Human rights in close-up

Meaningful television . . . for a change.

Selected Best Issues Talk Show by the Alliance for Community Media, 2006 and 2004; first runner-up 2005 and 2007. Broadcasting live on the first Tuesday of every month since 1996.

El Chocó, Colombia
Resistance for Survival

A conversation and slide show with
Steve Cagan
Activist Photographer

Activist photographer Steve Cagan has been working for over five years on a project in El Chocó, Colombia. El Chocó is the northwestern-most department of Colombia, right on the border with Panama.  It’s an area of great natural beauty and incredible bio-diversity, and home to interesting and special river-centered Afro-Colombian (80-85% of the population) and indigenous (10%) cultures.

 The area has been isolated from and ignored by the rest of the country for a long time. This has allowed the local cultures to develop in peace. While people were certainly poor in financial terms, they were not miserable. While their reasonable demands for public services such as health and education were not met, they could still live well on the bounty of the rain forest.

This life and the whole area are under great threat, as Colombian and international economic interests are determined to eliminate the rain forest to develop large industrial agricultural and infrastructure projects. The Colombian civil war was brought to the area a dozen years ago to undermine the legal protections that the Afro and indigenous populations enjoyed.  Uncontrolled and unsustainable lumbering and gold mining advance at an increasing pace.

If nothing changes, the rain forest of El Chocó, with its important environmental treasures and the special cultures it shelters, will soon be gone, probably within a generation. The one hope is the potential of the local communities to organize and resist the pressures to abandon their homes.

Steve has been photographing the environment and the people of the area and working closely with the few organizations committed to defending the people of the region.  This month's Other Voices will feature the story of El Chocó, as seen through Steve's incredible photographs and narrative.

As always, you are an important part of the conversation. Come with your questions and comments and be a part of the studio audience. Watching from home or on the internet? Phone in with your questions: (650) 856-1491.

Visit Steve Cagan's website.

Tuesday, December 2, 7:00 p.m.
Community Media Center, 900 San Antonio Road, Palo Alto [map]
Free and open to the public ~ Wheelchair accessible

Simultaneous Live TV Broadcast on Cable Channel 27 - Mid-Peninsula Cable
Simultaneous Live Webcast at http://www.midpenmedia.org

Presented by
Peninsula Peace and Justice Center
www.PeaceandJustice.org

Rebroadcast throughout the month on Channel 27: Sundays, 12:00 noon; Tuesdays, 7:00 p.m.; Wednesdays, 2:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m.; Thursdays, 6:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.

Streaming video of the program will be available at www.peaceandjustice.org approximately three days after the initial broadcast. See all streaming videos available online.

Other Voices is broadcast on Mid-Peninsula Community Media cable TV Channel 27, available in Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, Stanford, Menlo Park, Atherton and nearby areas of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties. Tapes and DVDs are available. Visit our online store.

Peninsula Peace and Justice Center || 650.326.8837 || www.PeaceandJustice.org