In this article Chris Lunch (InsightShare Co-Founder & Co-Director) describes how PV methods can be integrated into mainstream political decision making. He uses a InsightShare project that was carried out in Turkmenistan to argue that PV holds the key to delivering those often repeated, hollow slogans about inclusion, participation and people-led research and development, by illustrating how PV provides an opportunity for rural people to document their own knowledge and to express their wants from their own viewpoints.
The result of a Participatory Video consultation process, this film describes how solar power became more than just a means of renewable energy for these remote desert shepherding villages. Each family receiving a solar installation contributed one ewe and one lamb to a collectively managed flock. These flocks gave the communities a new kind of power; the ability to carry out local actions and make their own positive changes
In this article Chris Lunch (InsightShare Co-Founder & Co-Director) uses a InsightShare project that was carried out in Turkmenistan to illustrate how PV films about farmer innovation and experimentation can help to bring farmers' own voices and images to the attention of policymakers in agricultural research and development (ARD).
This programme began with a Participatory Video project carried out in Turkmenistan’s Kara Kum desert in 1999. High levels of outward migration were threatening the long-term survival of these remote deserts villages. Community members had talked about their visions for their village. Many felt that electricity would improve their lifestyles and encourage people to stay in the desert.
As part of the Desertification and Regeneration: Modeling the Impact of Market Reforms on Central Asian Rangelands (DARCA) programme, InsightShare worked alongside a multidisciplinary team of scientists studying the environmental impacts of current grazing practices on semi–arid Central Asian rangelands.
