Participatory Video gives a chance to people on the front lines of
climate change to advocate for their rights, get informed, spread the word and better adapt to their new climate challenge. Here are some examples of Participatory Video projects where climate change has been explored by the groups involved.
A group of 11 farmers, members of the Bukonzo Joint Co-operative, came together for a participatory video project to plan and shoot a video about their local environment, before creating a screening in the community to raise debate around sustainable agricultural practice.
In this participatory video project a film is made by 11 members of the Ericaville Farming Trust. A complicated process led to the participants going out into their community to enable a group of youth, elders and women to come together to tell their stories through a participatory video process, and community screening. The video tells the story of their journey together as a community. The past displacement from the West Coast and their resettlement along the coast of the Southern Cape, South Africa, their longing to own land and to farm became a reality after a wait of 30 years.
In this participatory video project a group of people in Chanya (Malawi) explore key issues affecting them as individuals and the wider community, in relation to climate change locally and/or globally. Video was used as a tool by which the subject could be explored and perspectives shared amongst the participants themselves and with the wider community and beyond.
In this participatory video project 12 cocoa farmers made a video, which focused on the negative impacts of deforestation. They succeeded in generating a video that carries the seldom heard voices of Ivorian cocoa farmers, and clearly demonstrates the problems that they are experiencing as a result of climate change. The completed video has the potential to raise awareness of how climate change is impacting on people in this region and may serve to generate interest in supporting efforts to mitigate these problems.
In June and July 2012, eleven farmers from the Cariango Commune in the province of Kwanza Sul, Angola, took part in a participatory video project to explore the impacts of climate change on their livelihoods. After much debate the group decided to focus on the issue of drought as something common to all, and to use the video to explore different ways in which it is impacting the four different communities, by gathering local ideas and stories.
'Standing in the middle of a scorched savannah in Oltepesi, about 40 miles southwest of Nairobi, Benson K. Letuya, a youth leader from the Maasai community, holds a microphone in the searing sun. He stands next to a zebra, dying of thirst during the devastating drought that hit Kenya in 2009.' This article by MediaGlobal give an overview of our work as part of the Conversations with the Earth partnership since the launch of the programme since 2009.
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.
In March 2012 InsightShare worked together with six other partners of the BRAVE collaboration on the 'Planet Under Pressure' conference. The conference aimed to bridge the worlds of science, the arts, politics, business, faith and the global South, the BRAVE collective challenged participants within and beyond the conference to develop a shared global vision of sustainability and come up with some 'big ideas' for achieving it.
An article about the conference was published in the Summer Issue of 'Planet Earth', click below to download the article.
What is your vision of a sustainable world? This is the question that was addressed by people from India, South Africa, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia and shared with an international conference of scientists, to inspire radical thinking.