First in a six part series. You can see the rest here
Posted in Economics, Environmentalism, Videos, technology | 2 Comments »This wikinews story from yesterday reminded me of this TED talk by musician Peter Gabriel. Witness works with human rights groups around the world distributing cameras and helping people to document human rights abuses.
From the TED talk:
The thing that really amazed me that I had now idea was that you could suffer in this way and then have your whole experience, your story, denied, buried, or forgotten. And it seemed whenever there was a camera around, a video or film camera, it was a great deal harder to do, for those in power to bury the story
From the Witness website:
WITNESS uses video and online technologies to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations. We empower people to transform personal stories of abuse into powerful tools for justice, promoting public engagement and policy change.
I love this because in a sense witness is about giving away power to the powerless, which is one of my favorite ideas, and really one of the great redemptive ideas that lies behind a lot of the great stories that I find most moving. It makes me want to somehow get more involved in that power transfer, helping to make it happen.
Posted in Activism, Torture, Videos, technology | 3 Comments »