Climate change is seen by many as being perhaps the greatest and most urgent threat to the culture, environment, livelihoods and spirituality of indigenous communities around the world. Over the past 3 years InsightShare supported the development of an unique network of autonomous community media ‘hubs’ in eight different communities; fueled by the dedication, passion and energy of extraordinary individuals, who have organised and facilitated projects with hundreds of people within their regions and beyond. It is their words that are quoted in this article and their perspectives on climate change and related issues that are represented by the CWE project.

The process of collaboratively planning and producing videos can bring people together to record and celebrate cultural food practices, strengthen traditional knowledge of the environment, and build strategies for a sustainable and resilient future. This article describes three recent examples of participatory video projects that aimed to stimulate food sovereignty - from Meghalaya (India), Gamo Highlands (Ethiopia) and Chiang Mai (Thailand).

Fifty members of the Khasi village in Nongtraw, Meghalaya, North West India, made a video with the support of InsightShare and KSO, a local indigenous organizationas part of the project for the Indigenous Partnership for Food Sovereignty and Agrobiodiversity. The video was presented at the Terra Madre meeting in Sweden (June 17th-19th 2011) by the commuity members themselves. 

Click here to read the article and view the video

'A Rights-Based Approach to Participatory Video: toolkit' has been assembled to provide the first few stepping stones for practitioners of participatory video to begin introducing a rights-based approach into their practice.  The toolkit (published on 11th June 2010) is FREE to download here as a dynamic PDF.