Video Volunteers

Honorary Director, Video Volunteers India

Stalin helped found Video Volunteers in 2003.

Video Volunteer’s mission is to empower the world’s poorest citizens to right the wrongs they witness by becoming players in the global media revolution. We provide disadvantaged communities with journalistic, critical thinking and creative skills, and create locally-owned and managed “community media units” that teach people to articulate and share their perspectives on the issues that matter to them – on a local and a global scale.

Since 2003, we have trained more than 175 people – former diamond polishers, rickshaw drivers and day laborers – as Community Producers. Most of these people are working full-time in slums and villages, and their media has been seen by more than 250,000 people on widescreen projectors in thousands of village screenings.

Our flagship Community Video Units program has inspired countless people in slums and villages to organize and take action on their issues. Our other key program, IndiaUnheard, is a “community news service” in which community correspondents from every state in India report on issues ranging from corruption to local culture, which enables a global web audience to learn about issues of human rights and poverty directly from those who live it.

Active in India and Brazil, we have partnered with some of the leading organizations wherever we work, including Witness, the Global Fund for Children, Pangea Day, and MTV.

Our work has been recognized with numerous awards: in addition to winning the NYU Stern Business Plan Competition, a Tech Award, Manthan Award and Development Gateway Award shortlist, we are winners of the Knight News Challenge, a prestigious journalism award, and an Echoing Green Fellowship, which is the premier recognition for young social entrepreneurs.  In 2008, we were shortlisted for the International Development Prize of the King Baudouin Foundation of Belgium.

Watch this video for an overview of our work:

Here is a short clip of Stalin talking about the importance of community media with regard to human rights abuses caused by so called ‘development’:

www.videovolunteers.org/
http://twitter.com/videovolunteers
Watch our videos: www.indiaunheard.videovolunteers.org

The work of Video Volunteers has featured in lots of media publications including Frontline, Oman Tribune, The Indian Express and Hindustan Times.