The Film Panel Notetaker

Telling Their Own Stories: The Individual as Documentarian and The Impact of User-Generated Media

(Preceded by Screening of Jennifer Arnold’s A Small Act)

Envision: Addressing Global Issues Through Documentaries

A Joint Program of IFP and the United Nations’ Department of Public Information

TheTimesCenter

New York, NY

July 10, 2010

After a lunch break following the “Education Obstacles and Solutions in Africa – The Power of One” panel at Envision, a panel of representatives from human rights organizations with media programs that train and equip individuals around the world with cameras to document and tell stories about the issues affecting their lives and communities, was presented with clips shown from each of their respective video programs.

Moderator:

Dan Cogan, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Impact Partners

Panelists:

Ryan Schlief, Asia Program Manager, WITNESS:

WITNESS is an international human rights organization working with activists around the world to incorporate video technology into human rights campaigns through trainings. The most important benefit given at these trainings is looking at the process of putting together a film, how to make it truly participatory, and the importance of distribution of the film. Most likely these films are going to be screened by village elders or to the U.N., than at a film festival. Some of the films may be speaking specifically to as little as one to five people. It may find its way to the larger public audience, but it’s specifically for individual people who can make a decision we want to see on that human rights issue. The clip shown was from an activist in the Philippines that was trained in the program to engage individual young indigenous people about education rights in the country, and to use that to engage other young people whether they’re indigenous or not to participate in a broader campaign.

Mallika Dutt, Founder and Executive Director, Breakthrough:

On the front page of The New York Times that morning, there was an article a young Indian woman who persuaded her parents to let her go to college, where she fell in love with a young man from a different caste. She wanted to marry him against her parents’ wishes, and she was killed. Dutt shared this story to introduce the work she does with Breakthrough in India because while access to education is absolutely fundamental human rights issue, gender equality and other human rights issues intersect. Somehow there’s a thinking that if you have quality education that all human rights issues suddenly disappear, for woman, that is not really the reality that they face. In India, Breakthrough uses media arts and technology to transform hearts, minds, and actions. Its motto is that human rights starts with “you.” In order to do that, they’ve partnered with mass media and advertising agencies doing campaigns. One current campaign is having men and boys take a stand against domestic violence. They use music videos, video games and animation. They also work with young people in other parts of the world at the community level to transform them into rights advocates, a number of which are turning into rights reporters.

Jessica Mayberry, Founding Director, Video Volunteers:

Video Volunteers’ mission is to empower communities with a voice. Who produced the content is as important as what they are saying. They’ve created a network of about 150 community producers in India, men and women from slums and villages who work full-time making films on their issues. It’s education, but adult education. Journalism training is a valuable form of adult education. The first few years of their work was communities talking to each other, and screening their films on wide-screen projectors in their villages and having discussions about calls to action. They look at how many people are organizing rallies on the different issues. A few months ago, they started thinking how these community producers could start to create dialogues outside of their communities and speak to a global web audience. They launched a program called India Unheard, coming from more of a journalism or documentary angle.

John Kennedy, Executive Producer, World Without Walls:

World Without Walls did a project with CNN.com where people in Kenya brought cameras into their neighborhoods to see what was happening with the economy. They also just finished a 10-country series with the U.N. Millennium Campaign looking at people’s lives with such issues as education.

Karen Cirillo, Executive Producer, Children’s Broadcasting Initiatives, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) [Not present, but spoke during a pre-taped video]

Project: One Minutes Junior – In collaboration with The Arts Institution Foundation based in Amsterdam. Teaches young people (between 12-20 years old) how to use video to tell their stories through one-minute films conducted in five-day workshops done throughout the world. They learn basic camera work, story development skills, and editing. At the end of the workshop, the films are screened in a public venue. There are some kids who go on to make more films, to become journalists, and trainers for workshops. Some also become activists. Most important in gauging the success of the program is the actual hands-on work from these kids, which is about participation and empowerment. A lot of the countries they work in, the kids are not given a voice or a chance to speak up and say what they think. An example in a recent workshop in Uganda, the education system there is set up where teachers stand up and teach, but there’s never a space for students to ask questions, or the teachers to ask students questions. When they went to Uganda, it was hard to ask students questions, because no one really ever asked them what they thought before. When they dug down deep, they heard very interested personal stories and became more outgoing toward the end of the workshop.