Program Video Advocacy Training Support Internship
2 Positions
Organization
WITNESS uses video to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations. WITNESS empowers people to transform personal stories of abuse into powerful tools for justice, promoting public engagement and policy change. Founded nearly 20 years ago by musician and activist, Peter Gabriel, WITNESS partners with NGO’s, community groups, and grassroots organizations around the globe.
Description
WITNESS is currently seeking highly motivated interns and volunteers to support its new video advocacy training initiatives. Volunteers may generously donate their time and energy remotely; however, interns need to collaborate with WITNESS staff in its Brooklyn, NY office.
Initiative 1: Online Video Action Planning Toolkit
This Fall, WITNESS will launch its new online, multi-lingual interactive toolkit designed to help advocates develop a successful video advocacy strategy. Based on WITNESS’ Video for Change methodology and 25-page Video Action Plan Workbook (VAP: see www.witness.org/VAP), the toolkit will walk users through a step-by-step process that will help them determine how they can optimally integrate video into their advocacy efforts. The focus of the toolkit is to support users, primarily human rights defenders, interested in creating short-form advocacy videos. Users will answer questions throughout the guide and upon completion, users will have an in-depth VAP and accompanying worksheets that they can share with colleagues, allies and or funders via a downloadable document.
Potential interns and volunteers would support this project in a range of ways, but particularly in:
• Researching and compiling applicable resources and content to help users best use the guide, particularly case studies featuring successful examples of video advocacy;
• Writing and researching training-related content for the WITNESS blogs;
• Supporting distribution and outreach of the online Video Action Planning Toolkit; and
• Conducting interviews and surveys of users and compiling feedback to enhance the toolkit.
Initiative 2: Creating WITNESS’ Online Training Curriculum Portal
WITNESS will also be providing its entire training curriculum online to support its peers working and training at the intersection of human rights and video. Ultimately, to best support those wanting to better use and train others to use video, the goal is to have a centralized location for WITNESS and its partners’ to share, remix and enhance video-related training curricula.
Potential interns and volunteers would support this project in a range of ways, but particularly in:
• Compiling and transferring WITNESS’ existing training curriculum to the online portal;
• Conducting outreach to potential partners and allies; and
• Supporting the online development of the site through user testing and feedback for enhancements
Qualifications:
Potential interns should be undergraduates or graduate students. We look for a focus in studies on human rights, international relations, history, political science, and area studies (e.g., with particular regional concentration).
Candidates should have:
• A background in human rights and/or video
• Familiarity with adding content to online platforms (blogs and wikis)
• Relevant regional experience, either academic or practical
• Previous NGO experience (experience abroad is a plus)
• For this internship, strong writing skills are required and additional language skills (particularly French, Spanish or Russian) are a significant plus.
All interns are expected to spend between 20-30% of their time engaged in administrative support to program and office-wide staff.
General Information
We require a minimum of two months commitment, for at least 15 hours per week. Internships are unpaid. Our offices are located in Brooklyn, NY, convenient to the Atlantic Terminal (2, 3, 4, 5, B, D, Q, N and R trains) and C (Lafayette) and G (Fulton) trains.
Application instructions:
In your application, please note with specificity which initiative you are most interested in. Please send applications via email with “Training Support” in the Subject to internship@witness.org. No phone inquiries, please.