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.

This year’s BrazilFoundation gala focused on social justice and development in the country’s capital, Rio de Janiero, highlighting the work of some of the extraordinary cariocas (native inhabitants of the city of Rio) and important international supporters.

WITNESS was recognized for our work supporting local groups throughout Brazil to use video for human rights change since 2007. Our partners at the Coletivo Papo Reto were the real stars of the evening for their video documentation of police brutality in Complexo do Alemão, a network of favelas in Rio. Their efforts are aimed at holding perpetrators of violence accountable. For more on WITNESS’ work on police brutality in Rio and in the U.S. see the latest project by the WITNESS Media Lab.

Coletivo Papo Reto members— (right to left) Raull, Renata, and Carlos— being interviewed at BrazilFoundation Gala

WITNESS launched the Human Rights Channel in 2012 in partnership with Google and Storyful. The HRC works to verify citizen video so that viewers can trust what they are seeing is real; analyzes the challenges that citizens face when trying to use their videos to catalyze real change; and supports citizen witnesses to use video more safely and effectively when filming for human rights.

Congratulations to all the winners, including the BBC World Service and BBC China for their winning entry #Tiananmen89 in the ‘Best in News’ category.  Read more about Shorty Awards here. And as always, follow us @witnessorg for updates!

Yvonne Ng, WITNESS’ Senior Archivist, explains the Guide and its usage over on the WITNESS Blog:

We created The Activists’ Guide to Archiving Video to respond to the critical gaps in knowledge and resources. Available in English, Spanish, and Arabic web and PDF versions, the Guide provides practical steps for managing, storing, sharing, and preserving your videos…

…Since its release in 2013 the Guide has been accessed by thousands of human rights activists, NGOs, media collectives, and citizen journalists. Feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive, reflecting the critical importance of authentication and preservation to video created for advocacy, documentation and evidence.

The Society of American Archivists describes why it issued the award:

Activists’ Guide to Archiving Video, published by WITNESS, a nonprofit organization that uses video to expose human rights abuses, is the 2014 recipient of the Preservation Publication Award. Activists’ Guide to Archiving Video focuses on preserving digital video, an area in which there is still little published guidance. Available freely online in three languages, the guide is organized into eight sections that focus on stages in a video archiving workflow: create, transfer, acquire, organize, store, catalog, preserve, and share. Unlike other resources, it is aimed at content creators rather than archivists, enabling interventions that support preservation early in the digital lifecycle. The guide also uses easy-to-understand language and low-cost recommendations that empower individuals and grassroots organizations with fewer resources to take action to safeguard their own valuable collections. To date, the guide has found enthusiastic users among nonarchivists, including independent media producers and archives educators, as well as archivists who are new to managing digital video content.

The Award Committee noted that the guide was a “valuable contribution to the field of digital preservation” and an “example of what a good online resource should be.”

Join Us For An Online Archiving Q&A

Join WITNESS’ resident archivist Yvonne Ng on Facebook as she hosts an online Q&A between video producers and video archivists. Sign up and ask questions here. The Q&A will run August 11-15.