Android users, help us test our Mobil-Eyes Us app on June 6 at 8 p.m. ET. Mobil-Eyes Us is a WITNESS’ initiative that connects frontline human rights defenders with distant supporters in real time.

On June 6, join us for a debate on state violence in Brazil centered around the “Auto de Resistência,” a documentary on homicides committed by Rio de Janeiro’s military police. The debate will be livestreamed from Brazil via the app with community leaders and victims of police violence joining in and sharing their experiences. The debate will be in Portuguese and translated into English by volunteers via the app.

Here’s how you can get involved:

• If you’re an Android user, download the app here;
• Share the event details with partners, friends, and activists who you think may be interested in the Brazilian context of police abuse, and those thinking of ways to better document those abuses;
• Tune-in June 6 at 8 p.m. ET to watch the debate and share your support;
• Help us improve the app by noticing any glitches or if you have suggestions, you can post your comments in real time via the app.

For more information about the app, click here.

This Thursday, August 31, the state government of Rio de Janeiro will make the call for bids for the construction work on the land known as Favela da Skol, located in Complexo do Alemão. The event will be broadcast live, at 12pm UTC time (9am RIO; 8am NY), by one of the most prominent and inspiring community leaders, Camila Moradia from Quero minha casa. The livestream will include English translation and additional local context through the support of WITNESS’ Mobil-Eyes Us project.

Since 2009, about 500 families who occupied the land – where the Skol brewery was once located – have been removed on the grounds that the homes were at ​​risk because of the presence of the abandoned brewery building.

During his time as deputy governor of Rio, Luiz Fernando Pezão (who is now governor) promised that he would deliver new homes within nine months. Seven years have gone by and the residents still remain without adequate housing. And they receive insufficient rent assistance to be able to afford the city’s high cost of housing.

This Thursday, we have a great opportunity to change the way this community has been treated in the struggle for housing rights. Your support is urgent and fundamental, as well as the support from the people around you, so that this victory does not become another empty promise in this history of resistance and fight. Now it’s more important than ever to show that we’re on their side and that there are a lot of people watching!

Show support by sharing the Facebook event, invite your friends to do the same and on August 31st, make yourself present wherever you are! We will be documenting everything, providing English translation and offering links with contextualization of all the other promises made and not fulfilled by the Brazilian State.

This livestreaming event is a continuation of our pilot Mobile-Eyes Us project during the Rio 2016 Olympics. The project brings ‘distant witnesses’ into livestreams and offers context, translation and other meaningful ways to take action. Learn more about the pilot here.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 31

WATCH (with translation & local context – no registration needed): http://mobile-eyes-us.itp.io:8000/

REGISTER (receive notifications & give feedback on our Mobil-Eyes Us project): email claramedeiros@gmail.com

SHARE: Invite others to attend via this Facebook event

The New Media Ventures Innovation Fund selects six innovative and changemaking startups from a pool of hundreds of applicants, all of whom are finding ways to use cutting-edge technology to advance social and environmental causes and to mobilize underrepresented communities.

Mobil-Eyes-Us aims to support frontline activists who are using live video in more meaningful ways, other than through the usual ‘likes’ and ‘hearts’ from those watching these feeds. We look at existing and new technology that can turn viewers of live video into active witnesses who can provide guidance, leverage, and solidarity in real time.

Most recently a small-scale pilot of the Mobil-Eyes-Us project launched during the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The pilot in Rio involved collaboration with frontline activists in communities affected by human rights violations to share a series of live-streams and provide ‘distant witnesses’ with the opportunity to witness directly what was happening, and move from being viewers to active witnesses taking action in support of frontline communities.

To learn more about our Mobil-Eyes-Us Project and Tech Advocacy, please click here.

To learn more about New Media Ventures, please click here.

Over the past week, people across the United States – from Minnesota, to Louisiana, to Texas, and in between – have been robbed of those rights. For this denial and the senseless loss of life, we are grieving.

But we maintain our steadfast commitment to supporting those working for change. We must move, with great urgency, on a path that leads to equality for all.

Featured image is a detail from a photograph by Grace Ghinger in the project Preserve the Baltimore Uprising 2015. The original photograph can be seen here. 

The news from Brazil has been increasingly bleak with concerns about the fast-spreading Zika virus, a political crisis reaching the highest echelons of the executive branch through the recent preliminary impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, and criticisms about the country’s preparedness to host the international games coming from many angles, including the Rio state governor and mayor themselves. Even the normally celebratory exhibiting of the Olympic torch was marred by the killing of a rare jaguar who had been drugged and trotted out as a mascot.

While the media has been quick to highlight these crises, there has been less coverage of the outrage that many Brazilians, advocates, and national and international human rights defenders have expressed about the social injustices that have worsened in the lead-up to the Olympic Games. For example, to make way for new Olympic stadiums and transportation projects, more than 77,000 people have been evicted from their homes. There has also been an alarming rise in police killings and a clampdown on freedom of expression threatens citizens’ right to free assembly and could criminalize protesters’ actions as terrorism.

