Special Report LAST UPDATE August 8, 2010
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July 7, 2010 Vive TV – Documenting the Peace Boat experience
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Darwin Zerpa said his goal is to support the ALBA students and capture how their perspectives change through interactions with each other and Peace Boat participants.
A group of Venezuelan journalists joined the 69th Voyage to document the experiences of university students from seven countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean who travelled with Peace Boat for ten days on the ALBA Youth Cruise, a programme designed to promote solidarity amongst youth from Latin America and the Caribbean. The journalists are making a five-part documentary for the VIVE television network, to show what the students did and learnt during the trip. The nine students were onboard from La Guaira in Venezuela to Puerto Quetzal in Guatemala. They held numerous workshops to teach Peace Boat participants about life in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the challenges faced by young people and the positive social advances that the ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for Latin America) has made in the region.

Darwin Zerpa is the producer and presenter for VIVE TV, which is a public news broadcaster created after the failed coup attempt in 2002 to remove Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez from power. "It is very important for us to know what life is like on Peace Boat and hear the message that the organisation is carrying to other countries," he said. "There are many people onboard from all over the world and it is interesting to see what they think about Latin American culture." Mr Zerpa said that the region is often known for its cultural exports like salsa or tortillas, but interaction with the students provided a new dimension to the way in which Peace Boat participants view people from Latin America and the Caribbean.
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The VIVE TV crew learnt many new things from speaking to the wide range of people onboard Peace Boat. This included documenting the cultural exchanges between the ALBA students and the Hibakusha - survivors of the atomic bombing of Japan.

The students go to university in Venezuela under a scholarship provided through the Bolivarian Alliance for Latin America (ALBA), an agreement to develop trade and cultural ties between countries throughout the region. "These students are from different social environments and our goal is to support them in terms of what they are doing here on Peace Boat," Mr Zerpa said. VIVE TV is watched by about 40 percent of Venezuelans and has an especially strong following in agricultural and indigenous communities. "We show what the commercial channels aren't interested in showing," Mr Zerpa explained.

The VIVE TV team held a seminar onboard Peace Boat to describe their work and outline the function of state-run media in Venezuela. Mr Zerpa explained that VIVE TV is not burdened by the pressures of advertising and generating a profit, so many of its programmes are educational. This means that the network is able to focus on telling the stories of everyday Venezuelans, providing a different perspective of life throughout the country, and supporting independent production that comes from the local community. "These are not your typical commercial programmes which are filled with models and infotainment," Mr Zerpa said. He hopes that the experience of having ALBA students and VIVE TV representatives onboard Peace Boat teaches those on the 69th Voyage that Latin America is a diverse region full of distinct cultures. "We must show that there is a strong social movement from young people to build ties between our nations and show solidarity, not just as a financial group, but as an entire region."