One World 2004

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Workshops

Human Rights Film Network | One World Tour | Seminar schedule

One World Tour

In the last several years the Prague-based non-profit organization People in Need (PIN) and its partners from Slovakia, Poland, Russia, Kosovo and several other EU countries (e.g. Germany, the Netherlands, UK etc.) have developed a cluster of affiliated projects that use film as an efficient human rights awareness building and educational tool. The aim of the One World Tour initiative is to share our experience with others — to provide our know how and all other assistance necessary to the bulk of interested non-governmental organizations from southeastern, central and eastern Europe as well as from the Caucasus region and central Asia in order to inspire and enable them to implement the same innovative strategies in their awareness building and educational activities.

We want to achieve this in two stages:

by staging a seminar that will take place in Prague within the framework of the One World film festival;
by providing year-long consulting, technical and logistic assistance to participating partners.

The seminar will bring together participants from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Croatia, Kosovo, Ukraine and Russia who already have experience in staging human rights film events with participants from other countries who are new to the process. Some of them have already explicitly expressed their wish to launch similar projects in their countries (Hungary, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Moldova, Georgia, Tajikistan), while others have just recently been invited to join (Serbia and Montenegro, Macedonia, Belarus, Georgia). The purpose is to exchange experiences and to present models of development of the project. The workshop should kick off long-term cooperation between partners.

Background

Film and video is becoming an increasingly important tool of human rights awareness building all around the globe. Activists, civic initiatives and non-governmental organizations from different backgrounds successfully use video testimonies to gain visibility, instigate public concerns, raise awareness and share experience. Human rights film festivals have emerged and successfully developed in dozens of countries. Most of them are multifaceted events which include not only film screenings, but also round table discussions, public debates, lectures at schools and universities, visits of guests and follow-up screenings in other cities.

The One World Human Rights Film Festival is one of the leading organizations in this field. In the last five years it has developed a very successful method of using film, video and DVD as an awareness building and educational tool in the field of human rights.

In 1999 Prague-based non-profit organization People in Need organized the first One World festival with the aim of using the powerful medium of film to raise awareness and knowledge about human rights in their broadest dimension - political, economic and social - and inspire direct involvement in social and political challenges. Since then, One World has developed into one of the largest and most important human rights film festivals in Europe.

One World´s initial premise, that film is a powerful medium to draw attention to human rights and other global issues proved to work well in the Czech Republic. The first year of the festival drew the attention of 3000 predominantly young viewers in 2 cities; the second year — 8000 viewers in 3 cities; the third year — 12.000 viewers in 9 cities; the fourth year — 18.500 viewers in 15 cities; fifth year 29 334 viewers.

Apart from this, the One World team has developed a wide-ranging program of cooperation with high schools and universities to help educate students about human rights issues. Currently 240 schools from all parts of the Czech Republic are involved in the project. The „One World at School" project provides regular seminars year-round to groups of high school teachers and university lecturers. At the seminars they obtain practical instructions on how to use documentary film screenings and follow-up debates. Participants of seminars are also provided with subtitled VHS tapes with selected films, associated publications, simulation games and interactive education methodology to achieve the aims of the project. „One World at School" empowers teachers to help students form independent opinions and enrich individual social, cultural and historic awareness. By encouraging tolerant intercultural communication, the project works to remove prejudices and the negative effects of extremism, racism, national intolerance and xenophobia. A number of Czech non-governmental organizations participate in the project as well.

Other One World outreach programs include special thematic screenings for various target audiences and beneficiaries: prison inmates; soldiers who are trained for the participation in UN peace-missions; asylum seekers and NGOs working with them; etc.

Currently, the One World video archives contain more than 2,000 titles which address a wide gamut of issues such as: global security, civil wars, war crimes, political repression, countries under authoritarian rule, state and civil rights, free media, societies in transition, searching for personal and historical truth, justice and reconciliation, the role of international institutions, religious and political orthodoxy, fundamentalism, nationalism, racism, minorities, migration, refugees and asylum seekers, equal opportunities, women rights and gender issues, trafficking of sex slaves, domestic violence, lost youth, corruption, and social impacts of a global economy. And though much of the subject material is serious, sometimes even tragic, the films are also infused with hope and the conviction that committed people can make a difference. Video archives are accompanied by a database with a powerful search machine that is able to filer titles under numerous queries. One World staff is able to assist any potential partner in tailoring film selection according to any topic or specific awareness building goals.

In addition to directly organizing One World in Prague and 14 other main cities of the Czech Republic, PIN has supported non-governmental organizations in other countries in launching their own human rights film screenings. By working with these local partners, PIN has so far held smaller versions of One World in Slovakia (June 2000, November 2001, October 2002, October 2003), Kosovo (October 2000, December 2001, December 2002, December 2003), Yugoslavia (May/June 2001), Belarus (June-September 2001), Poland (November 2001, December 2002, December 2003), and Croatia (December 2002). All of these cases proved that film is highly effective way to raise awareness and improve the understanding of human rights and minority rights and promote inter-ethnic discourse.

Invited participants:

Člověk v ohrozeni / One World Bratislava, Slovakia
One World Budapest, Hungary
Human Rights in Film / Polish Helsinki Committee, Warsaw, Poland
Biro za ljudska prava / Human Rights Office, Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Media Centar, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina
One World Zagreb, Croatia
Močvara, Klub udruženja za razvoj kulture (URK), Zagreb, Croatia
NjeBote Human Rights Film Festival / KMDLN, Prishtina, Kosovo
Macedonian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, Skoplje, Macedonia
TV B92, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro
CENPI, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro
Humaniarian Law Center, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro
International Renaissance Foundation, Kiev, Ukraine
Amnesty International Moldova, Chisinau, Moldova
Stalker Human Rights Film Festival, Russia, Moscow
Meetings in Siberia, Russia, Novosibirsk
Civic Society Center- Centar Supolnasc, Minsk, Belarus
Georgia, Tbilisi (1)
Bureau on Human Rights and Rule of Law, Tajikistan, Dushanbe

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