Empowering the village through video.
Stacy Hobson, A. Rall, G. A. Thiele, Quiroz Peralta Ca, Amita Kumari Sharma, Te-Hsiung Sun, Frank Cancian, Rosanna Hertz, Brooke Grundfest Schoepf, Richard Jerome Fehring · Inquiry Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines · 1986
The Village Video Network was founded in 1982 with the co-sponsorship of Martha Stuart Communications and the United Nations University to promote the use of video in development by supporting existing groups promoting the exchange of tapes and experience helping to start new projects and acting as a resource. Groups from China Egypt Mali Antigua Zimbabwe Nigeria Indonesia India the Inuit Communities Jamaica Guyana and the US are current participants. Each has received training in the use of small format video and has its own equipment. Some of the tapes prepared provide concrete information about oral rehydration breastfeeding building a smokeless cooking stove growing cotton feeding pigs and organizing workers. Other tapes have been produced as part of womens literacy family planning rural-urban communication and economic development projects. In Ahmedabad India the 22000 members of the Self-Employed Womens Association (SEWA) have received training in video production and formed the cooperative Video SEWA. The group produces tapes on topics such as child labor purdah internal organization the struggle for better working conditions and the demands of weaving and blockprinting for its membership. Village-level use of video equipment is dependent on the motivation of the community to work out its own problems a willingness to overcome a fear of new technology support from funding agencies and the capability of the video equipment to be easily handled and repaired.