{"id":12205,"date":"2018-05-16t12:52:38","date_gmt":"2018-05-16t12:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dpetrov.2create.studio\/planet\/wordpress\/after-vice-series-staff-are-reimagining-kalu-yala\/"},"modified":"2018-05-16t12:52:38","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16t12:52:38","slug":"reimagining-kalu-yala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/reimagining-kalu-yala\/","title":{"rendered":"after vice series, staff are reimagining kalu yala"},"content":{"rendered":"

by colin boyle<\/strong><\/p>\n

while on track with the goal of becoming \u201cthe world\u2019s most sustainable town,\u201d kalu yala got hit by a four letter word that challenged their mission, while temporarily stymying respectability and enrollment at its educational institute. in the damp environment of a rainforest town, the four-letter word is not \u201crain,\u201d but a more-than-devastating factor that started with the wet season in fall 2016.<\/p>\n

\n
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the town square at kalu yala. (photos by colin boyle\/medill)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

this quartet of letters temporarily washed away much of the participation in this eco-community concept of real estate entrepreneur jimmy stice.<\/p>\n

the word is \u201cvice.\u201d its creation, \u201cjungletown<\/a>.\u201d “jungletown” is the product of filmmaker ondi timoner, a series filmed in fall 2016 featuring kalu yala through the dramatized stories of disgruntled interns at the remote, sustainable enclave in a hard-to-reach<\/a> valley of panama.<\/p>\n

once the \u201cdocu-series\u201d hit the internet in spring 2017, kalu yala was berated with some image-crushing accusations, many baseless in the eyes of staffers at kalu yala. articles and posts online began to circulate, calling kalu yala founder jimmy stice a \u201cconman\u201d and \u201ccontroversial\u201d and kalu yala \u201cneocolonialist\u201d and a \u201ccult\u201d on reddit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n
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kalu yala interns perform at their end of the semester \u201cjungle prom.\u201d <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

flash forward to spring 2018 and the enrollment is dramatically smaller. at an institute that would proudly host nearly 100 students, it was graced by only 17 young, new trainees this spring. but stice and the kalu yala staff see enrollment re-gaining traction for summer with an emphasis on student innovation.<\/p>\n

tara mclaughlin, president of kalu yala, describes “jungletown” as \u201ca great example of media gone wrong.\u201d mclaughlin, who grew up in central america and now works with the students and residents of the town, harped on the role of media in kalu yala\u2019s worldwide appearance.<\/p>\n

at the institute, there are more than a dozen programs offered to the interns to give them hands-on experiences while contributing to the progression of the town. programs include engineering, political science, media arts, biology, culinary arts, and many more.<\/p>\n

and this is where the media arts team comes into play \u2013\u2013 this creative group at kalu yala acknowledged the dangers of having an outdated website while facing the internet onslaught of trolls, bad press, and hurtful words. they are launching a dynamic revamp of their website with new material produced by interns and staff \u2013\u2013 a hard task to continuously conquer when relying on internet support powered by solar panels. ironically, vice contributed $60,000 for the creation of the panel array in the middle of the jungle during one of their filming sessions.<\/p>\n

in a struggle to properly inform their audience with relevant information, mclaughlin lauds the work of the interns working in the media arts department at kalu yala. \u201cthe media content that we\u2019re trying to put out there is solely to combat the negative crap that has come out of this ‘jungletown’ experience,\u201d mclaughlin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cso, we\u2019ve been trying to combat that through our own media campaign, that\u2019s why the media program this semester has been so amazing, that\u2019s why ruby got a standing ovation,\u201d mclaughlin noted.<\/p>\n

ruby foster is an intern who created this video<\/a> for kalu yala during her internship in spring 2018. <\/p>\n

\n
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kalu yala interns and medill students attend a presentation at the end of the spring semester. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

at the end of the 10-week internship program, students had the opportunity to present the deliverables from their student-led project in their time in panama.<\/p>\n

\u201cit\u2019s like super bowl week for me,\u201d stice said excitedly in passing, prior to the presentations. all of the hard work from every aspect, whether it be media, agricultural, work done at the distillery, educational efforts, etc., is put on display for the entire town to rouse excitement and forward progress as the semester ends.<\/p>\n

the media team had their own presentation the night before, screening their videos and photographs taken during their adventures in the jungle.<\/p>\n

