transformation, but to redesign and rebuild ourselves into a more conscious, and social change-oriented entity that addresses matters that are truly relevant for the youth. For doing so, we have allied with the best, meaning both local actors and international cooperation; we have built the right team, which has led us to understand the context correctly and find our own voice; and finally, we have understood the real needs and important issues for the audience.

Documentaries, television shows, or live speaking engagements we`ve been featured:

Media:

El Tiempo, Colombia

(https://www.eltiempo.com/bogota/periodista-denuncia-haber-sido-impactado-en-la-cabeza-por-lacrimogeno-586016)

Radiónica, Colombia

(https://www.radionica.rocks/analisis/medios-comunicacion-protesta-paro-espectador-cubrimiento-colombia)

 Noticias UNO, Colombia

Blu Radio, Colombia

 City TV, Colombia

 Presunto Podcast, Colombia

(https://open.spotify.com/episode/6jVRm5ae6CGuxKshE53ZC9?si=HDqEgqRST4q7RY69K4cVJg&dl_branch=1)

Universo Centro, Colombia

Unisabana Radio, Colombia

 Universidad del Rosario, Colombia

 Universidad Externado de Colombia, Colombia

 Universidad del Valle, Colombia

(https://m.facebook.com/Univall...)

 Sindicato Subdirectiva de Tabio, Colombia

 Streamers x Colombia, Colombia

(www.twitch.tv/StreamerxColombi...)

 Semana por La Paz (Armenia), Colombia

 DeJusticia, Colombia

(https://twitter.com/Dejusticia...)

 Premios GABO, Colombia

(https://premioggm.org/noticias...)

Distintas Latitudes, Latin America

(https://twitter.com/DLatitudes...)

SembraMedia, USA 

 Qué Junte, Puerto Rico

 France 24, France

 Verdens Gang, Noruega

 Awards:

National Journalism Award “Simón Bolívar” for best interview (2020) https://pacifista.tv/notas/nos-ganamos-un-premio-simon-bolivar-la-mejor-entrevista-en-texto-de-2020-fue-para-santiago-de-narvaez-y-su-charla-con-alfredo-molano/

 Gabo Journalism Award for “image” (2018)

https://premioggm.org/premio-g...

With the funding me and my team will create the best possible cost-effective budget scheme that will allow us to progress enormously in the above-mentioned goals.

First, the funding will provide us with a more experienced team, with stronger research and communication for change skills and larger opportunities to do better actions with a wider reach, both in terms of audience and thematically. That will lead us to amplify our message and ensure the access to free information in more regions and social contexts.

Second, the start of our own e-learning platform will become a reality with the creation of the site, the functionality and the initial offer of a five courses set of practical skills abilities in communication for change, media and artivism, among others. This will provide major steps for rural and urban youth empowerment.

Finally, the funding will also help us to expand ourselves geographically, by setting up correspondents in different regions and a specific work strategy for each region, and moreover, by involving deeper our audience when creating their own content and communication for change actions. This, in turn, will lead to the process of creating and strengthening local and regional citizen communication networks.

We belong to Liga contra el silencio, (League Against Silence), a Colombian independent media and freelance journalists alliance to investigate, research and produce stories and content about specifically silenced or censored areas of information due to political, economical and social reasons. In this alliance, we partner with around 15 other media and co-create and co-produce and publish investigative journalism pieces that have had an enormous reach in large audiences.

With Indepaz, local human rights NGO have worked together in initiatives towards the defense of life and integrity of human rights defenders and social leaders. Since 2019, together we share information, numbers, content and mutual databases.  

With the National Women’s Network we have partnered to acknowledge and award the work of young journalists that focus on gender issues in Colombia. In 2020, both organizations presented the National Journalism Awards in Women, Peace and Security.