What image opened your eyes to human rights?

Warning:  This video creates some graphic and powerful images that may not be suitable for younger children.

For 15 years, WITNESS has harnessed the power of video to advance human rights.  In honor of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10th, they created this short video with different WITNESS staff talking about images that opened their eyes to human rights abuses around the world.  (To learn more about the images mentioned in this video, click here. )

They're asking folks to create a video answering the above question and uploading it to the Witness Hub or YouTube.   If you don't have a camera or if you're not comfortable creating video content, there are other ways to raise awareness about this important issue.   You can find the information here.  

I'll be posting on Wednesday.  Will you?

This is an excellent example of social media - getting others to tell your story or user generated content.   If you're looking for tips on how to do this, 50 Tips for Implementing User-Generated Content In Your Library is an excellent resource.    Here's a couple of the tips that Witness is using to power this campaign:

• Specifically ask users to contribute: Make sure that library patrons know that your user generated content exists, and ask them to contribute.
• Get all of your staff involved: In the early stages, it’s important to get started with a strong community, so encourage interaction by asking nonprofit staff to participate in creating content.
• Create tags and encourage users to adopt them: If you’re creating a class tag, for example, make sure that the students in that class know how to use them.
• Create a question and answer section: Encourage participation by designing an area where users can ask for specific help and information.
• Make things personal: Don’t just offer information, offer personal service, too. Give feedback and offer conversation to the users who are creating content for you.

When Matisse Bustos Hawkes, Outreach Coordinator, WITNESS - asked me to participate.  My first reaction was, I need to create a video like I need a hole in the head.   But then I watched their video - storytelling at its best.  I also thought about the fantastic work that they are doing in Cambodia  ... so looks like I'm making a video for Wednesday.  

Comments

[Stephen Downes]

Why this organization, instead of Amnesty International?

From where I sit (admittedly at a distance) Witness appears to be a lighter, more business-friendly version of AI, something much more rooted in the United States, with ties to the entertainment and business community. Not, in other words, neutral.

[Sameer Padania]

Thanks for posting on this, Beth. I'm at the GFMD Conference in Athens right now, and I've asked a few people the same question, and maybe it's because it's a conference packed with journalists, but it's sparked lively debate, particularly given what is going on in other parts of Athens right now. Can't wait to see what you pick out.

And Stephen, thanks for commenting - the distinct thing about WITNESS is that we have always worked to support the use of video (and increasingly online technologies) by groups on the frontline of human rights - from RAWA in Afghanistan and Ajedi-KA in DRC, to SAF in Yemen and Burma Issues. That's the footage you see in the video Beth has linked to, and the WITNESS media archive has over 3,000 hours of such footage, not counting what is contributed via the Hub.

But we also believe in engaging a wider range of actors beyond civil society - and the support of and engagement with the communities you mention and others is important in ensuring that human rights are part of debates in every sphere, not just in civil society discourse, and that pressure and scrutiny happens in all those spaces, and not just from civil society.

The Hub, the site we launched a year ago and that I manage, at http://hub.witness.org, is designed to facilitate that kind of discourse - where individual human rights defenders rub up against human rights organisations, where bloggers rub up against mainstream media, where photographers encounter video activists. We'd welcome your critical engagement there too!