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spring 2018 media lab director taylor epps stands in the town square. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

the media team was led by kalu yala media lab director taylor epps for spring 2018. the texas native was the first \u201ccompletely unaffiliated\u201d director for the media lab department in the town \u2013\u2013 she arrived at the town only a few weeks prior to the new students. she knew nothing about “jungletown” at this point.<\/p>\n

\u201cwhen i first came on, i realized very quickly that there were some people that immediately associated me with ‘jungletown,’\u201d epps said. \u201cbecause i was media, i had that \u2018media\u2019 target on my back and so that made people uncomfortable so i had to work a little harder for people to trust me.\u201d<\/p>\n

she discussed the role of their media in the environment, particularly about how to understand the dynamic between producing media while being conscious of the sustainability of the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cthat was the biggest part of our journey: how your voice is affecting your environment, knowing what that voice is, why people should be listening to it,\u201d epps added. \u201cyou have the product, but tell me more about how it affects the environment…what\u2019s the tangible outcome we\u2019re working toward.\u201d<\/p>\n

epps said that she did not want her students to go forward without being able to identify the tangibility of their outcomes, particularly their carbon footprint.<\/p>\n

jessica wiegandt is a junior at brevard college who came to kalu yala to satisfy her interest in outdoor journalism while in search of a media internship. at college, she is majoring in wilderness leadership and experiential education and english with an emphasis in journalism. during spring at kalu yala, wiegandt worked on stockpiling blog posts to promote an active blog even after the students complete their 10 weeks.<\/p>\n

a barrier the media interns dealt with was working around their environment, as the town is solar-powered and sometimes faces challenging weather, which is not easy for a team focused on electronic equipment. while at kalu yala, the question of sustainability plays a key role in the work done by interns and residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cwhen you\u2019re working with media, a lot of your stuff is just going online and so it\u2019s not really taking up a lot of space \u2013\u2013 it\u2019s not going to rot away back into the jungle,\u201d wiegandt noted. \u201cthe projects we\u2019ve done: is it sustainable? yeah, because it\u2019s going up on a blog to be shared and reshared… and as soon as it goes away it\u2019s just a megabit out in the internet.\u201d<\/p>\n

for a small town in a panamanian valley, the internet, and the trail it makes online play immense roles. the stories that come out of kalu yala have a widespread reach, as the staff has discovered in light of the release of \u201cjungletown.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cwe just had to admit the power of video,\u201d founder stice said. \u201cand second of all, third-party perspectives are worth a hell of a lot more than first-person perspectives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
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kalu yala founder jimmy stice speaks to medill students in the town square. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cand that\u2019s where, for me, the students are the secret sauce, because if ruby foster was being paid by jimmy stice to make a video about how kalu yala is, i would think the video is pretty much just propaganda,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

for stice, the work produced by the media team was not only impressive, but it also will help combat the internet trolls, while the town regains a credible voice online.<\/p>\n

\u201cvice pretty much invalidated me as a character \u2013\u2013 my voice has a lot less weight than it used to have, so i need people to speak for me and the best people who can speak for you are the ones who aren\u2019t on your payroll,\u201d stice said.<\/p>\n

the next steps for kalu yala are to utilize the student-produced work to create an understandable, actual portrayal of the eco-town with a mission online while drowning out the \u201ctrolls\u201d and bad press about the place through search engine optimization (seo).<\/p>\n

\u201cright now we are recovering. we got punched in the face by a monster 10 months ago \u2013 vice took a very direct shot at us,\u201d stice said. \u201ci have learned a lot about media and online and content value and seo and reputation offenses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

about the author: <\/strong>medill student colin boyle can be reached at colinbphoto@u.northwestern.edu<\/a> and on twitter: @colinbphoto<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

medill’s colin boyle covers how kalu yala staff and media interns coped with the hard-hitting docu-series while still working sustainably in a panamanian jungle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9417,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4907],"tags":[4039,4023,789,3797,3786,4026,2092,4042,4043],"storyfest_categories":[],"class_list":["post-12205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-economics","tag-colin-boyle","tag-jimmy-stice","tag-journalism","tag-jungletown","tag-kalu-yala","tag-medill","tag-panama","tag-san-miguel","tag-vice"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nafter vice series, staff are reimagining kalu yala - planet forward<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/reimagining-kalu-yala\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"after vice series, staff are reimagining kalu yala - 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