WITNESS has been working with community groups, media activists, and human rights groups in Brazil over the last five years on these issues, strengthening their use of video to not only document abuses, but to use their video as a tool for sparking investigations, for accountability and justice. Our biggest focus has been working with advocates on bringing much-needed attention to systematic police violence in Rio’s favelas, where heavily armed forces operate with near complete impunity under the pretense of fighting entrenched drug trafficking gangs.

Through their tireless mobilization and advocacy, Brazilian activists are changing that equation, and video is playing a crucial role in the fight for justice.  WITNESS is committed to strengthening these efforts. Below we share highlights of our work with partners from the last five+ years to provide a grounding in the stories and issues that media and politicians have not been paying enough attention to.

Independent Olympics Coverage 
Over the next month and a half, we’ll be bringing more stories from Brazil to you via our network of partners.  And from August 5-20, we’ll be sharing stories produced by the Mutirão Media Livre– a project of independent media makers and activists from across region (some of whom are WITNESS partners) who will be reporting on human rights issues and live streaming coverage of how the Olympics affect Rio’s communities. We’ll be publishing highlights of this coverage on our Portuguese-language website, and all of the content will be available on the Mutirao Media Livre website. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates.

WITNESS in Brazil

Police Violence  

Watch:
After the massive street protests that erupted across Brazil in 2013, video proved to be a vital tool for exposing widespread police violence. In 2014, WITNESS edited a video-compilation of footage shot by citizens and activists to be screened at a special hearing on police violence at the Inter-American Commission. Read the related article here.

WITNESS teamed up with media collective Coletivo Papo Reto for the first time in late 2014 to support their efforts to use video to document, deter, and combat police violence in the Alemão Favela Complex in Rio.  WITNESS & Coletivo Papo Reto

The Fusion network featured Coletivo Papo Reto’s work in a report by Tim Pool

Read:
“The Media Doesn’t Care What Happens Here” a feature article in The New York Times Magazine on the work of Coletivo Papo Reto and WITNESS

Dispatch from Brazil: If killed by police, guilty by default… unless there is video?

Video as Evidence in Brazil – a report by Article 19 and WITNESS highlights the potential of video to secure justice but notes that the full potential has yet to be realized.

Forced evictions

Rio’s residents have been threatened with and seen forced evictions carried out over the last five+ years leading up to the World Cup (2014) and the Summer Olympics (2016). The evictions are due to construction and infrastructure projects for the major sporting events. As one Rio resident put it, “I was excited when Brazil won the bid, now feel like a fool because I’m paying for it. Is this the World Cup and Olympic spirit?”

Watch:
WITNESS in Rio: Training Activists to Use Video to Fight Forced Evictions:

Evict Them! In Five Easy Steps – and our Forced Evictions Toolkit Advocacy (available in Portuguese)

Voices of the Mission – Restinga from a 3-day fact-finding mission to many communities threatened by eviction in Rio, including the Restinga community.  The mission was led by Plataforma Dhesca’s Rapporteur on the Human Right to the City, Orlando Silva Jr, and with the participation of 12 additional organizations, including WITNESS.

Read:
Support for People’s Cup in 2013 Looking at activism gaining momentum one year before the 2014 World Cup held across Brazil.

Can 114 Videos Tell One Story About Forced Evictions? An innovative, collaborative project that successfully refuted Rio’s mayor’s assertion that forced evictions were isolated incidents by using video to prove the systematic nature of these patterns across the city.

Keep up with coverage of Olympics from grassroots communities by following these voices:

Rio on Watch http://www.rioonwatch.org/ @rioonwatch

Coletivo Papo Reto https://www.facebook.com/ColetivoPapoReto/ @CPapo_Reto

Maré Vive: https://www.facebook.com/Marevive/?fref=ts

Fórum de Juventudes do Rio de Janeiro: https://www.facebook.com/forumdejuventuderj/?fref=ts

Anistia Brasil https://anistia.org.br/ @AnistiaBrasil

Artigo 19 http://artigo19.org/ @Artigo19

Mutirão Mídia Livre: https://www.facebook.com/MutiraoRio2016/?fref=ts

Mídia Coletiva: https://www.facebook.com/midiacoletiva/?fref=ts

Justiça Global: http://www.global.org.br/ @justicaglobal

Rio 2016 – Os Jogos da Exclusão: https://www.facebook.com/jogosdaexclusao/?fref=ts @jogosdaexclusao

Featured image is from Sebastián Liste/Noor Images for the New York Times piece,“The Media Doesn’t Care What Happens Here”.

This year we’re proposing the panel, Live! Camera! Action!: Livestreaming That Matters, to discuss questions surrounding the use of livestreaming for good. More about the panel:

Sound interesting? Want to hear from WITNESS in Austin? Then please cast your vote for Live! Camera! Action!: Livestreaming That Matters here: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/48906