Puerto Rico Corporation for Public Broadcasting Communication Project

The Puerto Rico Corporation for Public Broadcasting carries out activities to promote the training and participation of communities in audiovisual media, as well as promote the use of the television and other media for education. The strategy aims to engage and empower traditionally underserved communities such as the homeless, drug users, sex workers and people living with HIV, by:

• developing skills for active ctizenship;
• building new forms of democracy;
• creating new access to media;
• stimulating critical thinking; and
• educating while entertaining.

Programmes include the following.

• Tu Universo Televisión (TUTV) - is a television channel of the Puerto Rico Corporation for Public Broadcasting dedicated to the development and broadcasting of educational and public interest content. A series of educational guides are available on the internet to promote the use of TUTV programming as an educational tool. Teachers can identify guides best suited to their curriculum, and print them for their use in the classroom.
• Ready to Learn - is a collaborative project with the U.S. Department of Education, through which Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and affiliated television stations transmit educational programming in order to promote early learning. Through this alliance, TUTV aims to integrate parents in the educational process of their children and to promote family dialogue. As part of this initiative, TUTV also offers training workshops to parents and educators on the use of the channel's educational programming to promote teaching and reading in the home and to emphasise the importance of a culture of peace.
• Special Communities Communication Project (PROCOM) - baseline studies and discussions within communities are undertaken to identify interests, needs and concerns. Based on these, lesson plans and schedules are discussed to plan training workshops in which people of all the ages acquire basic know-how on mass media and learn about how to develop radio productions, video, theatre, photography and printed materials to address their community's issues. The community training centre then becomes a media outlet producing original media and arts content.

Education

TUTV programming has received various awards including from the American Heart Association and nominations for the Emmy. As part of its focus on corporate social responsibility, TUTV created the programme Corporate Friends of TUTV to facilitate contributions from private and public companies that wish to support national educational television.