On November 15, the project "Alliances for Water and Sanitation Management", promoted by important institutions including Prometa, organized a webinar entitled "The water crisis and its approach from the journalistic point of view".
The main speakers at the meeting were award-winning environmental journalists Roberto Navia and Mirna Echave, who emphasized the role of journalism in this type of issues, which, despite the political conflicts, are also fundamental.
In this way, both thanked for the invitation, and emphasized that as journalists it is essential to ensure that these environmental issues enter the public agenda, to guarantee that people fulfill their rights, to be constantly informed, but they also stressed the importance of telling these problems through a human narrative.
In addition to this, the experts pointed out the importance of wearing the shoes, being in the places, investigating and showing these realities through the different channels that technology offers us today.
Prometa's executive director, Rodrigo Ayala, thanked the speakers for their participation and highlighted two important phrases expressed by the experts: "Go out and investigate" and "tell the stories behind these problems". It is only through these two keys that journalism will be able to echo environmental issues.
Invited exhibitors
Mirna Echave, born in La Paz, began her approach to the media 30 years ago, in a radio station in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she started reading texts and later became part of the production team of a weekly program, until she decided to return to Bolivia.
She studied Social Communication at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA) and was part of different media outlets such as TV Universitaria, Católica TV, was a proofreader at the newspaper La Razón, was part of the team that founded the newspaper Extra, was a writer, editor and Head of Press at the newspaper La Prensa and is currently editor of the digital magazine Inmediaciones (Inmediaciones.org).
During his career he received different recognitions and won several mentions and awards in environmental issues. He won the national prize of Conservation International with the report "El Zambullidor en peligro", a report that won second place in the Latin American contest. He also won second place in the award of the same institution, in 2021, with his work: "Forest Fires: the war we lose every day".
Roberto Navia Gabriel is director and founder of Nómadas Magazine. He is a writer, screenwriter, investigative journalist, editor, consultant and producer of documentaries. He has traveled Latin America and Europe for more than 20 years in search of stories to turn them into chronicles, books, reports, scripts and documentaries, with which he has won the most honorable international awards: twice winner of the King of Spain International Journalism Award (2018 and 2014), Ortega y Gasset International Journalism Award 2007, twice winner of the International Conservation Award, among others, and was nominated for the Goya Awards 2018, for the documentary Tribes of the Inquisition.
Author of several books such as Pecado original, historias desde el Purgatorio; Co-author of the unauthorized biography of former Bolivian President Evo Morales, titled Un tal Evo, among others.
Fair promoters
The activity was promoted by the project Alliances for Water and Sanitation Management, which is made up of important institutions such as the Departmental Government of Tarija, the Autonomous University Juan Misael Saracho (Uajms), Fundecor and the NGO Environmental Protection Tarija (Prometa).
Moreover, the initiative was also carried out with the support of the Universidad Católica Boliviana (UCB) Tarija.