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Summary: A talk on using video for change was held by WITNESS today at the London School of Economics to accompany a handbook recently launched for using social justice video.
Sam Gregory, Programme Manager for WITNESS, used video excerpts to illustrate the lessons WITNESS has learned from developing advocacy plans built around visual evidence, testimony and stories, and using video to target domestic and international institutions including governments and decision makers, UN and regional commissions, the media, and an internet-based global public. He talked about the importance of using video hand-in-hand with other advocacy tools, such as research, litigation and monitoring. While video has a strong emotional and visceral power, it might not have the weight of written documentation. He stressed the importance of three main factors for using video as an effective advocacy tool: identifying target audiences, setting specific objectives, and developing a strategic plan for production and distribution to ensure the video has impact as a specific tactic within a broader advocacy strategy. The first video, A Duty to Protect: Child Soldiers in the Congo, explored the conflict from the perspective of child soldiers. Over 10,000 children have been recruited and used as child soldiers in the DRC since 1996. The video called for the demobilisation of child soldiers and for the International Criminal Court to end impunity for those who recruit and use children in armed conflict. The timing of the video’s release was crucial to its impact. Presented to the Assembly of State Parties in the Hague in November 2005, it contributed to the arrest of rebel leader Thomas Lubanga in March 2006, who became the first person in history to be charged by the ICC with recruiting and using child soldiers in conflict. The second video screened, System Failure, produced in cooperation with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in California, exposed the conditions of the California Youth Authority (CYA) correctional facility. The centre held young offenders between 12 and 25-years-old in ‘lock-down units’, where they were kept in isolation for days and suffered routine physical and sexual abuse by staff. The video made a moral and financial case: whereas the CYA system costs 80,000 dollars per year per person, the Division of Youth Services (DYS) system in Missouri, which is more community-based, costs 45,000 dollars per year per person. Research found that young offenders held in CYA units were six times more likely to be re-arrested than those held in the DYS system. The video targeted probation officers, attorneys and legislators in California. Again, the timing of the video’s release was critical to its success: it was presented to legislators in the lead-up to a review of the Young Offenders’ Bill. The unit has had no new admissions since this time. The final video shown, Internally Displaced People in Karen State, which was produced by Burma Peace Way Foundation (Burma Issues), with tactical support from WITNESS, documents the fear of a small community of internally displaced people on the Thai-Burmese border who have been terrorised by the Burmese army. Over the past decade, Burma's dictator Than Shwe has used military force, human rights abuses, and the burning of villages in a brutal anti-insurgency campaign that has left millions of Burmese people homeless in the country's jungles. Child mortality and malnutrition rates in eastern Burma are now comparable to those among internally displaced person in the horn of Africa. This situation has created over 700,000 refugees, displacement of over a million people internally. The video aims to engage international solidarity groups to lobby the UN Security Council put Burma back on its agenda and pass a binding resolution. A total of 28 non-binding UN General Assembly and UN Commission on Human Rights resolutions have been passed on Burma to date, all of which the current regime has chosen to ignore. More information The handbook is available to download on the WITNESS website For more information, contact:
WITNESS has recently launched a new handbook for social justice video: Video for Change: A Guide for Advocacy and Activism. Packed with real-life stories, how-to guidance and easy-to-use exercises, Video for Change provides a crash course in the basics of social justice video documentation.
Sam Gregory
Programme Manager, WITNESS
See it. Film it. Change it.
80 Hanson Place, 5th Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11217, United States of America
Tel: +1 718 783 2000; Fax: +1 718 783 1593
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.witness.org