How to Create a Culture of Storytelling
Too many people believe that poverty is caused by a lack of money. But BRAC knows better. As the world’s largest development organization, changing the lives of 125 million people around the world, they know that poverty is sustained by a lack of opportunity, not money. We first saw their work in action 2 years ago in the villages of Bangladesh, where we heard unbelievable stories of women rising up and demanding change. They were preventing child marriages. Confronting corruption. Refusing to accept domestic violence. Insisting on political representation- heck, even more »
6 Videos to Tell Your Story and Inspire Action
We’re on a mission to end bad nonprofit video. You know, the boring, long, put-you-to-sleep video about what the nonprofit does and not why, how or results. Nonprofits have too much on the line—and too many inspiring stories—for this. When we first started working with nonprofits to create videos, we realized that communicators see the power of video to connect their audience to their mission, inspire action and build a movement, but often don’t know where to begin. Overwhelmed, they put everything in a single video. Here are two approaches more »
[Video] International Women’s Day Protest at Qalandia
From the moment we arrived at the International Women’s Day protest at the Qalandia checkpoint, we could’t hear ourselves think. The Israeli Defense Forces had already activated a sound bomb- a loud, persistent and painful noise that feels like a hammer pounding a nail into your eardrum. They were already launching tear gas canisters into the crowd and “skunk water” was being sprayed (a putrid, carcinogenic liquid with a smell that won’t leave for weeks). We soon realized that our plan to shoot many interviews with women wasn’t going to happen. And more »
New Release- Artist Portrait: RAAM
RAAM made a promise. He had finished art school in Accra, Ghana and was facing an uncertain future. He chose to take a path with no guarantee of success and promised himself that he would do everything he could to make a career as an artist. He began painting shirts and taught himself to sew, convincing local fashion shops to give him their extra scraps of cloth. He experimented with combining collage, paint and dying techniques- all from his parent’s home and began running his own business. He promoted his more »
Salvador, Bahia Carnaval 2011 and Mikael Mutti
Five years ago, I was introduced to the liminal zones of Carnaval in northeast Brazil. In 2005-2006 I was living in Olinda, Pernambuco and joined a street theater group called Boi Surubi, which I practiced with for the months leading up to Carnaval, learning rhythms, songs, and stories. The group was led by Marcos Isaises, who brought together about twenty kids from the nearby favela in the blazing hot afternoons. Set in the Bumba-Meu-Boi dance tradition – reenacting a story called the Desire of Catherine about a slave named Pai more »
