- Storytelling Strategies for Immigrant Justice in the U.S. We've compiled examples of videos that illustrate responsible, community-centered and effective storytelling for immigrants' rights. Strategic storytelling can be an antidote to the dehumanization of migrants that stems from the racism and xenophobia embedded in U.S. federal policies, violent enforcement practices, and dominant discourses about immigrants.
- Youth Speak Truth: Reclaiming the story of Mike Brown, Jr. “He said he was going to change the world, he was going to shake the world and the whole world was going to know his name. And now they do.” – Triniya Walker, younger sister of Mike Brown, Jr. Today marks three years since Mike Brown, Jr., known affectionately to his family as “Mike Mike”, […]
- Video, Storytelling and Human Rights in Rwanda, 20 Years After the Genocide How video is being used increasingly in Rwanda to discuss human rights issues.
- Unlock Iran Invites You To Experience Life as an Iranian Political Prisoner Unlock Iran is a new innovative visual storytelling platform featuring the stories of Iranian “prisoners of rights,” or individuals who are detained for political, religious or other personal beliefs deemed a threat by the Iranian government.
- Telling the Story at the Heart of the News The beating heart of every news event is a story about people. Community video helps those affected to bring the issue to life. The result is accurate, authentic, and powerful—and here’s how to do it.
- Ethical Storysharing: My Words, Not My Story If your story isn't yours, what is? Ethical storysharing advocate Aspen Baker tells how her personal abortion story was used to fit someone else's narrative. What are our obligations as advocates, as filmmakers, as editors -- as storysharers?
- Oral History as Storytelling: Sharing the Fabric of American Life WITNESS and StoryCorps both recognize the value of personal stories in tackling larger issues. People are at the heart of each organization, anchoring the abstract in the human experience.
- Oral History and the Law: Boston College’s Woes At WITNESS, the importance of negotiating informed consent within human rights video is paramount. By helping interviewees recognize the reach that their testimony may have in today's digital age, both intended and unforeseen consequences quickly become part of the greater conversation. Education is the key.
- Anatomy of a Good Advocacy Video 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.
- Kony 2012: Juggling Advocacy, Audience and Agency When Using #Video4Change "Kony 2012" is now the most rapidly disseminated human rights video ever. In six days it reached an aggregate 100 million views – faster than other pop culture phenomena like Susan Boyle (9 days), Rebecca Black (45 days) and ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’ (445 days).
- Linking Women’s Personal Stories of Abuse to Policy Education in Nepal In commemoration of the global 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign, we are highlighting activists and organizations who are using the power of video in their campaigns to address gender-based violence through a series of guest posts. Read previous posts in this series.
- Training Series: The Primary Audiences for the Toolkit (and How We Identified Them) In preparing for the Video Advocacy Planning Toolkit that we’re building (see my last post for an overview), we did a ‘persona’ exercise to help us narrow the primary audiences that we envision as key users.
- What We’re Reading + Watching, July 1-7, 2010 We are prodigious readers and watchers here at WITNESS. And whether we gain access to material via email newsletters and bulletins, Twitter, RSS feeds, or blogs and websites - our staff and interns are also sharing links to these items, often via Twitter.
- New Collaboration with YouTube on The Power of Human Rights Video This is the first in an occasional blog series about human rights video. We are pleased to be collaborating with Steve Grove, Head of News & Politics at YouTube on the series. The original post, written by Sameer Padania (former Hub Manager at WITNESS) and Steve appeared on YouTube’s blog . As always, we welcome […]
