Training Series: WITNESS is Creating a Video Advocacy Planning Toolkit and We Want Your Input

Hi.  Chris Michael here, the Video Advocacy Training Manager at WITNESS.  I’m excited to start off this training-related series of posts with an overview of what we’re up to with our new training initiatives.  All of the posts in this series will feature some behind the scenes work we’re doing – and we’re inviting you to collaborate with us by providing your feedback, suggestions and ideas to help us enhance our work.  (You can start by filling out this survey!)

If you’re new to WITNESS, we’re a 28 person organization that works internationally to train, equip and support human rights advocates to strategically use video.  We empower people to transform personal stories of abuse into powerful tools for justice, promoting public engagement and policy change.

In our 18-year history, WITNESS has enabled thousands of human rights organizations and defenders in over 70 countries to tell stories of human rights violations that would otherwise remain unseen and unheard. These stories are then used to create lasting change and end abuse.

To amplify and share WITNESS’ lessons learned, best practices and case studies, we are creating an interactive video advocacy planning toolkit that lies at the foundation of our partnerships and successful advocacy videos.  This post is sharing an overview of the Toolkit project and we invite you to help us make it an optimal resource (so please keep reading!).

Video Advocacy Planning Toolkit – Coming Winter 2010

Outside our core campaigns, WITNESS is shifting from a hands-on training model to a more scalable model, with an expanded focus on online training, training-of-trainers and knowledge sharing with peers.  This shift will allow WITNESS’ expertise and tools to reach a much broader audience.  The goal is to create and exchange tools and tactics with our allies and others participating in video for change to meet the needs of a fast-changing field (read more about our new training initiatives).

The Video Action Planning Toolkit is our first initiative.  Based on the VAP, the Toolkit will be a multi-lingual, interactive and open-source toolkit designed to help advocates develop a successful video advocacy strategy.  Designed for both online and offline use, we are working to ensure it reaches an even greater number and range of activists through a streamlined, customizable and self-directed learning experience.

The focus of the Toolkit is to support users, primarily human rights defenders, interested in creating advocacy videos.  The guide, which is a step-by-step series of questions, is broken down into two parts: Planning (from pre-production through evaluation) and interactive exercises.  For clarity, the Toolkit will not be a primary resource for production-related exercises (how to get good audio whilst filming, for example).  There are a host of great resources that we will point folks to (if you have suggestions, please add them in the comments).  Users will answer questions throughout the guide and upon completion, users will have an in-depth downloadable (it’ll be a PDF) VAP that they can share with colleagues, allies and funders.

Throughout the VAP, where appropriate, users will be able to add their own examples of video advocacy – videos they have worked on and want to share as well as ones they have seen or used in their advocacy work.  In addition to the VAP, users will be provided a host of additional resources and information via internal and external links, ranging from case studies and sample budgets, to tips on safety and security and resources to help plan and evaluate the impact of their video.

WITNESS Methodology

WITNESS’ core methodology is “video advocacy”, an approach we pioneered to use video as an integrated tool in human rights campaigns.  Our experience with our partners has proven that powerful images and stories have an unrivaled candid authority that can help prompt awareness and action when seen by the right people at the right time and place.

Video advocacy is about using visual media as a targeted tool that will engage people to create change.  Video isn’t a magic advocacy tool – it is optimally used together with other activities, such as press conferences, newsletters, brochures, lobbying (a focused effort to have government authorities or elected officials take some action that you want them to take), etc.

Videos made by WITNESS and our partners have told dozens of critical and untold human rights stories, and have galvanized grassroots communities, judges, activists, media, and decision-makers at local, national and international levels to action (see WITNESS case studies).

Snapshot:  5 Core Principles of Video Advocacy

1. Video for a specific purpose, not about something
2. Know your audience – whose eyes, not how many eyes, is what matters
3. Know the action you want your audience to take
4. Choose the best message and messengers to move your audience to action
5. Choose the right time and the right place to ensure your audience sees your video

“Hey Chris, What Does this Have to Do With Training?”

That’s an apt question, so let me elaborate.  For 18 years, WITNESS and our partners, allies and collaborators have been developing and enhancing a Video Advocacy Plan (VAP).  The VAP is the bedrock of our partnerships and video work – a comprehensive planning tool to help our partners and trainees plan and swiftly execute everything from the (often neglected) pre-production of a video through the distribution and impact evaluation.

It is a beast of a document – a 25-page questionnaire.  We haven’t promoted it too much without the benefit of contextual introductions – in a training, via a presentation, our in WITNESS’ book Video for Change, etc.  However, it remains the best video advocacy planning tool that we have, so it’s no surprise that when we went through a strategic planning process (read all about it),  we heard we should do more to make it available and useful to folks we cannot reach directly through our partnership work.

Please Join Us and Help Us Make the Toolkit a Great Resource

Though we have established an expertise in video advocacy and trainings, this is our first endeavor in e-learning and interactive training tools.  Fortunately, we are working with UX Interactive, a  developer partner to augment our gaps.  But, we do not want to develop this Toolkit in a vacuum! After all, it is intended to support many of you and the human rights activists that we all want to support.

So, here are five ways we invite you to get involved

• You can start by filling out this survey!
• Share – help spread the word by sharing this post on Twitter, Facebook, etc. to help us spread the world about this new initiative;
• Volunteer – join the early-early user testing and give feedback on content, case studies and the flow of the Toolkit;
• Translate – we always are looking for experienced translators to help translate all of our training materials; and
• Ask – please add your questions and ideas below in the comments field, which I’ll incorporate in the next posts – the next one addresses the primary audiences for the Toolkit.