In the video titled, “How Video Can Create a Just Society,” Yvette spoke about the importance of filming injustice and knowing how to handle video and use it for justice.

“There’s a real need to understand how video can help people prove what happened… You have a right to film,” she said.

To watch the video, click here.

Watch and share it here.

Through her leadership of WITNESS, Yvette develops strategies and exclusive technologies to help activists and eyewitnesses ensure each video brings us one step closer to justice. WITNESS, is a global network of activists that helps anyone, anywhere use the power of video and technology to protect and defend human rights.

Yvette believes in the potential of citizen media to level the playing field for marginalized communities and tell stories of truth that contradict the self-serving narratives of the powerful. With millions of people as potential civic witnesses, video can be an important source of data about violations, disprove false narratives, be used as evidence, or expose patterns of exclusion. WITNESS works in collaboration with activists and ordinary citizens creating tools, strategies, and solutions to bolster the credibility of alternative voices, support the strategic use of civic media to create concrete change and make it possible for millions to be safe, ethical, and effective witnesses for human rights.

Dear President Trump,

As leaders who have spent our careers pioneering innovative solutions for many of our nation’s and the world’s most entrenched challenges, we write to express our unequivocal disagreement with your Executive Order issued on January 27, 2017, which banned individuals from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States. We believe the order violates one of America’s most closely-held values to block entry to a targeted minority, whether comprised of temporary visitors, immigrants, or refugees. This is especially true for those who live on the edge of survival in war zones and refugee camps and have waited for years to call this great country their new home.

Groups like ours exist to help lift up the poorest and most marginalized with innovative solutions. In our opinion, this ban will make our work to foster peace, sustainability, opportunity and inclusiveness much harder. This action has unfortunately intensified fear, bigotry, and division in communities across our nation and the world, giving our organizations still more challenges to overcome. It has also decreased trust of Americans as we travel — it conveys that America is a country that no longer values diversity but operates from a place of prejudice.

We believe that immigrants and visitors from these nations should be allowed into the US to help increase the efficacy of the work we do to build peace and prosperity both at home and around the world. Collectively, we employ tens of thousands of people, and we have always found that the most powerful solutions for societal ills only emerge with the intimate involvement of those whom we work to serve. Diversity is the lifeblood of social, economic, and political progress, and policies that impede this value weaken our ability to innovate and implement social change.

We fear that such policies limit opportunity, inclusion, and our nation’s opportunity to engage with the world. We stand with the millions of people around the globe who have joined hands in resistance to efforts to sow fear and create false divisions along the lines of religion, ethnicity, country of origin, gender, or any other degree of difference.

You have expressed skepticism about the government’s abilities to solve problems alone, so we hope you will listen to the voices of those of us who lead organizations on the front lines of social change each and every day, using business best practices and often partnering with government. We respectfully request, Mr. President, that you do not deny us the right of welcoming people, regardless of their religion or nationality, to our shores. We must continue to communicate the values of inclusiveness and opportunity for all, values that our nation has always worked hard to live and to model.

Your fellow Americans,

Yvette Alberdingk Thijm, WITNESS

(For full list of signatories, check out the original post from the Skoll Foundation on Medium here.)

Photo: copyright Geoff Livingston

*originally published with 256, signatories number updated February 13, 2017. Peter Gabriel signed onto the letter February 15, 2017. 

The list named many notable changemakers over the age of 40 who are creating impact in different fields of work including technology, media, and human rights and forging the way for younger women to thrive in these fields as well. The honorees were selected for being positive role models and for taking on new challenges as well as for reinventing themselves throughout their careers.

As the Executive Director of WITNESS, Yvette advocates for and advances global human rights through the use of media and technology. She has been a long-time champion of empowering everyone to stand up for human rights and has been a leader and strategist in social change.

Join us in congratulating Yvette on this well-deserved honor for all her work at WITNESS and beyond!

To read more on ‘Forty over 40’ and on WITNESS’ Executive Director, click here.

She will also moderate the panel  “At the End of Every Data Point is a Human Being | The If and When of Technology for the Global Refugee Crisis” on Friday, June 10 at 2pm. Panelists include Lina Srivastava, Antonella Napolitano, Sarnata Reynolds, Abdi Iftan. More details can be found here.

The Personal Democracy Forum, or PDF, is in its 12th year bringing together “civic tech investors, startup founders, activists, nonprofit leadership, digital media professionals, government workers, community organizers, civic technologists, foundations… to celebrate the power and potential of tech to make real change happen.”

The two-day conference takes place at NYU’s Skirball Center in New York City. Details, to purchase passes and to read more about the schedule, speaker line-up here.

Can’t be there in person? Watch the livestream and join the conversation online with #PDF16 @witnessorg and @yvettethijm.

