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Anatomy of a Good Advocacy Video

By M.J. Moneymaker | May 10th, 2012

At WITNESS, we rotate facilitators at our weekly staff meetings. If assigned as facilitator, the person is responsible for doing some research and sharing a current advocacy video of interest. My turn up, I screened the doGooder Nonprofit Video Award winner, “Protect Our Defenders.” The video addresses rape in the military.

Everyone seemed moved. It was obvious by their reaction why this video was a winner. So, I asked the room, “What moments in the video do you remember or stood out?” Answers: the statistics, the video included a male subject, the rape kit, the Congresswoman’s closing statement.

The Storytelling Arch of an Advocacy Video

Armed with this information, I revisited the 1:45-minute video. The WITNESS training materials collectively state that stories should have a beginning, middle and end (also see Aristotle’s Poetics).

Photo credit: http://ifp.12writing.com/2011/02/writing-conflict-freytags-pyramid-and.html

Using this information, I broke down the elements further, relating them to [...]

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Osama Bin Laden is Dead but the “War on Terror” Lives On

By Matisse Bustos Hawkes | May 3rd, 2012

This week marked the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. President Obama marked the event by making an unannounced trip to Afghanistan to sign a treaty with President Karzai establishing post-war relationship. And today, the United States Military Academy released select documents that were seized in the raid that killed Bin Laden and translated them into English.

The death of Osama Bin Laden was, at the very least, a symbolic victory in the “war on terror.” The title of the New York Times’ piece on the recovered documents was “Recovered Documents Show a Divided Al Qaeda.” The story seems to indicate that Al Qaeda is not as strong as when it attacked the United States on September 11, 2001.

But are we safer now than we were 10 years ago as a result of our policies and two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? And what [...]

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How To Film Protests: Video Tip Series for Activists at Occupy Wall Street, in Syria and Beyond

By Chris Michael | April 30th, 2012

The thousands of human rights-related videos being created and shared – from raw documentation of human rights violations in Syria to the Occupy protests and the range of police abuse and misconduct therein – illuminate the role that citizen video is playing to not only inform us but also to motivate us to take action.

Now more than ever we need to ensure that the footage that we capture as activists incorporates essential information like the exact date, time and location so it may best be used by the media, as evidence, and for advocacy.

Additionally, we need to pay special attention to the unique safety and security risks that we face as filmmakers and activists, as well as risks to those we capture in our footage. For example, in Syria we’ve seen the general practice of filming protesters from behind to ensure they are not identifiable when footage is [...]

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Never Again: WITNESS Speaks at White House Anti-Atrocities Panel

By Coco Chang | April 23rd, 2012

This morning, President Obama announced that he’s founding a top-level “Atrocities Prevention Board”—and the first action of the board will be to listen to a panel of experts on human rights violations, where Sam Gregory will be representing WITNESS.

The panel will be at 1pm EST, and you can watch it live.

Speaking at the Holocaust Museum this morning, President Obama described the failures and successes of interventions in atrocities, and outlined the form of the new board. Sanctions will be central in this plan, and he announced new sanctions against Syria and Iran. His message to war criminals was blunt: “We will not relent in bringing you to justice–be on notice.”

You’re invited to join in the conversation, via:

Live-streaming – Watch the broadcast of the panel on the White House Website at 1pm EST today Facebook – RSVP to the event and submit questions for the panelists Twitter [...]

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Take the Social Tech Census: A New Tool to Map the Best Digital Resources for Advocates

By Guest Blogger | April 18th, 2012

By Susannah Vila | A version of this post appeared on engine room’s blog

From the Arab Spring to Occupy, the events of 2011 highlighted the potential of new technologies for advocacy. But new tools are more likely to facilitate social impact if they’re used by people with the right training and support.

This isn’t happening as much as it could. Why? I think it’s because of a few big challenges facing the field of support for digital advocates. First, there’s a lack of information from the ground about what is actually needed. Second, trainers are too often flown in from thousands of miles away for a few days of workshopping with no incentive to remain in contact with the advocates they trained. Third, remote training resources (like guides) often sit on the web without reaching those who might be able to benefit from them.

From infographic on [...]

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Video For Change

Anatomy of a Good Advocacy Video

Osama Bin Laden is Dead but the “War on Terror” Lives On

Never Again: WITNESS Speaks at White House Anti-Atrocities Panel

Take the Social Tech Census: A New Tool to Map the Best Digital Resources for Advocates

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