This month, the VideoVoice Collective partnered with TLM, a microfinance organization in West Timur, Indonesia that we connected to through our friends at Kiva.org. We’ve had an incredible experience with TLM here in the far East of Indonesia. They work to give small loans to low income people so that they can start or grow their small businesses. Small businesses range from seaweed cultivation to pig farms to tempe production. Together, we trained staff at the microfinance organization to use video to evaluate client satisfaction and to advocate for improvements in the microfinance industry.
The staff did an incredible job! Most hadn’t used a video camera before this training. After just 2 days of training, they had taken about 10 hours of footage and were well on their way to producing their first video. Check out our pictures below or the whole VideoVoice in Indonesia slide show, images of microloan entrepreneurs in Indonesia that our videovoice team spoke to about the impact of small loans on their lives.
UC Berkeley School of Public Health, DrPH Program and Human Rights Center
present
A free screening of In Harmony: Reflections, thoughts, and hopes of Central City.
Tuesday, March 10. 6:PM. 109 Dwinelle. UC Berkeley Campus
IN HARMONY is a film about everyday people finding their voices and coming together to tell the story of their neighborhood, Central City New Orleans. It was conceived, filmed, and edited by people who felt that, despite the swarming of the mass media after Katrina and efforts by filmmakers from around the world, the real story of their neighborhood has not been told. As schoolteacher Michele Burton-Oatis describes it, “I was tired of talking about what was wrong with the way that my city was being treated and rebuilt. I decided to do something about it. I used a video camera.”
As the New Orleans VideoVoice team learned to use video cameras to capture the story of their neighborhood, they interviewed dozens of neighbors and local leaders, some who they had known for years and some who they had never reached out to. They built an archive of stories from local historians, business owners, activists, artists, parents and grandparents, police, homeless, teachers, medical providers, and more. In Harmony is the first film to emerge from this intensive effort to capture the spirit of Central City and its people.
Freestyle Love Supreme and COMIX are throwing a Purpose Party to raise funds for the New Orleans VideoVoices Project! Join Tony Award-winners Lin-Manuel Miranda and Bill Sherman plus Chris Jackson, Chris “Shockwave” Sullivan, Utkarsh Amudkar, Wade Allain-Marcus and Anthony Veneziale along with special guests for an evening of amazing hip-hop comedy for a great cause. Directed by Thomas Kail.
We will be having some awesome silent auction items up for bid (ITH Tickets and more!) and it’s going to be an excellent show.
The New Orleans VideoVoices Project works to build a groundswell of voices for change using community media, inspiring hard hit communities to tell their stories.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 8th
@ COMIX COMEDY CLUB
355 West 14th Street
7 pm and 9:30 pm
Join us for a presentation on participatory video and human rights in New Orleans at the 2008 Human Rights Center Conference!
Conference, November 6, 2008, 10AM to 5PM Alumni House, UC Berkeley
Health, Human Rights and Vulnerable Communities - 10:00 AM to 12 Noon (Toll Room)
Faculty Discussant: Cheri Pies, School of Public Health
• Caricia Catalani, School of Public Health, Berkeley, Participatory Video in New Orleans, USA
Abstract
Billions of people worldwide have gained access to the Internet, digital recording devices, and other new media tools. More and more, these new media tools are used as innovative solutions to enduring human rights struggles, however often without critical understanding of their potential strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. To begin to understand these aspects of new media more thoroughly, this evaluation of the New Orleans Videovoice Project describes the processes and outcomes associated with a particular participatory video methodology: videovoice.
Like its predecessor photovoice, videovoice involves partnering with communities to research health and human rights situations by putting digital cameras in the hands of everyday people. The New Orleans Videovoice Project took place in Central City, an underserved nieghborhood that was hit hard in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Those who have returned from displacement have faced a difficult recovery period involving loss of family and friends, loss of housing and possessions, closures of primary sources of health care, marginalization by government and its recovery programs, and the ongoing stress of piecing one’s life and the community back together.
The New Orleans Videovoice Project arose out of a need to organize around human rights and health concerns at this critical time. By building a partnership of diverse community members from the Central City neighborhood, public health researchers, filmmakers, and human rights advocates, the project has produced several participatory documentary videos. The videos describe the neighborhood’s historical and current struggle for human rights, and their own solutions for a better future. Beyond videos, this highly participatory project has resulted in other critical outcomes, such as increased capacity to produce media, understanding of community strengths and concerns, individual empowerment, and engagement in community action.
• Krista Kshatriya, School of Law, Berkeley, World Health Organization/Southeast Asia Regional Office, India
• Miranda Ritterman, School of Public Health, Berkeley, Christian Children’s Fund, Angola
• Nobuko Mizoguchi, Demography, Berkeley, Global Health Access Project, Thai-Burma border
This weekend, we held our world premiere of “In Harmony” in the very New Orleans neighborhood that gave it voice and vision. It was amazing! Over 150 supporters, many of which starred in the film, came to watch it on the big screen at Ashe Cultural Arts Center and Zeitgeist Multimedia Arts Center.
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In true New Orleans style, we started with an incredible food, mostly provided by our friends at J’Anitas BBQ. I am a big fan of the movie, of course, but this pulled pork, brisket, and bourbon bbq sauce was nearly the best thing about the evening!
After the screening, we held an awards ceremony for the filmmakers. Eleven participants were awarded certificates of recognition for achievement in community documentary filmmaking and their own digital video cameras.
Both evenings culminated in a fiery discussion about how we can move forward on the issues that neighbors care about, including housing, schools, and economic empowerment.
It was an incredible weekend! We look forward to sharing the film with all of you through online viewing, DVDs, and screenings in more locations during the next months.
