 | |
| Founder | Jessica Mayberry |
|---|---|
| Type | Community Media |
| Focus | Media, Livelihood, Human Rights, Arts and Culture, Caste and Identity, Conflict, Development, Education, Environment, Gender, Health, Infrastructure, Corruption, Technology |
| Location |
|
Key people | Stalin K, Davia Temin |
Video Volunteers is an international NGO founded in 2003 that promotes community media to amplify citizen voice around the world. Video Volunteers is a registered non-profit in the state of New York in the US.
Video Volunteers was founded in 2003 by Jessica Mayberry after she spent a year as a fellow of the American India Foundation training rural Indian women in filmmaking. Video Volunteers originally operated from offices in New York, NY. Mayberry works closely with India Director Stalin K, Indian documentary filmmaker and community radio activist, as well as original co-founder of Drishti Media, Arts and Human Rights.
VV's models for locally owned and managed media production teach people to articulate and share their perspectives on the issues that matter to them – on a local and a global scale. Through communication media, Video Volunteers offers a livelihood option for people from poor areas while also providing a service to those communities. To this end, VV uses their low-cost community media models.
IndiaUnheard, is a program that is constituted of a network of "community correspondents" who are stringers trained to tell stories about their own communities. IndiaUnheard Community Correspondents make 3-4 min videos for which they were paid Rs 1300 each. These videos are later shown on social networking sites and sometimes on TV which link rural communities with a truly global audience. All VV programs are run in collaboration with others. [1]
This was Video Volunteers’ flagship Community Video Unit program, created in partnership with many of the leading NGOs in India, establishes and equips locally operated video production units in severely media-deprived areas, where VV designed the concept and local organizations executed them. By training eight – ten local Community Producers that make up each unit in all aspects of video production, this enables them to produce films that address issues relevant to their community, such as child marriage, health, temple prostitution, water, sanitation and women's rights. Regular screenings of the films are held for hundreds of villagers in their locale, followed by solution-centric discussions that transform ideas and images into proactive measures. However, currently none of the CVU are in production for lack of fund.
In Eastern Uttar Pradesh, one of the most underdeveloped areas in India, Video Volunteers has initiated, as part of the UNDP-IKEA a large scale micro credit initiative called Saksham. Enterprising women from within the self-help groups formed under the micro credit initiative are given training in photography and video production. By developing communication skills, the project intends women themselves to be able to document and monitor the changes.
In 2009 Video Volunteers had this program in partnership with the Brazilian NGO Casa das Caldeiras to launch 'VCU.br. This program selects ten graduates of Brazilian favela media programs and trains them over a course of a year in producing and distributing videos for mainstream TV.
The Community Radio Forum-India is a registered association of community radio broadcasters, researchers and advocates in India. Video Volunteers was the secretariat of the Community Radio Forum (CRF) from September 2008 to February 2010, and Stalin K, the Managing Trustee of Video Volunteers-India, is the former Convener of the forum. CRF believes in the power of community radio, is committed to democratization of India's airwaves and works to enable community organizations to set up their own Community Radio Station.
Videoshala started in 2007 as a joint project by Video Volunteers and two Gujarat-based NGOs, Drishti and Udaan. Videoshala is a program that trains community members how to produce educational videos, using the visual medium to incorporate values of democracy, diversity and citizenship in the video kits. Locally trained producers from the community produce the educational videos and screen them in schools. The films are screened to children in 200 schools throughout the state of Gujarat.
In the year 2009, Video Volunteers partnered with Global Fund for children (GFC) in a pilot project called Videoactive Girls. Under the project, which was a learning initiative of The Nike Foundation's Brain Trust of Practitioners, VV developed a toolkit on how community-based organizations and the adolescent girls they serve can harness, produce and use the power of the visual media to tell their stories.
In collaboration with the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India's leading business school, VV conducted a research project to explore methods of evolving community-based media to generate high levels of financial sustainability. IIM's centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship and VV work together to explore methods and possibilities of generating revenue through the mainstream media in collaboration with other NGOs. Another area that the project aims to explore is how such community video businesses can be supported by micro credit lending.
