Participatory Video can help foster a strong sense of identity and collective purpose. Healthy communities are resilient to change because they are able to adapt on their own terms. Here are some examples.
Our PV methods have demonstrated to be ideal for working with small-scale farmers to enable farmer-to-farmer sharing of innovations and experiences, and connecting those same farming communities with the outside world and key stakeholders including policymakers, industry representatives and NGOs. This article describes some recent examples from our work with farming communities around the world.
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.
A video introducing the Young Roots project, featuring original music from Zimbawean-born artist Sinini Ngwenya and highlights of performances, workshops, cultural exchange, work with a famous museum, and simply getting togetherfor fun and friendship.
Gitans is a compilation of four short films created by young gypsies in Lézignan-Corbières, southern France. The project took place in weekly sessions over one year project and engaged working young people with learning difficulties and behavioural problems.
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.
A spoof horror film made in the amazing ethnographic museum, by young Africans living in Oxford as part of a Heritage Lottery Funded project called Young Roots...
In this short film the women of Kalbeo village in northern Ghana demonstrate their techniques for crafting baskets for sale in the markets. It is part of a series of short videos charting various livelihoods and farming activities including yam planting, honey collection and pig rearing.
