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Fellowship for a human rights activist - semester at Colby College in Maine (US)

Dear Colleague,

Can you think of a human rights activist (or an organization where one might be working) in need of a short respite from on the ground human rights work? I am pleased to announce a call for nominations for the 2011 Oak Human Rights Fellowship, sponsored by the Oak Institute for the Study of International Human Rights at Colby College in Waterville, Maine (USA). The fellowship is a one-semester appointment for a scholar-in-residence. It is designed to provide human rights practitioners doing "on-the-ground" work at some level of personal risk a respite from front-line duties to enable them to reflect, write, and communicate their work to our campus community. We are writing to ask your help in identifying the Oak fellow for the fall of 2011.

Each year, we target our search for a human rights activist either regionally or functionally. This year, the focus of our search is for a frontline human rights activist who works outside the USA on problems created by or associated with poverty.

In this call, we highlight our concern about the physical and emotional violence, the potential loss of security and dignity, often associated with deprivation. Our next Oak Fellow will work to promote human rights threatened by poverty. Such rights include but are not limited to: the right to work in safe conditions and earn an adequate and stable income; access to basic food and shelter; freedom from forced evictions; access to adequate health care and medical attention; access to basic services and infrastructure; the right to a healthy and safe living environment, including access to clean drinking water; access to education; freedom from discrimination based on class or income.

The appointment is for the fall semester of 2011 (September through mid December). Responsibilities include participation in a lecture series or symposium in the Fellow's area of expertise and regular interaction with Colby students through a one credit non-graded discussion class. The College provides a stipend of $32,000, plus transportation, housing, health care coverage, and other fringe benefits. We encourage the fellow to bring family through limited financial support for their travel as well.

To identify candidates for our annual search, we rely heavily on nominations from NGOs, other journalists, human rights lawyers, and academics -- you are most likely to know of the work of on-the-ground professionals. Since your network has been active in the field of human rights or migration, we would like to solicit your nominations for the fellowship. Please submit nominations to us no later than November 1, 2010. We will contact nominee(s) and encourage him or her to apply; you might also suggest that your nominee(s) apply directly. Your nomination letter(s) will become part of the applicant's file, underscoring your recognition of this person's important contributions to human rights. The deadline for completed applications is December 15, 2010. For more information and application materials, please access our web page atwww.colby.edu/oak ; we call your attention to the frequently asked questions sidebar to clarify terms and eligibility.

Sincerely,

Walter Hatch
Associate Professor of Government and Director of the Oak Institute for the Study of Human Rights
Colby College
5300 Mayflower Hill
Waterville, ME 04901

WAVE supports REDEFINE:FREEDOM - a participatory video project

Freedom is indicative of Free Will; of the right- God-given, Nature-blessed, Constitutionally-protected- to decide. It is the freedom of expression, the freedom of choice, the freedom to express that choice.

We have been free from British rule for sixty three years. But sixty three years on, how do we define freedom? What is freedom to you? To the world around you?
Are you free? Why do you think you’re free? Why do you think you’re not?

A woman in Manipur wishes the Indian Army would just leave.

A farmer, somewhere, wishes that he could retain the right to say ‘No’ to Genetically Modified seeds.

Someone in a relief camp in Gujarat wishes that they could go back home.

And someone, somewhere wonders that while there may be sixteen brands of bottled water, do we really have to pay for water.

A Naga girl back in Bombay wonders when they will stop asking her, “Which country are you from?”

Freedom, sometimes, is simply when families accept the fact of your sexual orientation.

Here’s the proposal: we’re soliciting videos. Off cell-phones, off high-def cameras. A succession of still images. One shot. Archive footage. A testimonial to a webcam. Shoot yourself. Shoot for someone who doesn’t have access to a camera and internet.

It’s simply an idea. Hoping to attract other ideas. Trying to become a bigger idea.

All we’re seeking is a definition of ‘Freedom’. In one sentence. We’ll take what we get; three films, seven films, eight hundred and seven clips and we’ll put it together as a film and upload it on the 15th of August, 2010.

Put your name on it. And tell us where you’re from.

The rest is down to your imagination. And the identity of the country that only you know.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Send in your images/videos to: redefinefreedom@gmail.com

Send in your videos by the 10th of August 2010 and we'll string them together and put them up on the 15th (hopefully!).

If your videos are in a regional language, do send us the text translated to English or Hindi

For large file sizes try the following websites:

- www.yousendit.com
- www.transferbigfiles.com
- www.sendspace.com

Call for Entries: Women's Voices from the Muslim World

Dear Filmmaker,

I am the Director of Festival Operations at Women's Voices Now (WVN), a new
not-for-profit social enterprise based in New York City.

Our Mission is to empower women and give voice to the struggle for civil,
economic, and political rights. We create platforms from which women of all
faiths and backgrounds may speak directly to each other and to an
international audience, and we provide tools with which these voices can be
heard.

I would like to invite you to submit any relevant films you have made to our
first project, Women's Voices from the Muslim World: A Short-Film Festival. The
festival is open to all filmmakers regardless of gender or background, but
the subject matter is specific to women OF ALL FAITHS living in the Muslim
world, or Muslim women living as minorities around the globe

I have attached our Call for Submissions for your reference. Please feel
free to pass this along to your network. For further details about WVN or to
submit a film, please visit
WomensVoicesNow.org.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns feel free to contact me. I
look forward to seeing your film in the WVN Festival.

