Chris has worked on Participatory Video projects around the world since his first project with nomads and farmers in Central Asia back in 1999. He co-founded InsightShare with his brother Nick eighteen years ago.
Chris leads the overall strategy, operations and financial management of the organisation and continues to facilitate projects in the field. Chris studied Anthropology and Archaeology at Oxford University.
Nick is an experienced Participatory Video facilitator, working at home in Oxford and in over 20 countries since 1996. His passion for the methodology grew from experimenting in handing over control of the camera and film project to indigenous youth in Nepal.
Nick co-founded InsightShare with his brother Chris, and has helped lead the organisation through an eventful journey of ongoing learning, and evolution. Today his focus is on honing the organisation’s capacity building skills, working with community animators to support a growing grassroots Participatory Video movement.
Much of his fieldwork has involved repeat visits to indigenous partner communities in Africa, Asia and South and Central America; working together to preserve and promote traditional knowledge, advance the cause of indigenous rights, and support local representatives as delegates at key global gatherings.
Nick has completed accredited training in Non-Violent Communication, Theory U (Presencing Institute), and Permaculture Design.
Soledad specialises in participatory communication with particular skill and experience in deploying participatory video in international development. She has over 10 years experience researching, planning and implementing numerous participatory video projects, with a strong understanding of the application and potential of the tool in a range of contexts.
Soledad has worked in more than 30 projects in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia in a range of issues including environment, indigenous peoples, gender equality and youth & children’s rights. She has experience in capacity building, community development, research and monitoring & evaluation. She graduated with distinction from the University of Reading MSc in Communication for Innovation and Development.
As the Head of Innovation and Development, she oversees key areas of innovation inside InsightShare, including the use of participatory video in M&E, research, ethical communications and humanitarian contexts. She is in charge of managing a large programmatic portfolio and business development.
Grace works on InsightShare’s program development, aiding project delivery and design with particular focus on projects led by InsightShare’s Indigenous associates and partners. She also provides operations, fundraising, communications and knowledge management support.
Grace has a special interest in Indigenous rights advocacy. Her experience in this field began in 2016, when she assisted research into social and health equity for Aboriginal women at Ngangk Yira, Perth WA. Grace graduated with a BA in Classics from the University of Oxford, where she wrote a research paper on decolonising classical literature through modern African and African-American literature. This research interest has particular relevance to InsightShare’s work on decolonising museums and education.
Sonya is a communications consultant, writer and editor. She has a background in qualitative social research, and worked as a journalist for an exiled Burmese (Myanmar) media organisation in northern Thailand before moving into communications and events in the UK. She works with boundary-pushing organisations and individuals to develop compelling stories, specialising in text consultation on multimedia projects. She holds a BA in International Development from the University of Sussex and an MSc in Global Health from the Brighton and Sussex Medical School.
Kazu comes from a journalism and anthropology background with nearly 20 years of experience in the fields of environment and development. He is a community media practitioner, photographer and filmmaker with geographical focus on South and Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and Eastern Africa.
He has worked with Panos South Asia, IUCN and Commonwealth Foundation, and has made films on issues of peace building, climate change and migration. Kazu has been involved with Participatory Video as a facilitator since 2014.
Sara has worked with InsightShare as a Participatory Video facilitator since 2007, including numerous projects in Africa, Asia, Central America, Europe and the UK. Her work has encompassed issues ranging from young people, climate change, advocacy, women’s rights, integration and immigration. For the past four years, Sara has worked in particular to support Museums in London to better integrate young people in youth programming, using PV MSC.
Sara has an MA in Visual Anthropology and Ethnographic Documentary from the Granada Centre at the University of Manchester, and an MA (Oxon) in Archaeology and Anthropology from Oxford University.
Over the past decade Marleen has worked with a wide variety of groups ranging from indigenous communities in sub-Sahara Africa and subsistence farmers in the Himalayas to homeless people and refugees in Europe. She has delivered over 30 participatory video projects in 11 different countries. Her main areas of expertise are peace building, therapeutic processes, farmer-to-farmer sharing, M&E and training of trainers.
During her degrees in Cultural Anthropology and Sustainable Development she specialised in bio-cultural diversity conservation, sustainable agriculture, climate change adaptation and urban development.
Victoria is a producer and director of documentaries and a communications consultant with 3 decades’ experience. She began her Participatory Video career with Communication for Change in New York and has since been committed to giving a voice to others through film and video. In filmmaking workshops, her aim is to help participants clarify their message and turn it into effective audiovisual output.
She has worked in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the US and has an MA in International Communications and Development from City University, London.
Emilie has 15 years experience facilitating Participatory Video projects. She has a background in social anthropology and video journalism, a masters in forestry and has worked for national and international development organisations.
Emilie’s film work ranges from researching the impact of perestroika on pastoralism in Kazakhstan to evaluating the impact of performing arts in a school in Northern England. Emilie has worked with InsightShare on numerous projects in Africa and Asia.
