The Mexican constitution guarantees that indigenous communities will be asked about how their land can be developed or used. As the community built a legal challenge to the mining contract, the government tried to argue that they weren’t, in fact, an indigenous community and therefore had no right to protest the arrangement.

For the past five years, WITNESS has been working with the Júba Wajiín community to tell their story and defend their land. We helped create videos including “Júba Wajiín: Resistance in the Mountain of Guerrero,” supporting their land rights case. One of the videos targeted the Supreme Court judge overseeing the case. It focused on proving that the Júba Wajiín were, in fact, indigenous people since that was being contested by the government. Scenes included in the video showed traditional lifestyle, farming, native languages, and customs. And we helped them show how mining would destroy their land and livelihoods.

The video was a crucial part of the Júba Wajiín’s biggest victory in July 2017, when the federal court ruled the Mexican state has a constitutional obligation to respect indigenous land rights, and that mining operations could not continue without the community’s input. An ally noted that the ruling is an “unprecedented achievement” for indigenous land rights activists working against open-pit mining, adding that, for the first time, the Ministry of Economy “must comply with its constitutional and conventional obligations regarding the rights of indigenous peoples” when considering mining rights.

After the historic ruling in 2017, the Ministry of Economy appealed the decision. The appeal currently rests in the hands of the Circuit Court in Acapulco, Guerrero state’s capital. In order to highlight the importance of this case and make sure that the Júba Wajiín secure justice, WITNESS and Valerio Amado Mauro, President of Communal Property of Júba Wajiín screened the documentary at a film festival organized and hosted by the Mexican Supreme Court. At the screening, the community’s lawyer called upon the Court to bring about a final resolution to the case.

With this collective effort, WITNESS helped ensure that the voices of the Júba Wajiín were heard by Mexico’s highest court, by lawmakers, fellow citizens and grassroots activists. It also paves the way for many other indigenous communities who might want or need to use video protect and defend their rights and their land against extractive industries and government interests.

This convening comes three years after a 2012 gathering of video organizations after which theV4C Network was founded. And while many of the network members from 2012 were in attendance, new faces and organizations added great additional energy, experience and perspective to the meeting. The groups present represented a gamut of approaches to video and social justice including organizations that work on participatory video, citizen journalism, social justice film festivals, video as evidence, and video advocacy.

During the meeting, participants reviewed network-supported projects from the past 3 years including the creation of V4C.org (which features training resources, blog posts and news from network members), the Video for Change impact research,  a number of training resources including the Activist’s Guide to Archiving Video, and numerous regional Video for Change convenings around the globe. Participants discussed the state of the movement, identifying the primary challenges and opportunities for video as a medium for change in 2015. These challenges included a wide range of issues, many of which are directly relevant to WITNESS’ work, such as  protecting the rights of activists to record, the (in)accessibility of video equipment for much of the world, using video evidence in human rights and judicial processes, providing support in times of crisis (and dealing with vicarious trauma) and the effective distribution of video content.

From these challenges, many potential projects and collaborations arose amongst network members. Participants left excited and ready to get to work on initiatives that will ideally strengthen both their work and the overall video for change landscape. As these projects solidify and get off the ground, more news will be shared via V4C.org (or on Twitter via @video4change). We are also formally adding a number of members to the network (stay tuned – exciting news to come via V4C.org), with the hope of continuing to grow slowly over the coming years.

Directly following the convening, V4C Network member SocialTic organized a public day of workshops and panels in Mexico City. Activists from around Latin America who were arriving for the Latin America V4C convening, (which directly followed the global convening – more on that here), joined activists from Mexico City to participate in workshop sessions on topics like video as evidence, filming in high-risk situations, video distribution, community cinema and more. Later in the evening, all of the participants made their way to the Center for Digital Culture for panel discussions. Many of the global V4C and Latin America V4C participants shared their work over the course of the evening. You can review some of the topics  and ongoing discussions on video for change by looking up the hash tags #video4change and #videoparaelcambio.