Warm Regards,

--
*Cassandra N. Schaffa
Director of Festival Operations

Women's Voices Now
119 W. 72nd St. #167
New York, NY 10023
Tel: 904-377-0671
Twitter //
Facebook
*

Rama Barhat, WAVE videoblogger from Udaipur in Indian Express July 25

The School LEAVERS

Rama Barhat’s parents too opposed the idea of her taking a gap year. But she didn’t want to be a doctor or a teacher, to live out her parent’s aspirations. Three years ago, after Class X, she walked out of her government school in Udaipur. Armed with a camcorder that she was given as part of a film-making workshop in Goa, she is now trying to capture life and its quirks. Her first film was called Meri Movie and it told her story, how she left school, and how she has changed as a person. She is now pursuing her studies through open schooling, torn between her own rebellion and her parents’ concern for her. She is also making films, her latest is on the only woman auto driver in Udaipur.

Read full article here

Times of India (Chennai) article about WAVE Videoblogger Kalki's new initiative to train transgender women in videography

A Group of People of the Third Gender Wield Handycams to Portray Lives of the Lesser Privileged

A group of people huddle around a laptop in a small room. As the rain drums steadily onto the asbestos roof, transgender (TG) rights activist Kalki Subramaniam takes them through the various stages involved in making a short film.

“So far, other people have been questioning us, telling our struggles and showing the world who we are. Now we want to tell the world who we are through our films,” says Kalki. She is helping eight transgenders tell their stories by equipping them with filmmaking skills. The two-tofive-minute films her students make will be screened at the Alliance Francaise on August 21.

It all began when Kalki received a scholarship from ‘Women Aloud: Videoblogging for Empowerment (WAVE)’ last year. The project is run by filmmakers Sapna Shahani and Angana Jhaveri, and trains one woman from every state to become citizen journalists, to tell video stories about positive changes in their communities to an online audience. “We were given a two-week training to make short films,” says Kalki, the only transwoman to be selected. “The aim was to get women from marginalised sections to tell stories of their community, culture, traditions and problems they face through video blogs,” she adds.

Last year, Kalki made ‘Smile’, a film that records the happy smiles of people of her community. “Shooting videos is my hobby, so I just put together footage I had from 2007 to 2009,” she says. “The lives of transgenders is tough. The world may laugh at us, but we never forget to smile,” says the founder of Sahodari Foundation, which works to empower transgenders.

As part of WAVE, Kalki made five short films, including ‘Sisters on the street: A day in the life of two transgender women’, a five-minute film on the sexual harrassment transgenders face when they go begging.

But Kalki was not content just making her own films. A month ago, she launched Project Kalki, teaching other transgenders how to handle a camera, script and edit on a laptop. “I wanted to pass on my knowledge and empower them as community journalists,” says Kalki, who has masters’ degrees in journalism and mass communication as well as international relations.

Her students — Monal, Sandhiya, Sowndharya, Gomathi, Abinaya, Kanchana, Sowmiya and Thenmozhi — are still working on their films. While Monal is making a film on garbage pickers, Gomathi’s deals with street children. Sandhiya has decided to focus on abandoned old people, Thenmozhi on HIV+ transgenders and Sowndharya on the relationship between transgenders and their families.

“I left home when I was 14 as my family refused to accept me. After years, my mother has finally reconciled to who I am and we live together,” says Sowndharya, whose film is inspired by her own experience. “Many transgenders are abandoned by their families. I want to show real-life situations so that families are sensitised. It can be screened during awareness programmes,” she says.

Gomathi, who works at a community care centre in Perungalathur, was moved by the plight of the children she saw on the train every day while commuting. “They beg, sell water packets and sleep on platforms. I began speaking to them and realised each of them have a story,” says Gomathi. Her film was inspired by two boys whom she saw every day selling water packets. “They told me how their father had left them, another brother had run away, and they were now homeless, taking care of each other.”

Monal says she always wondered why garbage pickers on the streets didn’t do any other work. “Only when I spoke to them I realised that many of them are orphans or runaways. No one employs them as they’re homeless. Even the women cannot find work as domestic help,” she says. Shooting her film was not easy as people were wary of the camera. “Initially, I just left the camera on and let them talk. It made them feel more comfortable,” she says.

Kalki is proud of the progress her class has made so far. “They’re all very interested in movies and eager to learn. With our films we want to show the world that we, like everybody else, also care about old people and street children,” she says.

For more info, visit Project Kalki's blog

A New Pair of Scissors: The Draft Cinematograph Bill 2010

By Anjali Monteiro , K P Jayasankar

The draft Cinematograph Bill, 2010 does not question the simplistic
understanding of the media regarding censorship, nor is there any
recognition of the fact that the modes of production and consumption
of the media are no longer easily amenable to centralised control.
This notion of censorship is inherently elitist, premised on the
superior wisdom of the privileged few, including the members of the
Central Board of Film Certification. There is no clear procedure or
set of norms laid down for the selection of these guardians of decency
and morality, either in the Cinematograph Act of 1952 or in the draft
bill.