What about WAWA

Since the beginnings of 2020 everything has happened! At WAWA Association there has not been time to stop. The challenges posed by the coronavirus confinement declared on March this year have created spaces to defy our creativity, our resilience and union as part of the audiovisual industry. We summarize below some of our most relevant activities.

Proactive women in ythe face of adversity is the name of the campaign developed by the WAWA Association during the last months to stimulate interaction and bring up ideas to build from different approaches. This is the backbone of virtual meetings and important alliances that have emerged in times filled with uncertainty to support us and grow as an organization.

Among these alliances, we point out the one with Lifetime, channel belonging to A&E Networks, whose scope imply the impetus of cooperation ideas in events, productions and dissemination of WAWA’s objectives across different platforms.

Vanessa Velásquez, management board member at WAWA, notes that this alliance is highly significant since, despite the present environment related to Covid 19, ambitious projects have been consolidated as well as ideas to be materialized in the coming months continue to develop.

As part of the campaign developed in alliance with Lifetime Juguemos igual en pantalla (Let’s have a level playing on screen), WAWA association launches its first short film competition dedicated to human rights and equality.

Carolina Restrepo, marketing manager at Lifetime Latin America, explains that the goal of this project is to “support women on and behind screen, highlight their achievements in the audiovisual industry, and more than pointing out inequality figures, we want to generate areas for talented women to share their ideas through short films whose theme is equality and human rights.”

The call will be open until 5^th October and is aimed at women throughout the audiovisual world and have an interest on diversity and inclusion issues, they must be legal residents in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Uruguay, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Mexico and Peru. You will find more information on the Lifetime page on the theme.

As part of the ideas Wawa Association has developed during confinement, there have been Open Mics and virtual masterclasses with renown personalities and specialists.

Mexican Singer Janette Chao and Peruvian fashion designer Malu Privat shared their resilience experience. Similarly, the financial experts María Coronado, manager of the cultural sector at Triodos Bank in Spain; Verónica Guerrero, financial manager at Star TV in Mexico, and Leonardo Bigott, general manager at Panamericana TV in Peru, offered financial proactive ideas for these times of uncertainty.

More recently, Catalina Porto, executive production manager at Caracol Television, and María Badillo, Vice-President for Casting, Talent and Strategy at NBC Telemundo Studios offered insights about new approaches regarding TV production.

With audiences surpassing 200 women connected from different countries, these meetings encourage connection and union.  In the words of Cecilia Gómez de la Torre, board manager at WAWA, this is what has been boosted along these difficult times. “We have united to build a team. It is not only about work, it is a passion to change our World, to become better, to support ourselves and find our purpose in life”.

Further activities will be programed over the coming months and will be announced on our website and social networks.

WAWA Association was present at the Conecta Fiction Reboot, with a series of virtual panels and meetings that, under the Conecta WO(MEN) brand, delivered contents to open a space of its own for women through the international audiovisual industry and to foster networking.

By doing so, some of our executives participated in different platforms: María Elena Useche, moderated the DIVERSITY CROSS-TALKS session, an interactive workshop with the participation of Cecilia Gómez de la Torre, Ana Cecilia Alvarado. Roxana Rotundo, María Bonaria Fois and Vanessa Velásquez, as panelists.

On the other hand, Roxana Rotundo and Vanessa Velásquez moderated the panel “Tips from audiovisual industry leading women” within the framework of the CONECTA-LIVE session and along with Ana Paola Suárez and Patricia Arpea.

Under the production of two of our executives, Carolina Cordero and María Eugenia Muci, comes Mujeres Extraordinarias, a documentary series dedicated to women that have had a positive impact on their communities and the World.

Inspiration, growth and empathy are three ingredients of this series that already has several chapters conducted by María Elena Useche with stories about anonymous heroines that daily aim to improve humankind. Some of them are Ayelen Gaikowski, lifeguard at Open Arms; And Ana Juarez, from Living Water Foundation, who in the first chapter talk about their lives committed to unconditional dedication to overcome adversity.

The release date and platforms are yet to be confirmed, it will also be shared through our social networks.