Introducing the WITNESS Library: Free Access to Human Rights Video Resources

We’re excited to announce the launch of our new online WITNESS Library!

The Library provides free access – and downloads – to a growing collection of human rights video resources.

Inside the Library, you’ll find WITNESS training guides, videos, and our full Video for Change curriculum. Whether you’re an expert or a beginner in using human rights video, the Library includes resources for advocates, citizen documenters, journalists and trainers at all experience levels.

Here’s a bit of what it looks like (select images to enlarge):

The WITNESS Library includes video and print resources, all available for download.

WINTESS Training Guides cover a wide range of Human Rights situations. Explore and download for free.

You can preview videos WITNESS Library before downloading.

Gather as many materials as you like. Checking them out for free download is easy.

A PDF example of what you’ll see when exploring materials in the WITNESS Library.

The materials cover a range of issues – including filming forced evictions and interviewing survivors gender-based violence – and provide practical guidance on topics like video production, distribution and human rights documentation. We’d like to thank our allies and partners whose feedback and insights are instrumental in identifying the needs of human rights defenders on the ground, and in the creation of these materials.

Related: WITNESS On GitHub

Don’t see what you’re looking for? Our materials are licensed under a Creative Commons license and we encourage you to modify, remix or translate the content to better meet your needs.

To make that easier we’re adding our materials to GitHub, a version control system typically used by developers to manage their code but which we’re using as an easier way for interested activists and advocates to repurpose our materials.

This could be to translate materials into languages we don’t currently provide, or to localize guides to match local circumstances. For example, you could take our guide, “Filming Protests in Teams,” and remix it into “Filming Protests in Teams in Sāo Paolo.”

On GitHub, you’ll find WITNESS materials as text documents along with the illustrations and graphics we’ve used to create our versions. Take them. Use them. Remix them so that they best fit your needs.

Meantime, visit the WITNESS Library, download away and share with your favorite activists and organizations.

We’d love to know what additional resources would be helpful in your work. Share your thoughts here.