InsightShare’s Living Cultures initiative supports Indigenous Peoples to protect their territories, languages and cultures using Participatory Video.


How are we using communication technologies to make Participatory Video more accessible to Indigenous Peoples?

The Living Cultures Indigenous Fellowship supports Indigenous Peoples in remote trainings and strengthening networks. Read more.

Do you want to find out more about our work with Indigenous communities and museums?

The Living Cultures: Decolonising Cultural Spaces project has been working with Maasai communities and museums to realign narratives and improve representation. Read more.

What is the Living Cultures initiative?

Living Cultures is a growing movement uniting indigenous communities across borders; to celebrate, foster and protect their cultures with Participatory Video at its very heart.

Video communicates compelling stories and powerful actions of grassroots activists, increasing the agency, capacity, confidence and motivation of our partners to take control of the factors influencing their lives. The result of online distribution and local screening events is to strengthen community protection through building allies and audiences across the globe.

We work across four continents in critically endangered ecosystems to enable Indigenous Peoples to harness the power of participatory video against threats like climate change and mega development projects. Our goal is to achieve the UN Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) through strengthening self-esteem, autonomy and resilience, and the cross-fertilisation of knowledge and best practice.

We are honoured to have worked with Indigenous Peoples from nearly 20 countries including: Quechua and Aymara (Peru), Yaqui, Comcaac, Mayos, Raramuri (N.W Mexico), Gamo (Ethiopia), Gabra, Konso, Borana, El Molo (Northern Kenya ), Baka and Batwa (Uganda, Cameroon and DRC), Maasai (Tanzania and Kenya),  Naga, Khasi, Garo (NE India), Igorot (Philippines) and Kuna (Panama). Each partner has played an instrumental role in guiding the evolution of the InsightShare Network.

InsightShare Network is a non-profit organisation with an international and multi-disciplinary steering group comprised of community representatives, leading academics and activists. InsightShare Network represents our long term commitment to the principles of decolonisation.

News and Partner Updates

The Tanzanian government, with the support of UNESCO and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, are about to evict 167,000 Maasai: 97,000 living in Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) and 70,000 in Loliondo. Insightshare has been supporting Maasai communities in their resistance to bring attention to this urgent matter through a collaborative media campaign with other youth activist groups. The media campaign points audiences towards a fundraiser to support the Pan African Living Cultures Alliance (PALCA), as well as a petition to boycott tourism to Maasai territory – both requested by Maasai community representatives.

– InsightShare launched an Indigenous Fellowship Programme, with funding from the Bertha Foundation, that envisions groundbreaking online trainings delivered to our Indigenous partners. This fellowship seeks to open up the power of technology, providing greater connectivity between our trainers and partners, and our partners to each other.

– Oltoilo le Maa (Voice of Maa) Tanzania and Kenya coordinated a delegation of 7 Maasai community members to Oxford, UK, including Maasai Laibon, Lemaron Ole Parit, marking a significant step forward in the process of decolonising British museums containing Maasai artefacts (watch the feature documentary following the 2020 visit). Oltoilo le Maa is also working with community radios to produce radio programmes, and subsequent films, in Maa dealing with the health and social impacts of COVID-19.

Pan African Living Cultures Alliance, spearheaded by the Maasai PV team, is now registered international NGO led by Africa’s Indigenous Peoples. Other PV groups – San, Gabbra, Borana, El Molo, Baka and more – are set to join the alliance.

– The Video4Change gathering in South Africa saw the meeting of 40 Indigenous activists and video practitioners to discuss human rights and environmental crises and the place of video in solving them.

– Emerging hubs in South Africa and Namibia join the Living Cultures movement. Recently, the Amadiba team produced a video reflecting on the Video4Change gathering, and while the San team has been using video fundraise for solutions to TB outbreaks.

– Success in Alberta Canada, where community video teams from Kainai Blood Tribe and Samson Cree First Nations have monitored impacts of climate change, supporting intergenerational knowledge exchange and documentation, strengthening nation-to-nation relationships and helped start community dialogues about climate change. This project was a springboard for the development of innovative new methods for environmental monitoring and sharing indigenous knowledge, which is now being applied to a project focusing on Indigenous fire management for which InsightShare is providing online training.

– Nagaland PV team won the best film award for Salt in My Village at the National Community Media Film Festival. Building on this success, the PV team has been creating films exploring local responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

– Comcaac and Yaqui PV team, La Marabunta Filmadora, delivered their first international PV trainings to Indigenous community members in Brazil and Ecuador. With these trainings, La Marabunta has seeded a regional movement, with plans to create further connections in Colombia and Argentina.

 – InsightShare has launched the Indigenous Insights campaign, which seeks to highlight the work of our Indigenous partners and create greater public awareness around Indigenous issues, culture and wisdom.

 – We are celebrating exciting new partnerships with XR, CAWR, and the ICCA Consortium. These collaborations create networks of solidarity and pave the way for greater impact.

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