AMPB organized in September 2016 training for communicators of its grassroots organizations, as well as COICA communicators in the use of social networks, taking advantage of the expertise of PURPOSE in the subject. Weaving Ties participated in this event, not only through the presence of Michel Laforge, but also funding the assistance of two COICA communicators.
In this workshop, we insisted on the design of a campaign, starting with focusing on the objective, in order to define the rest. The idea of PURPOSE is to create a network of communicators of AMPB and COICA grassroots organizations that can serve as «repeaters» for the dissemination of information on the activities that each of these organizations execute, using social media as a tool to amplify the news.
For José Martínez, PURPOSE leader , all these social media are only tools; he insisted on the fact that these tools are useless if they do not have a clear political purpose, and that each tool has its particular use; as it is said in Spanish: «when you have a hammer, everything looks like nails».
In any case, there seems to be a gap between the political leadership (of organizations like AMPB ) and the communicators. AMPB has some leaders and political visionaries, who are able to see the big messages (such as the «Global Canoe»), but the day-to-day tasks of communication seem to be seen by them as a complex problem that must be delegated to the specialists, who lack the political vision. This may mean a field of work for Weaving Ties.