Area 1 is a VR experience that highlights the role of international finance institutions in the violent displacement of a local community in West Africa, emphasizing the need for financial accountability when legal mechanism fail.
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Building the Movement of Resistance to Oil: Alternative Visions in California
In 2018, community leaders from East and Central Africa traveled to California to learn about the impacts of oil production, and how local activists have defended their rights and championed green alternatives.
Beneath the Surface: Women Lead the Fight Against Mining
The Philippines is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for human rights defenders. Women activists are frequently targeted for their participation in resistance struggles, and as of May 2018, seventeen women defenders have been killed since the current president, Rodrigo Duterte, rose to power in 2016.
In this “Beneath the Surface” installment, we meet the women who lead the anti-mining resistance movement in the Cordillera region of the Philippines. For decades, these women have risked their lives to protect their homes and ways of life. To sustain their struggle over time, female leaders pass their knowledge and experience on to the younger generation, who learn about the struggles of their elders through performance and storytelling. Young and old are united as they protest the use of force against them, and as they dedicate their lives to educating other communities.
Appealing for Mercy on Pakistan’s Death Row: The Story of Kanizan Bibi
Kanizan Bibi was 16 years old when she was arrested for murdering the wife and children of a wealthy neighboring family. Although there was scant evidence to place her at the scene of the crime, she eventually confessed to the crime– after more than 15 days of horrific torture at the hands of police. She has since languished on Pakistan’s death row, descending into mental illness.
Our video sheds light on Bibi’s story and the policing practices that make it possible for an innocent, underage woman to be sentenced to die. We made this video as part of our ongoing partnership with Justice Project Pakistan, a human rights law firm that works on the death penalty.
Human Rights Tools and the Fight Against Big Tobacco
The tobacco epidemic continues to worsen globally– 1.1 billion people smoke around the world, and 20% of all deaths in the US are attributable to tobacco. To counter this growing challenge, anti-tobacco organizations like Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) are using a human-rights framework to ask governments to adopt stricter anti-tobacco regulations.
We partnered with ASH on a video for their global network of anti-tobacco advocates. Our video captures real-time conversations between advocates in three countries—Germany, Uganda, and the United States—as they discuss ways to use a human rights framework in their anti-tobacco work. Through our video, we model the behavior ASH hopes to encourage in their advocates—mainly using their strong global network to tackle this complex new approach.