Who are we?
Our Mission:
COMPPA, or Popular Communicators for Autonomy, is a non-profit organization working in Latin America to support community empowerment through popular communications. Our grassroots initiative seeks to build and strengthen the information capacity of peoples of diverse Latin American popular, indigenous and peasant organizations that are involved in struggles for autonomy, social and economic justice, and dignity in the face of mainstream censorship of their historical struggles. By training popular communicators and building communication infrastructure, particularly community radio, indigenous communities and organizations are actively exercising their communication rights, challenging corporate dominated media with alternative grassroots information.
Context:
In Latin America, popular, indigenous, and campesino organizations are met with rampant political repression and are increasingly marginalized from society. They have begun to identify a need to include media as an important component of their overall strategies within the struggle for social change, placing people and the environment before corporate profit.
Recognizing access to communication and media as a basic human right and appropriating the tools necessary to create autonomous communications and media is fundamental for organizing towards real and lasting social change. We believe in the construction of a society that respects and guarantees access to media and communication in a just and equal environment. To achieve this, it is vital that communities control their own media to advance their interests and needs.
Objectives:
- Promote and exercise the right to communication on the part of indigenous and popular organizations through the use of
communication and media tools. - Promote a space of mutual support and solidarity between participating organizations.
- Disseminate the struggles of the organizations we are working with, breaking media censure that defends the interests of the powerful.
- Bridge the digital divide to ensure organizations from poor countries access to appropriate technology for their communication needs.