In October 2018, allegations of inappropriate behaviour at the workplace were made on social media against India Director & Founder Stalin K. [2] While it was publicly announced that he had stepped down as director, internal leaks showed otherwise. The organisation's website continued to list him as 'managing trustee'. [3] [4] In July 2020, the Video Volunteers Board announced in a statement [5] on its website that the Local Complaints Committee at the Office of the Collector North Goa dismissed the charge of sexual harassment against Stalin K. The post also mentioned that this finding was in alignment with the results of an independent investigation by the Video Volunteers Board of Directors. [6]
Video Volunteers has received grants from the Knight News Challenge and the Echoing Green Foundation. VV won a 2006 Tech Museum Award and the NYU Stern Business School Social Business Plan Competition in 2008. [7] [8] [9] [10]
Video Volunteers has carried out projects or collaborated with organizations in more than 10 countries, including the US, India, and Brazil, and has partnered with such organizations as Witness, the Global Fund for Children, Pangea Day, MTV, and others. VV was short-listed by the Development Gateway Awards, and in 2008 they were one of the five shortlisted organizations for the King Baudouin Foundation (of Belgium) International Development Prize.
Video Volunteers has engaged in partnership, funding, consultancy and training relationships with many leading organizations, including the UNDP, Witness, the Fledgling Fund, the Art Action Foundation of Singapore, The Global Fund for Children, Pangea Day, International Youth Foundation, HIVOS, Creative Visions Foundation and Goethe-Institut. Concepts developed by Video Volunteers have been supported by USAID, UNESCO, and the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust. In May 2010, Video Volunteers acted as the community media partner for the UN's World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) Forum. Video Volunteers’ work has been featured on MTV, Nickelodeon, Al Jazeera, The Star Network, Pangea Day, several CNN platforms, prominent Indian news stations, and Current TV.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in humanitarianism or the social sciences; they can also include clubs and associations that provide services to their members and others. NGOs can also be lobby groups for corporations, such as the World Economic Forum. NGOs are distinguished from international and intergovernmental organizations (IOs) in that the latter are more directly involved with sovereign states and their governments.
Community radio is a radio service offering a third model of radio broadcasting in addition to commercial and public broadcasting.
TechSoup, founded in 1987 as CompuMentor and later known as TechSoup Global, is a nonprofit international network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that provides technical support and technological tools to other nonprofits.
Isha Foundation is a nonprofit, spiritual organisation that was founded in 1992 near Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India, by Sadhguru. It hosts the Isha Yoga Centre, which offers yoga programs under the name Isha Yoga. The foundation is run "almost entirely" by volunteers. The word isha means "the formless divine".
Zonta International is an international service organization with the mission of Building a Better World for Women and Girls, in support of Sustainable Development Goal 5.
Community media are any form of media that function in service of or by a community. It is the rise of all kinds of alternative, oppositional, participatory and collaborative media practices that have developed in the journalistic context of ‘community media,’ ‘we media,’ ‘citizens media,’ ‘grassroot journalism’ or any radical alternative to on and offline mainstream journalistic practices. In other words, it is having access to or creating local alternatives to mainstream broadcasting, like local community newspapers, radio stations, or magazines. Community Media aids in the process of building citizenship and raising social awareness. "Participation" and "access" are a large aspect in the rise of community media. Those who create media are being encouraged to involve themselves in providing a platform for others to express views. Community media is often given parameters when being defined by groups, but often challenges these boundaries with its broad yet narrow structure.
Mallika Dutt leads Inter-Connected, a new initiative that uplifts the independent nature of self, community and planet to advance collective wellbeing. She brings together the power of ancient wisdom and spiritual practices with contemporary technologies and storytelling. Dutt is the founder of Breakthrough, a human rights organization dedicated to making violence against women unacceptable.
The Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) is a loose network of organizations who are "working along the same lines towards achieving sustainable sanitation". It began its work in 2007, one year before the United Nations International Year of Sanitation in 2008. The intention of creating SuSanA was to have a joint label for the planned activities for 2008 and to align the various organizations for further initiatives.
Deepalaya is an Indian non-governmental organization that aids the development of the urban and rural poor in India, with a focus on children. Founded in 1979, it is headquartered in Delhi. Deepalaya primarily serves the urban slums of Delhi, but also works on rural development in the states of Haryana and Uttarakhand. Deepalaya's focus is on sparking sustainable development from within a community. From 2009–2010, 23.18% of Deepalaya's total income came from donations and 52.37% from government grants. HSBC India also supports Deepalaya through donations and voluntary works. Deepalaya experienced US$236,741.42 in deficit for this period. Deepalaya was awarded Sat Paul Mittal Award of appreciation in 2018.
