Through taking part in Participatory Video people can grow in self-esteem, value their knowledge, reflect on local issues, share perspectives, identify commonalities and ways forward. This process leads to critical thinking and collective local action. Here are some examples from InsightShare projects.
The village of Foya in Bo District use a video camera to explain some of the unique difficulties they face as a result of being cut off by a slender river bridge, and appeal for assistance to help them overcome their physical isolation and participate in their own development.
InsightShare's Nick Lunch has worked with facilitator Glynn Brown in Oxford for several years and this is an example of how PV was able to catalyse deep cultural connections for participants with learning disabilities alongside other specific cultural activities especially music, drawing specifically on Afro-Caribbean and Indo-Pakistani traditions.
A group of young unemployed women explain how meeting regularly to sing has helped them, and gumbooted dancers use their skills to highlight issues facing their community.
Short article by Chris Lunch (InsightShare Co-Founder & Co-Director) published in ICT Update (issue 34) in November 2006. The article introduces PV as a method, summarizes it's diverse possible uses and gives a overview of the step by step process.
In this article Dominic Elliot describes how an Aids support group in Malawi used participatory video to boost their self-esteem and to encourage others to get tested, by enabling group members to tell their own stories and to film themselves engaging in different agricultural activities.
In 2005, InsightShare used participatory video as a tool for working with an HIV-positive community group in M'deka, Malawi. The 3-day project was carried out in partnership with the Malawi branch of GOAL, an Irish non-governmental organisation (NGO) that has been setting up these groups as a way of helping HIV-positive people support one another and change attitudes in the community with regard to knowing/communicating one's status.
Article by Chris Lunch (InsightShare Co-Founder & Co-Director) published in Capacity.org (issue 29) in September 2006. The article describes InsightShare's experiences of using Participatory Video as a tool for monitoring & evaluation with a particular focus on the Most Significant Change (MSC) methodology.
This film was planned and filmed by the members of the Tichezerane AIDS Support group, in Malawi, and describes the group's history and the stories of some of its members; all of whom live with the HIV virus.