Blog on holiday

If you haven’t guessed already, the WAC youth video project blog is taking a temporary holiday while WAC makes some changes to its video project on young people and HIV. Those changes are being guided by your posts to the blog, and I’ll post again as soon as the new video project plan is ready. Thanks!

Video activity

Ok everyone, after a long wait here is the video activity that’s going to become the core of the blog:

We’ve been talking about three issues: HIV, human rights, and young people as leaders. 

Some key messages that you have proposed are:

• Help youth help themselves… Let them take the lead!
• Youth, you have the voice, use it!
• We can make a change.
• Now is the time to lead.
• Prevention starts WITH youth, not FROM youth.

The common theme among all of these issues and messages looks like: Young people’s right to participation in decisions that affect their own lives, particularly around HIV and sexual health.

Everyone on the blog is invited to start thinking about ideas for one-minute videos (made with cellphones) that explore this theme. In my next post I’ll discuss the details of how to make the videos and how to post them on the blog.

Universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care… by 2010?

Later this week I’m going to post the activity about making videos on HIV, human rights and young people. And since the activity is going to be about HIV and human rights, I’d like to call everybody’s attention to a key milestone in HIV and human rights: the promise of Universal Access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care.

Some of you may have heard of the idea of Universal Access. In 2005, eight of the world’s wealthiest countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) committed to providing universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care to all people who need it all around the world. Soon after leaders from countries around the world followed suit and made the same pledge at the 2005 UN World Summit.

It’s a great idea. But one problem… they promised to make Universal Access a reality by 2010. That’s next year.

Does it seem to any of you out there like we’re only one year away from Universal Access to HIV prevention, care and treatment? And as distant as that goal may seem… what can we do to bring our countries and communities closer to achieving it?

Cellphone video that won a film festival

Next week I am going to post the cellphone video activity that everyone will be invited to do as part of this project. Just to show everyone the potential of cellphone video, here is a video that won a film festival – and a $20,000 prize – and it was shot using only a cellphone.

http://www.tropfest.com/ny/

If you look around that webpage (for the Tropfest Short Film Festival in New York) and the page for Tropfest Australia Short Film Festival…

http://www.tropfest.com/au/

…you’ll also see the guidelines for participating in these film festivals, which could be places to send short films on HIV and young people as leaders.

Email your photos to WAC to post on the blog

In case anyone has had problems posting photos on the blog, you can do what Zoneziwoh did – email the photos directly to WAC, and we’ll post the photos for you. After that you can add a comment with a title for the photo, a message and a story behind the photo.

Email the photos to:

Another photo posted by Zoneziwoh

Zoneziwoh emailed this photo to me as well (see the post “Email your photos to WAC to post on the blog”), and I posted it on the blog for her. Zoneziwoh, could tell us:

• A title for this photo
• A message that this photo sends
• The story behind this photo

Photo posted by Zoneziwoh

Zoneziwoh emailed this photo to me (see the post “Email your photos to WAC to post on the blog”), and I posted it on the blog for her. Zoneziwoh, could tell us:

• A title for this photo
• A message that this photo sends
• The story behind this photo

Re-cap: Messages, Audience and Images

Before we move ahead with the next phase of the WAC youth video project, I would like to re-cap the brainstorms we have done so far and try to fill in the gaps.

We’ve defined some possible messages for a video on HIV, human rights and young people as leaders.

• Now is the time to lead.
• Help youth help themselves… Let them take the lead!
• Live your best life.
• Meritocracy, be my principle.
• Never regret what makes you happy.
• Our world, our lives, our home.
• Youth, you are the voice!
• Youth, you have the voice, use it!
• Prevention starts WITH youth, not FROM youth.
• We can make a change.

Would you add any messages to this list?

We’ve come up with some ideas on an audience for a video on HIV, human rights and young people as leaders:

• The general public
• Active citizens
• People vulnerable to HIV
• People vulnerable to rights violations
• Emerging young leaders

Would you make this list of audiences any wider? Would you make this list of audiences any more narrow?

I also started a brainstorm where participants can post phots that communicate messages about HIV, human rights and young people as leaders. Nobody has posted any photos yet, but it will be exciting to see what images everyone has to share. Everyone is invited to post photos that express messages about HIV, human rights and young people as leaders. Please see the other posts in the “Photos” category (on the right) for instructions on how to post photos.

So, we’ve come up with some messages… we’ve thought about the audience to share those messages with… and we’re coming up with photos that communicate those messages to the audience. Once we have all three we can start making plans for making videos.

Amazing website with short videos from around the world

Here is a website with a series of short video interviews with people from around the world. It shows the potential of short videos with a clear message. Collecting and distributing all of the videos on a single website makes their message even clearer and more powerful.

http://www.6billionothers.org/index_en.php

Who do you think the audience is for these videos?

Who do you think will be the audience for our videos?

And what will be the best way to reach our audience?

Brainstorm #3: Who is the audience for our videos?

We currently have two brainstorms open:

• One on messages
• One on images (based on the messages brainstorm)

I would like to add a third brainstorm. We want to make short videos about HIV, human rights and young people as leaders. Who is the ideal audience for these videos? Young people? Which young people? Adults? Which adults?

Submit your ideas by adding a comment to this message.