Virtual volunteering refers to volunteer activities completed, in whole or in part, using the Internet and a home, school buildings, telecenter, or work computer or other Internet-connected device, such as a smartphone or a tablet. Virtual volunteering is also known as online volunteering, remote volunteering or e-volunteering. Contributing to free and open source software projects or editing Wikipedia are examples of virtual volunteering.
Alampur Saibaba Goud is an Indian ophthalmologist and founder-chairman of the Devnar Foundation for the Blind. He is also a social entrepreneur, and active in the voluntary organization at Secunderabad in Telangana, a state of India. He works in the field of providing aid to visually challenged and visually disabled children in India.
The Snow Leopard Trust is the largest and oldest organization working solely to protect the endangered snow leopard and its habitat in 12 countries of Central Asia. The trust is a non-profit organization with its headquarters in Seattle, Washington. The present total population of snow leopards in the wild is estimated at between 3,920 and 6,390.
The Global Peace Foundation (GPF) is an international nonprofit organization with a stated mission to promote “an innovative, values-based approach to peacebuilding, guided by the vision of One Family under God.” GPF partners with government ministries, community and faith-based organizations, and United Nations offices to develop and execute programs in 20 countries.
Media development involves capacity building for institutions or individuals related to freedom of expression, pluralism and diversity of media, as well as transparency of media ownership. Media development plays a role in democracy and effective democratic discourse through supporting free and independent media.
The Naz Foundation (India) Trust is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in that country that works on HIV/AIDS and sexual health. It is based in the Indian capital of New Delhi.
International Voluntary Services,Inc. (IVS) was a private, non-profit corporation for benevolent, charitable, and educational purposes chartered under the laws of the District of Columbia in 1953 to place volunteers in international humanitarian and development projects. From its founding until its dissolution in 2002, IVS placed volunteers in 39 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Its largest and longest programs were in South Vietnam, Laos, Algeria, and Bangladesh. Although the organization's roots were grounded in part in Christian pacifism, it operated on a nonsectarian basis, accepting volunteers regardless of their religious beliefs or nationality., Over its lifetime, the IVS program evolved from the placement of only American citizen volunteers to placement of internationally-recruited volunteers and then in later years to recruitment of local volunteers from within the country being assisted. Elements of the IVS program model have been adopted by the U.S. Peace Corps and many present day non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Sections below discuss the IVS program model, activities over time, and legacy.
Stalin K. is an Indian documentary filmmaker, media and human rights activist. His films, Lesser Humans and India Untouched, on the issue of caste and untouchability in contemporary India, have galvanized international attention to caste discrimination and won numerous film awards. He has done pioneering work on new models of community media to empower marginalized groups. His interview and clips from his film were featured in Episode 10: Dignity for All of Aamir Khan’s Satyamev Jayate TV series on the issue of Untouchability.
The MINDS Foundation, a nonprofit located in India, uses a grassroots approach to eliminate stigma and provide educational, medical, and moral support for patients with mental illness in rural India. (1) The organization conducts ongoing research and develops curriculum to expand education about mental health and increase the number of trained staff who can support patients with mental illness. MINDS works with a broad team of directors, advisors, field workers and assistants and receives support through a variety of foundations, grants and NGOs. Since its creation in 2010, MINDS has increased the level of education and treatment with regards to mental illness, overcoming many of the challenges of rural health work in India.
Tevel b’Tzedek is a non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Israel that promotes sustainable development in developing countries through the formation of thematic-based groups and community mobilization. It was established in 2007 by Rabbi Micha Odenheimer, who wanted to provide young Jewish people with meaningful social justice experience abroad with the intention of creating strong Jewish leaders invested in the idea of Tikkun Olam. Since 2007, hundreds of Jewish volunteers from communities in Israel, the United States, Germany, Ukraine, South Africa, Australia and other countries have traveled to Nepal and Haiti to participate in community development projects.
S M Sehgal Foundation is an Indian NGO focused on rural development with its head office in Gurugram, Haryana. It was founded as an Indian public, charitable trust in 1999 by plant geneticist Suri Sehgal and his wife Mrs. Edda Sehgal, who together had accumulated wealth through the 1998 sale of their hybrid seed businesses, Proagro Group.