Video Volunteers

23 Nov

Enabling Communication and Improving Local Communities

in Knight News Challenge, Video Volunteers, winner, Why They Won

Jessica Mayberry explains how Video Volunteers aims to create "video literacy” in the villages and towns of the developing world, enabling people to communicate globally and improve their local communities.

Video Volunteers Blog from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.

Video Volunteers

in 2008, Jessica Mayberry, Video Volunteers
Amount: 
$ 275,000
Location: 
New York City
Video Volunteers, a New York-based nonprofit, will train 100 people in rural India as Community Video Producers. These citizen journalists will produce magazine- style video news reports, typically on local social issues, and show them on widescreen projectors in poor communities. The idea is to distribute public interest information to the poor – without having to provide the entire population with digital tools. To date, Video Volunteers’ screenings in India have reached 140,000 people in 150 communities. The video technology is not new. The innovation is to do citizen journalism on a significant scale in a poor, rural area.
Organization: 
Video Volunteers
Winner: 
Jessica Mayberry