WITNESS will again be participating in the three-day convening, and ensuring that issues surrounding video are included in broader dialogue concerning how today’s digital systems impact human rights defenders. Part of our involvement will be contributing to panel discussions and presentations. The full schedule can be found here and descriptions of WITNESS’ participation is below:

The Promise Video: Documenters, Technology & Accountability
Wednesday March 30th, 12:00pm – 1:15pm
Panel: Yvette Alberdingk Thijm  (WITNESS, Executive Director), Alexa Koenig, Christoph Koettl, Linda Walter
Description: Thanks to the global proliferation of inexpensive mobile devices, video captured by citizens and on-the-ground human rights activists can be instrumental in drawing attention to human rights violations. But many of these frontline documenters want their videos to do more. They have the underlying expectation that footage exposing abuse can advance investigations of human rights and international crimes and bring about justice and accountability. And it can.

In many situations, these citizens and activists are better positioned to collect evidence of human rights abuse than professional investigators because investigators almost always arrive after-the-fact when evidence has deteriorated or is gone. However, the quality of citizen video and other content rarely passes the higher bar needed to function as evidence in a court of law.

This panel brings experts together to examine the importance of the game-changing role that frontline documenters are playing in transforming the fields of justice and accountability as well as the concrete steps they can implement to capture, organize, and manage the rich information they collect via video cameras in the field. In turn, this will ensure investigators and lawyers have better evidence to successfully hold those most responsible for crimes, systemic discrimination, and mass atrocities accountable.

—

The Visual Communication Explosion Online: Where do Human Rights and Human Rights Users Fit?
Thursday, March 31st, 10:30am – 11:45am
Panel: Sam Gregory (WITNESS, Program Director), Amanda Conway, Munya Dodo,Mona Kareem, Julie Nelson 
Description: YouTube, Facebook and Twitter native video, Snapchat, Periscope and Meerkat…. More and more online and digital tools are becoming photo and video centric. This past year we saw the rise of ephemeral photo and video, live video, and the beginnings of VR. These are increasingly being used by both the ordinary citizen as a tool for free expression and the human rights defender from Ferguson to Rio to the conflict areas of Syria, as well as by perpetrators from ISIS to far-right extremists. How do we consider the particular human rights usages, human rights challenges and human rights value implications of visual media tools ranging from Snapchat, Facebook, Periscope to YouTube?

What are the particular censorship, surveillance and free speech concerns around video and photo tools and products? What are new approaches to how contentious visual content be best handled? How should live video content be handled? What are the particular anonymity concerns around visual media and how should issues of visual anonymity be handled? What does anonymity look like in a video­-mediated world, and how can privacy by design and user­-centric options help enhance this? Where does facial recognition fit in this map? When these visual technologies intersect with potentially ubiquitous wearables and enhanced sensors what are the rights implications and the human rights usages and pitfalls? What are the pros and cons from a human rights perspective of metadata-­rich images and video? What are the human rights and consent implications of live video, and wearable-­mediated live video?

We’ll have a focused, candid conversation on how we handle these issues.

—

Witnessing Police Violence On and Off the Internet
Thursday, March 31st, 12:00-1:00pm
Panel: Morgan Hargrave (WITNESS, Systems Change Coordinator), Malkia Cyril, Taina Vargas
Description: In case after case, video footage is exposing police abuse to wider audiences but not always delivering justice, and questions about the effectiveness and ethics of those images and the ways in which we share them are only gaining importance. This panel will look at the tools+platforms that people use to document police violence, the ways in which witnesses and police are sharing footage, and how we can better make an impact. Participants will discuss the ways tech and media can overcome obstacles to justice, how to protect the rights of those on both sides of the lens, and the coming challenges for online organizing towards police accountability in the US and abroad. Beyond eyewitness media, we will also address the privacy, access, technology, and accountability issues tied to the most prevalent policy response to date: body­worn cameras.

—

Mobil-Eyes Us: Using Live Video and the Power of Networks for Smart Activism
Thursday, March 31st 4:00-5:00pm
Lightening Talk Speaker: Sam Gregory (WITNESS, Program Director)
Description: ‘Mobil-Eyes Us’ uses the power of live mobile video to connect you to direct experience of causes you care about, and then use disruptive tools from the collaboration economy to provide you meaningful ways you can act by doing what you do best. We know that millions of people globally take actions for issues they care about – but frequently their only option is a click to donate or sign a petition. Often they don’t feel connected to the issues or the actions ­and usually the available actions are also not a good use of their skills, leverage or capacity. What if we could create a ‘witnessing’ corps of people ready to tune in live? What if, using live video, we could bring supporters into a human rights or other social justice situation at the right time to fully experience the reality? And then ask them to use their unique skills, leverage, or networks to take action – for example to deter illegal violence by their group presence, to rapidly share a stream or invite others to act as well, or to provide direct legal guidance? Through an effective integration of technologies with storytelling and movement­-building, we are building out prototypes and doing pilots to help people feel more experientially connected to causes they care about and then take actions that matter. Join us!

