India: Community Journalism with Video Volunteers · Global Voices
Juliana Rincón Parra

Video Volunteers is a non-profit organization of media producers from the villages and slums in India, creating content that is relevant to themselves and screening it inside the communities, reaching thousands of people a month with news and events that affect them and call them into action.  Channel 19 is the online video channel where this media, created by and for the communities is showcased for the rest of the population.
In the latest video from Video Volunteers, there talk about the strike in Dharavi, the world's largest slum in Mumbai, India. The reason for this strike is that the government had promised an allotment of 400 square feet per family to build, but they went back on that and during the last meeting, they had discussed that it would only be 300 square feet per family. The following video, Black Day in Dharavi,  has the complete story, shot and produced by the video volunteers:
Other videos by the VideoVolunteers of Channel 19 are insightful and inspiring: on Women Can Play Too!, the community journalists ask around their slum about what kids do to play. It turns out boys play, while girls have to do chores. So they ask a female cricket player about the importance of playing, as an inspiration for other girls to do the same. In Never too late to teach, a woman rag picker decides to change her future and decides to study to become a teacher and get certified.