Video Volunteers
Award
$275,000
Winner
Jessica Mayberry
Organization
Community Media Distribution Network
Location
Summary
Video Volunteers, a New York-based nonprofit, will train 100 people in rural India as Community Video Producers. These citizen journalists will produce magazine-
style video news reports, typically on local social issues, and show them on widescreen projectors in poor communities. The idea is to distribute public interest information to the poor – without having to provide the entire population with digital tools. To date, Video Volunteers’ screenings in India have reached 140,000 people in 150 communities. The video technology is not new. The innovation is to do citizen journalism on a significant scale in a poor, rural area.
Winner Bio
Jessica Mayberry founded Video Volunteers in September 2003 after spending a year training rural Indian women in filmmaking as a fellow of the American India Foundation. Video Volunteers is working to create a media industry at the base of the social pyramid by training local people to run their own “Community Video Units” in partnership with NGOs. Prior to that, Mayberry worked at Court TV, the Fox News Channel and CNN. She is a fellow of Echoing Green, an organization that supports social entrepreneurs. She also serves on the board of Free the Children, the world’s largest organization of “Children Helping Children” and on the Advisory Council of Counterpart International. She holds a degree in modern history and modern languages from Oxford University.