The Daily: What’s the big idea’ behind WITNESS?

Gillian Caldwell: WITNESS is the first and only organization at a global level to provide video cameras to human rights organizations. We also give them technical and tactical guidance to use video to create change. I think the biggest problem in human rights advocacy is that small, under-resourced human rights organizations are having difficulty getting traction around the problems they face. WITNESS helps them make effective use of media in their advocacy work.

Bigger human rights organizations based in the West are getting more and more savvy in terms of integrating media into their campaign, and they should.

What worries me is what happens to the smaller, less well-funded organizations operating under repressive circumstances a long way from here. Those organizations are really the frontlines against the kind of oppression and abuse that we see happening around the world.

TD: Once an organization collects footage of human rights abuses, how is it used to create change?

GC: Sometimes it’s used for grassroots education and mobilization. Sometimes it’s used for evidentiary submission for a court or tribunal. Sometimes it’s to work with the media. And sometimes it’s for a screening before a key decision-maker with the power to make a difference.

What is consistent in every campaign is that we have online calls to action each month, with new video broadcasts at our Web site. One of the ways that students and others can get involved in our work is to go online and sign up for a free membership. It’s a very simple way to get alerted and commit to taking action on a variety of issues around the world.

TD: WITNESS is involved in a number of different human rights campaigns. What campaign are you most proud of?

GC: Our project on the California Youth Authority is one we have high hopes for and that is very pertinent to California.

We are working with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights on a project called “Books Not Bars.” It is an effort to push for a complete overhaul of the California Youth Authority. We’re trying to close the biggest penal juvenile facilities in the state and to replace them with the community-based model along the lines of Missouri’s model.

TD: Before joining WITNESS, you spent to two years with the Global Survival Network. What draws you to work on human rights issues?

GC: I’ve been doing social justice as long as I can remember. I began actively when I was 12, when I was coordinating my high school Amnesty chapter.

It never occurred to me to work in a private law firm. When I went to law school, my intention was to get the credibility and the degree I would need to be able to do systems-changing work at a policy level.

TD: What advice do you have for students interested in getting involved?

GC: Get creative and get energetic. There are so many organizations that are fascinating places to work and develop a skill set but may just take a little bit more energy to identify.

The bottom line is that every individual has the capacity to make a difference. That is the belief WITNESS is built on and is organized around. We make it possible for people who care to make a difference.