WACC project partners from across Latin America and the Caribbean aim to further knowledge of how a rights-based approach to communication can respond to urgent challenges like digital power concentration and Big Tech alignment with populism, when they gather on 19–22 March in Quito, Ecuador.

The 40 representatives of grassroots organizations are taking part in the 3rd Festival JUNTANZA for Communication from Our America, a major regional gathering of practitioners, community media organizations, universities, and civil society actors working in community, popular, and alternative communication.

WACC partners will join other Festival participants to share experiences, build networks, and develop proposals suited to the rapidly changing conditions of media, communication practice, and community development.

With its thematic axes of climate justice, digital justice, and educational communication, and gender justice as a cross-cutting theme, the event provides a fitting platform to take a closer look at the interconnected struggles that characterize the work of social justice-oriented communication today, according to Lorenzo Vargas, WACC director of programs.

“It offers a unique opportunity to strengthen the broader communication rights movement across the region in an era of eroding democratic values.”

He says that while dominant market-oriented models prioritize corporate profits and commodify information, the organizations gathering in Quito are united by a commitment to an alternative vision for communication – “a grassroots-first, people-centered approach that places the communication rights of the most vulnerable at the heart of their efforts.”

In this vision, communication must serve the public interest and contribute to sustainable development, rather than being captured by unaccountable private interests.

“WACC is facilitating spaces during the event for our partners to discuss how a rights-based approach to communication makes their work more impactful on issues ranging from advocacy for community media and meaningful internet access to women’s representation in the media,” Vargas notes.

The latter will be the subject of a special presentation on findings of the 2025 Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP).

The event is expected to produce a transnational network of grassroots organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean that will jointly promote communication rights and social justice, as well as a strategy document that will guide future advocacy efforts by WACC and its partners.

The Festival JUNTANZA is co-convened by CIESPAL, DW Akademie, WACC, ALER, AMARC-ALC, SIGNIS-ALC, Radialistas Apasionadas y Apasionados, and other leading regional organizations. WACC partners are participating in the context of WACC’s Communication for All Programme supported by Bread for the World-Germany.