Tomorrow, May 10 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Bolivarian Hall in Washington, DC, the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela hosts a lecture by the Wayuu activist and filmmaker David Hernández Palmar entitled,

“Indigenous participation in the exercise of the right to communication, information and freedom of speech in Venezuela.”

Hernández Palmar is visiting the U.S. to share his experiences in creating media with a focus on indigenous communities.

In Venezuela, indigenous groups have been asserting and exercising their collective right to their own forms of communications and information through mass media and technologies like radio, television, internet, film, and newspapers, as a means to strengthen their claims and recognize their rights. The Bolivarian Hall opens its doors to showcase the community initiatives carried out in this area with the support of the Bolivarian government in order to amplify freedom of expression.

About David Hernández Palmar

David Hernández Palmar (Wayuu) is a photographer, filmmaker, community organizer and journalist. He has produced documentaries in Europe for Deutsche Welle and Canal Arte and has collaborated in documentaries on the Wayuu peoples, including “Dalia se va de Jepira” (2006). He has participated in the National Museum of the American Indians’ Native American Film + Video Festival twice, as a co-director of the documentary “Owners of the Water” and as a discussant in the roundtable “Mother Earth in Crisis.”

Hernández-Palmar has also worked on indigenous film programs in Venezuela and abroad. He holds a degree in journalism from the Universidad Rafael Belloso Chacín and a degree in photography from the Escuela Julio Vengoechea. He has been a guest researcher in the Anthropology Department of the University of Iowa, and is a member of the advisory boards of the Ethnographic Digital Laboratory of the University of Central Florida, the International Ethnobotanical Association, and PeruVine/PeruDigital. He currently lives in Maracaibo, where he works as an independent reporter for several publications, including the Wayuu journal “Wayuunaiki.”

What: Lecture on “Indigenous participation in the exercise of the right to communication, information and freedom of speech in Venezuela”
When: Thursday, May 10, from 6 to 8 p.m.
Where: Bolivarian Hall, 2443 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20008
RSVP: prensa@venezuela-us.org
Press Office – Venezuelan Embassy to the U.S. / May 9, 2012

Source: Press Office – Venezuelan Embassy to the US