Videre: help us expose human rights violations and change civil society

Videre: help us expose human rights violations and 

change civil society

"You can help us expose violations and change the way civil society is working in a much more secure and much more effective way," Oren Yakobovich implored the audience at Wired 2013.

Yakobovich is founder of Videre (est credere), a human rights group that works to expose violations around the globe through the use of hidden cameras. The group, which has been working undercover for years, surfaced this year via a feature in Wiredbecause its founder believes more good can be done, more people can be helped and the technology and collective knowledge at our disposal can make their mission even more effective and secure.

Born to a right wing Israel family, 42-year-old Yakobovich grew up with one wish: to become a soldier. The reality of what that actually meant soon became all too clear to him, however.

"I spent a lot of time in the West Bank and that was the first time I saw images I didn't like that I hadn't see before -- there was a lot of injustice there.""When I turned 18 I joined the Israeli army with a feeling of pride to serve my country," Yakobovich explained. "I joined one of the toughest units and I got the biggest gun in my platoon," he adds, pointing to a picture his teenage self, looking far from equipped to handle the destructive tool. 

Yakobovich's grounding in what he should believe in shattered, he eventually refused to serve in the West Bank and was imprisoned. He soon realised that unless people see for themselves what is happening, change will be slow and difficult. On the flip side, the reason there are not more people exposing these injustices is because the witnesses include either the vulnerable, the perpetrators or, like Yakobovich, people doing a job that feel all the pressure that goes with serving as a soldier. 

He joined the Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem with a plan to empower the vulnerable. "I asked myself how can I show the public what I saw in the West Bank. Make documentary films, I thought. They are great, but I realised they don't create the change I wanted to create in the West Bank. I understood the need to get these images and stories to the prime time news so through B'Tselem I trained 100 families across the West Bank to use cameras."

"This was shown in primetime news in Israel and forced accountability. It reduced the level of violence in the West Bank. But I asked myself how can we take this same methodology to other places in the world and use visuals to make systematic change?" 

The seed of Videre was born -- that systematic change would only come from protecting the victims and those that speak out. "To give a voice to the voiceless, and show what others want us to hide we needed to engage citizens in remote places." In many of those places, people would be seriously at risk if caught filming, so Videre only uses hidden cameras that are smuggled into countries, records video on sim cards, and physically collect the data so it is not uploaded on the internet. 

Today Videre has a network of 400 people working to capture injustices on cameras, in countries across the globe. He says he cannot tell us where, in order to protect those people, but says they are in dictatorships.

"We have 1,500 hours of footage, most of which we cannot show, but from that we have 350 stories seen in 120 media outlets around the world." Videre remains anonymous, unattached to the footage to protect its network. Film is shared with the media, human rights organisations and decision makers -- it's this path that makes sure "perpetrators understand someone is filming them; they have no impunity anymore, and it can be used in court." 

Yakobovich is currently working on a project exposing female genital mutilation in rural Kenya, where the practice is illegal.

But for projects like this to keep going, Videre is gradually going public to seek the right partners and funding.

"People often think of us as a video organisation," says Yakobovich. "But we're an information organisation. We take visuals to achieve our goals, this is the key to our success. We're bombarded with information but if we're not working with visuals correctly we won't be able to make an impact.

"We welcome you all to join us with your technology, your skills, your knowledge and of course with funding. Let's make sure more footage like this is exposed everywhere there are injustices."

Interested readers can journey over to Videre's website.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/18/oren-yakobovich-videre