Videoactive Girls
Video Volunteers created a toolkit that outlines how community-based organizations and the adolescent girls they serve can harness, produce and use the power of the visual media to amplify their voices and tell their stories. The toolkit takes NGOs step-by-step through the process of launching a media unit to empower adolescent girls. The project, undertaken in 2009 in partnership with the Global Fund for Children, was a learning initiative of The Nike Foundation’s Brain Trust of Practitioners.
Two Girls Media Groups were launched, one with the NGO Kolkata Sanved which works with formerly trafficked girls, and one with the NGO Mahita. The Mahita Girls Media Group mostly comprised of non-school going Muslim girls.
Video Volunteers’ training to the young girls focused on:
- The art of digital storytelling.
- Developing video production and video-sharing skills.
- How to cultivate greater self-confidence and empowerment in each participant through the learning process.
All of the girls came from difficult socio-economic backgrounds and had experienced personal trauma. It was a challenge for the Video Volunteers’ trainers to teach these girls the intricacies of video production and prepare them to venture outdoors with cameras and shoot news videos.
However, in the end, the training modules deepened the girls’ self-confidence and self-expression. The girls made several videos on issues like child marriage, gender bias and the problems of working women. At the completion of the project the participants said, “Our fear is gone now!”
Download and use the VideoActive Girls Toolkit
The toolkit includes training outlines, step-by-step implementation plans, as well as video links and lessons learned from the two projects. We hope this toolkit will inspire the creation of many other media empowerment projects with young girls.