September 27, 2012
Today in the lead up to World Habitat Day on October 1st we’re proud to announce a new video People Before Profit – bringing communities across the world together to tell the global story of forced evictions. WITNESS has supported forced evictions campaigns for more than 10 years. During this time, these projects have amplified the voices of communities across the world. For World Habitat Day we are bringing many of these voices together for the first time to tell another story.
People Before Profit was produced for use by local communities affected by forced evictions and those supporting them to build greater solidarity locally and globally. We hope local communities can “see themselves” through others’ struggles and successes around the world. People Before Profit is a major tool for WITNESS and our partners to leverage local campaigns and to represent forced evictions as the international human rights issue it truly is.
The footage comes from WITNESS partners and allies around the world and attempts to tell the story of the more universal human experience before, during and after an eviction as well as the positive ways communities are responding and, in fact, being pro-active towards securing and protecting their human rights.
Watching the video you will quickly notice we do not indicate countries or directly identify any person during the video – until the end credits. You also may not be easily able to distinguish footage and stories from the United States, from Brazil or from Nigeria. To create a truly global video with one voice, we chose to blur the lines of geography and nationality.
Also, People Before Profit can be viewed as a table of contents for additional videos. Each clip is part of extended interviews or fully produced pieces. The video showcases the amazing work of our partners like LICADHO in Cambodia, Video Volunteers in India, Habitat Coalition International– América Latina in Mexico, Articulação Nacional dos Comitês da Copa in Brazil and our allies People Live Here in Nigeria and NESRI in the United States. The end credits tell the entire story. You can view our partners’ videos and others on forced evictions on our new YouTube channel–youtube.com/forcedevictions.
Local Voices Can Create Global Change
In its work, WITNESS tries to place the human story at the center of human rights campaigns.
In the more than 70 videos produced since 2010 as part of the forced evictions global campaign, WITNESS and our partners have sought to do just that – with stories that move decision-makers to respond and with images that cannot be denied.
What was needed was a space in which these voices came together for a moment – without the confinements of our borders and the stereotypes they may create within us. Since an estimated 15 million people are affected by forced evictions each year, to tell this global story, we needed many voices to speak as one. People Before Profit is that one voice.
Through activism and solidarity campaigns, communities around the world have been claiming and gaining a larger share in the decisions which impact their lives. Forced evictions impact individuals, families and communities most greatly. To bring an end to these human rights abuses requires us all to see the global nature in which local forced evictions often arise and consider how the local voices around the world together can create global change.
Source: WITNESS
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