Yesterday I finished a field visit to one of the Community Video Units Video Volunteers has helped to set up, in rural Rajasthan, in villages outside Jodhpur. Rural Rajasthan is an incredibly colorful and culturally rich area, and so the "Community Video Unit" has lots of potential for great programming on arts and culture. But rural Rajasthan is a deeply conservative and feudal place, where the women are veiled, and there is very high incidence of child marriage and female foeticide.

My hat goes off to the Jal Bhagirathi Foundation, the NGO who has set up this Community Video Unit (they are one of the leading organizations working on the issue of water in Rajasthan), for embracing a project that is all about dialog and encouraging the lowest and most repressed members of society to speak out. It's not easy for them and it's not easy for the Community Producers, who come from such a conservative place and have so much baggage they need to get rid of. These community producers, who are also relatively new to our training, are a quiet bunch, quieter than many of the Community Producers we're involved with. But it was interesting to see that they are much more open in their communication when they are in the villages.