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Video Advocacy Example: American Muslims Use Video to Help Shift Public Perception
With the online film and social media project “My Fellow American” - Americans are encouraged to pledge and spread awareness that Muslims are our fellow Americans. They have developed a productive and interactive way to engage society in identifying American Muslims in their communities and to discuss their important roles as part of the community.
Raja Althaibani
September 30, 2011
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WITNESS Launches an Online Toolkit to Create Effective Advocacy Videos
Are you using video to support your advocacy work, or are you thinking of using video? Fantastic. We are excited to share our newest training resource, which we think will help you - the Video Advocacy Planning Toolkit.
WITNESS
September 29, 2011
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Video Advocacy Example: New Yorkers for Marriage Equality
After celebrating the recent passage of New York’s Marriage Equality Bill, I wanted to revisit some of the video advocacy efforts that supported the campaign. This PSA, produced by Human Rights Campaign, featured statements from New York celebrities and civilians, and garnered over 1 million views on YouTube.
WITNESS
August 1, 2011
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Video Advocacy Example: ‘Yo Me Declaro’ Campaign for Human Rights Defenders
In the human rights world we often talk about HRDs or 'human rights defenders' - but this is more than just an an acronym or a piece of jargon. Human rights defenders of every type play a key role in protecting, promoting and upholding the human rights of all of us. And they're not just the people who work in NGOs like WITNESS or our partners.
Sam Gregory
July 28, 2011
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The Flip and Kodak Zi8 – A Good-bye To Our Favorite Pocket Camcorders
Last week we found out that the two pocket camcorders most used by WITNESS and our partners, the Flip and Kodak Zi8 (the Zi8), have been discontinued. First, blow-out sales prompted us to notice that the Zi8 is officially discontinued. Then, Cisco announced that the entire Flip company will be closed. As we say good-bye, here is a look back on how we used these successful products in our work, some alternative models we considered and the features we like and hope to see in future models.
Martin Tzanev
April 20, 2011
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Gender Justice Activists Integrate Video for Advocacy
As I’m writing from a buzzing room in Nairobi, Kenya, there are five groups of women’s rights activists editing interviews that they’ve conducted as part of a ten-day video advocacy training. Through WITNESS’ new partnership with Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice, this is the second comprehensive training that we’ve conducted (see a video report from our first training with a group from Northern Uganda) to support a push for an end to gender-based violence.
WITNESS
April 5, 2011
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Video Interview: How To Resist Forced Evictions in Venezuela
In this interview (one more from our World Social Forum 2011 series from Dakar), Elizabeth Santos of the Red Metropolitana de Inquilinos y Movimientos Sociales de Caracas (Network of Tenants and Social Movements in Metropolitan Caracas) talks about the different tactics allied networks have used to resist and fight forced evictions in Caracas, Venezuela.
Priscila Néri
February 14, 2011
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It Gets Better: Collective and Individual Voice in Video Advocacy
Recently a number of public figures in the USA have added their voices to the "It Gets Better" campaign, which aims to share hopeful messages with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth who may be wondering if life will always be bad.
Sam Gregory
November 8, 2010
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Video Advocacy at the World March of Women in Bukavu, DRC
Last week I traveled to Bukavu in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo where the third annual World March of Women is taking place now through Monday, October 18th. I had hoped to be able to share video from the march and a training I'm conducting here but Internet access and electricity has been sporadic, thus making video uploads impossible.
WITNESS
October 16, 2010
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Video Report on Reproductive Rights in the Philippines
The Center for Reproductive Rights released a powerful video to accompany its report Forsaken Lives: The Harmful Impact of the Philippine Criminal Abortion Ban.
WITNESS
August 3, 2010
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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.
WITNESS
August 3, 2010
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Training Series: WITNESS is Creating a Video Advocacy Planning Toolkit and We Want Your Input
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.
WITNESS
July 28, 2010
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Human Rights Discussed at the ICSR Peace and Security Summit
Earlier this month, I attended a summit held by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR). The Peace and Security Summit brought together a great number of policymakers, diplomats, senior officials and experts from across the globe to explore the issue of peace and security in contemporary society.
WITNESS
July 27, 2010
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What We’re Reading + Watching, July 8-16, 2010
In this round-up we're featuring more items to watch than read- a few examples of videos being used for change, satellite imagery being harnessed to identify tribal lands belonging to American Indians, some disturbing news from the International Criminal Court about the Thomas Lubanga trial, a link to video from our allies at Breakthrough and an article on gender justice.
Matisse Bustos Hawkes
July 16, 2010
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Protecting yourself, your subjects and your human rights videos on YouTube
Last week we started a blog series with YouTube, highlighting the role that online video is playing in human rights advocacy. And though activists around the world have shown how powerful YouTube can be as a tool to raise awareness of human rights violations, this kind of work opens up new risks, online and offline.
WITNESS
June 21, 2010