Now, a few weeks out from the gathering, WITNESS is looking forward to the future of the V4C network. We are excited and energized to start working on new projects with so many amazing video organizations from around the globe!

Our Children’s Trust’s most recent success was in New Mexico where last month the State’s Court of Appeals issued a ruling recognizing the climate as a resource protected by a constitutional public trust doctrine. New Mexico will now join the growing list of states that are recognizing the government has a legal obligation to preserve the climate for future generations. This is a massive victory and we are thrilled that the success of the Our Children’s Trust campaign continues today.

A similar victory comes out of The Netherlands where an unprecedented decision was issued requiring the Dutch government to take more effective action to combat climate change. The civil case, brought to court by the organization Urgenda which represented over 900 co-plaintiffs from around the country, has resulted in a ruling that will force the Dutch government to reduce the country’s carbon emissions by at least 25% before the year 2020. Because the Dutch government had already agreed to a 17% reduction policy, this decision will be the first time that a national government has been ordered to amend current climate conservation efforts by its judiciary branch.

Similar to the strategy used by Our Children’s Trust in the US, Urgenda developed their case around the concept of a public trust doctrine. An entity protected under public trust is considered to be belonging to the public and therefore, must be protected by the government. According to the court ruling, a clean climate is guaranteed to the Dutch people by the public trust doctrine of The Netherlands and therefore, the government must take serious action to preserve it.

Finally, in preparation for the upcoming United Nation Climate Conference in France, Sam Kutesa, president of the U.N. General assembly, hosted a high-profile meeting on climate change last month.

This event offered an opportunity for two well-recognized and accomplished climate activists to speak in front of delegates from all 193 countries of the general assembly. The first was acclaimed actor and conservationist Robert Redford.

The second was a close friend of WITNESS’, 15-year-old Xiuhtezcatl Roske Martinez, a youth activist from Boulder Colorado who was featured in a campaign video we co-produced with of Our Children’s Trust. During his speech, Xiuhtezcatl made a note of addressing the extreme dangers we face as a species if the international community continues to avoid adopting aggressive policy combating climate change : “What’s at stake right now is the existence of my generation.” You can see Xiuhtezcatl’s story, and the stories of other youth taking legal action against the governmental for a cleaner climate, by visiting Our Children’s Trust here.

This has clearly been a thrilling few weeks for climate change activists across the globe and WITNESS is proud to be a member of the fight for a cleaner atmosphere. These successes have already drawn the attention of the New York Times and other popular news outlets, and will hopefully build momentum for the cause as we quickly approach the 2015 U.N. Climate Change Conference in December.

This convening will specifically address topics such as how video is currently being used for social change, immediate challenges in using video, the recently completed impact research on using video for change, and how to best support and train others using video. Participants will also run and participate in skillshares on topics such as digital security, storytelling and mobile tools.

The Video for Change Network is made up of social justice-oriented organizations from across the globe. The Network was formed following the first Video for Change Global Convening in Indonesia in 2012. You can learn more about the Video for Change Network (and find lots of great training resource and other material) here.

The convening will be followed by an afternoon of panels in Mexico City on Saturday July 18th. If you are in Mexico City and interested in attending, please see the invitation here.

You can follow along through the hashtag #Video4Change on Twitter and Facebook. Also check out V4C. org for updates!

The following week WITNESS will also be hosting a convening for Latin American video activists. Follow along on our Spanish-language twitter account and be sure to check out our Spanish website for resources and news about our work in Latin America.

Featured image courtesy of EngageMedia. 

The convening aims to provide a strong communication platform for the groups to share experience around video advocacy and best practices by developing a collaborative framework of “video/film for social change”. It will also discuss the challenges and constraints encountered by activists in the field, and explore collective strategies to address them.

The convening will also serve as a platform to strengthen alliances and dialogue between the groups. Most of the breakout sessions and plenaries center on the intersection between human rights and video advocacy in the region.

Stay tuned for more stories from our senior program manager, Bukeni Waruzi.