Throughout the night we heard from inspiring artists and activists like Baltimore’s Kevin Moore, Black Violin, Sebu Simonian of Capital Cities, I Love Vinyl, Tai Beauchamp and Viacom President and CEO, Philippe Dauman – our 2015 See It. Film It. Change It. honoree. Citizen witness Kevin Moore brought the audience to their feet with his powerful story of documenting the arrest of Freddie Gray in a video that would lead to the indictment of six police officers and bring national attention to the issue of police violence. “We all have the power to stand up against what we know is not fair – and fight for what is just,” he said. “And by hitting record on your phone, you could change or even save a life.”

WITNESS’ Yvette Alberdingk Thijm inspired us with a look into the future as she explained how initiatives like WITNESS Media Lab are using new cutting edge technology to hold human rights perpetrators accountable for abuse. In a changing world, we know WITNESS will continue to bring about justice one video at a time.

The night concluded with a performance from Sebu Simonion of Capital Cities’ hit song, “Safe and Sound” ending the night on a note of optimism about the fight ahead.

Thanks to those who stood with us on November 12th – and who continue to stand up for a just world! We could not continue our mission to expose truth and defend human rights freedoms without your incredible support.

To experience this inspiring night through photos and video check our website and YouTube channel.

As a partner and trainee of WITNESS’, Rooj was interviewed alongside Yvette, discussing the role video has played in documenting conflict in Yemen. Rooj noted that authenticating video is a particular challenge citizen journalists face when sharing stories from conflict affected regions, and recounted a time when her organization in Yemen needed to verify footage they were receiving. She said, “thankfully at the time WITNESS was in Yemen and put together a quick training on how to verify footage” which has equipped citizen journalists she works with to authenticate their videos.

The Road Map segment can be viewed online here.

To critics of police violence, the video – which showed Officer Daniel Pantaleo using a banned chokehold to arrest Mr. Garner – was proof enough of wrongdoing.

WITNESS’ Executive Director Yvette Alberdingk Thijm published an essay on The Huffington Post tackling the question of whether or not video can be effective in preventing and ending police violence. She writes:

Reversing the practice of vicious policing demands an urgent overhaul of the judicial system. That, surely, takes more than a shaky, citizen-shot video. But the collective strength of citizen video – the ability for so many of us to document and the growing volume of documentation – is in fact exactly the right tool to catalyze these much needed changes. The continual light shed on abuses will make a difference. But more needs to be done for that to become a reality.

She outlined several ways that judicial systems and technology providers can help ensure that verified video can be used effectively in cases involving police violence. She also urged activists and citizens to continue their use of video:

While it may feel counterintuitive in the wake of yet another jury who disregarded a clear-cut video, I urge you to join the band of “little sisters and brothers” armed with cameras, capturing videos collectively showing patters of systemic abuse. Facilitated by improved digital technology to share and organize, we have the power to ensure, as our nation’s prosecutor said, “fairness for all.”

Yvette was also a guest on CUNY TV’s “Independent Sources” to discuss this topic. She was joined by activist Jason del Aquila of the watchdog group El Grito del Sunset Park.

Also check out our blog where we discuss police violence and video across different contexts from Mexico, Brazil, the US and more.

While today’s mobile technology has enabled millions upon millions to be video witnesses, a special group of people purposefully put their lives at risk to document human rights abuses, bring those images and stories to light, and affect change. Focus For Change is our small part to honor them.

“With cameras everywhere, we can document and share what is really going on,” said WITNESS Co-Founder Peter Gabriel in opening remarks to the evening. “We can build campaigns with millions — even billions — of others, and we can leverage those numbers to create real change.”

Peter Gabriel speaking at WITNESS’ 10 Annual Focus For Change Benefit.

WITNESS has trained activists for over 22 years in safe filming techniques and how to create videos that can drive positive change. Take Rami Jarrah, an award-winning citizen journalist from Syria and this year’s Focus For Change special guest.

Rami became active in Syrian protest groups early in 2011. He quickly became a trusted spokesperson and was interviewed frequently by international media. He also spoke out via social media using the pseudonym Alexander Page for about six months before his identity was discovered by the Al Assad regime and he narrowly escaped Syria. Rami co-founded the Activists News Association (ANA) to help professionalize citizen journalism efforts in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East. ANA organizes video databases, circulates citizen reports to the media, human rights organizations and the International Criminal Court.

Visa issues kept Rami from joining us in New York but in prepared remarks he had this to say:

When brutal things happen in far-off places, they are hard to imagine. Even for me, having seen the atrocities in Syria myself, the brutality is sometimes beyond my grasp.

But thanks to media activists, we do not have to imagine. Thanks to the millions of ordinary people who are filming what is happening: We can ALL witness.

And once you are a witness, you feel an urge to do something. I believe all people share that urge. It is why we flood the streets and join protests. It is why we pick up cameras when we see persecution.

It is why we are all here tonight. We know our neighbors are suffering, and so we come to celebrate the courage of those who are telling us their stories.

“I am speaking on behalf of all of us at WITNESS,” said Yvette Alberdingk Thijm, WITNESS Executive Director, “when I say it is people like Rami, the men and women we work with, who inspire us every day.”

More About Focus For Change

Visit Focus For Change for photos and other coverage of the event. Read Rami’s complete remarks on the WITNESS Blog. And, importantly: