Chile. The National Television Council of Chile and the Public Defender's Office of Argentina held a discussion on the educational impact of public media and platforms for children in the region, with experiences such as those of the Eureka channel in Colombia, Pakapaka in Argentina and CNTV infantil in Chile, in order to highlight the importance of this content on the child audience.
"We were indebted to our child audience. Now we are much more advanced, talking about the participation of children in educational television. But now we have to fight for the existence of public streaming. Because children are used to listening and watching what they want whenever they want," said Beth Carmona, director of the COMKIDS-Brazil Children's Content Festival.
In this line, the president of the National Television Council, Mauricio Muñoz, pointed out the importance of the role of the public in the production of this type of content, independent of the government of the day and highlighting the programming of CNTV Infantil.
"The public sector is irreplaceable in the production of children's content. It is important to be coordinated in the region in terms of public policies and to pool experiences," said Mauricio Muñoz.
One of the pioneering experiences in the region and highlighted in this conference is that of the Pakapaka children's educational signal in Argentina, which is currently discontinued.
"Quality and educational television in Latin America has a history, a powerful history and when experiences are put at risk, such as Pakapaka, a historical construction that has been fundamental in the learning of children is put at risk," said Cielo Salviolo, former director of the Argentine educational signal.
In relation to the experience in Chile in this area, the director of CNTV Infantil, Soledad Suit explained that "we have a cultural educational program financed with public resources. Programming available through different platforms, because that is where the new audiences are."
From Colombia, the director of the children's signal Eureka in Colombia, Marcela Benavides, referred to the value of these experiences. "The media and public platforms promote democracy," he said.
"The self-representation of children helps us to be able to stage a lot of themes that we have identified that interest them and that also surprise us. Boys and girls have turned out to be much more activist and concerned about global issues than previous generations," he stressed.
The webinar "Childhoods on screen: the educational impact of public media and platforms" was organized by the National Television Council in conjunction with the Public Defender's Office of Argentina and had as panelists Soledad Suit, director of the Department of Cultural and Educational Television of the CNTV; Cielo Salviolo, former director of Pakapaka Argentina; Marcela Benavides, director of Eureka Colombia; and Beth Carmona, director of the Com Kids Children's Content Festival, Brazil.
The full discussion is available on the YouTube channel of the Public Defender's Office of Argentina.