Ingrid is a photographer, filmmaker and participatory facilitator since 2007. She is the Founding Director of Fotosynthesis, a social enterprise that uses photography as a tool for education, to create new narratives and peacebuilding. She has worked extensively throughout Latin America, especially Colombia and the Dominican Republic, where her work has focused on gender participation and citizen initiatives in the peace process and the impact of tourism on local communities. Ingrid has a degree in Social and Visual Anthropology.
She has coordinated and facilitated Participatory Video workshops for InsightShare since 2016. As an Associate she has facilitated workshops for USIP and Build Up in Central African Republic, doing community consultation about Security and Peacebuilding policies, UNA Tanzania– a women’s rights and custom law intervention; for Interpeace in Ivory Coast, a youth led participatory analysis of peace initiatives; as well as for Sisters For Change in South Africa, producing videos to advocate for law reform of LGBTQI and women’s right in Commonwealth countries.
Sabine is a documentary filmmaker, graphic designer and Participatory Video facilitator based in Glasgow. She has been working as a freelancer since receiving her MFA in Documentary Directing from Edinburgh College of Art. She has coordinated and facilitated Participatory Video workshops since 2013 and delivered a Participatory Video for M&E strategy in Malawi for a sustainable farming project.
As an Associate with InsightShare, Sabine has facilitated Participatory Video workshops for PACT Uganda – evaluating a peace building intervention; for Yangon Film School in Myanmar training students in PV Facilitation; as well as for the Green Energy Project in Ukraine as part of a community consultation. She has co-facilitated a number of InsightShare’s flagship 6-day Facilitation Trainings in Oxford and loves to inspire others to tell their stories in film to create positive change in their communities.
Jack is a researcher and community development practitioner, who works with civil society organisations on land and natural resource governance issues. He has lived and worked in Myanmar for the past 4 years. Jack has used Participatory Video as part of collaborative research and advocacy projects with indigenous communities who have been displaced or have lost lands as a result of conservation and extractive industry projects.
As an Associate of InsightShare, Jack has been training young Myanmar filmmakers in Participatory Video and mentoring them to carry out their own projects throughout the country.
Tricia is an experienced InsightShare-trained Participatory Video facilitator, living in Portugal. She has co-developed large-scale international projects using participatory arts and media and Digital Storytelling with marginalised groups in order to effect change. She is also a founder director of Digitales Ltd., a research and digital storytelling company established in 2008, hosted by Goldsmiths, University of London.
Tricia is an experienced Digital Storytelling facilitator and is currently in the final phase of her PhD, which focuses on the use of Digital Storytelling with older people. Tricia has also worked as a grant-maker, for the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the London Film and Video Development Agency and Film London. She started her career teaching video production in further education and in community video.
Pooja is an artist, visual storyteller and participatory video facilitator. She has 10 years of experience working in development and was previously with Oxfam where she designed and implemented strategies for global programmes on using participatory media such as photography and video as a tool for advocacy and measuring change.
Pooja now consults with a variety of international NGOs to design and facilitate creative ways for communities to share their stories of change and create new narratives to humanize themes around gender equality and human rights.
Manon specialises in communication for a social change. She began working with Participatory Video in 2013, amalgamating the approach with Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) techniques, with a particular focus on the use of Participatory Video in the field of climate change and food security.
Manon has particular experience working on gender-sensitive projects and methodologies as well as celebrating rural indigenous and local knowledge through participatory tools. She has worked mainly in Latin America. She has a European Master in Intercultural Communication from Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
Neville is a lifelong community worker with over 20 years experience across a wide spectrum of focus areas. He has worked extensively across Africa on community development projects, including as a Participatory Video facilitator with InsightShare since 2008.
Neville is a founder member of the hub seeded by InsightShare in Durban, which continues today as an autonomous social enterprise with Participatory Video at its heart.
Thor first collaborated with InsightShare on 2010 during the last phase of the Conversations with the Earth initiative. He became an Associate in 2015 and has lead since then the projects in northwestern Mexico. During that time he supported the Yaqui and Comcaac video hubs become the first indigenous collective of participatory video facilitators, La Marabunta Filmadora. He then supported four indigenous groups in northern Kenya to become PV facilitators. The same year he also worked in West Africa as facilitator in a participatory video training for social workers of the Lutheran Church of Liberia. Thor is now also involved in supporting First Nations in Canada use PV to monitor climate change and environmental pollution.
Thor has a degree in Biology and extensive experience in community and biocultural conservation. He later on became a professional photographer and filmmaker. When he is not facilitating for InsightShare, he is working on his own documentaries.
Becca trained with InsightShare in 2010 and first worked with Participatory Video in 2011-12 on an advocacy project with young people in cocoa-growing communities in Ghana for Cadbury’s Cocoa Partnership. More recently she has worked as an InsightShare Associate on a PV MSC process evaluating women’s economic empowerment in Moldova for UN Women, and co-delivered introductory training on PV MSC to staff and partners of PACT in Kenya.
Becca’s background is in international trade and development with a focus on smallholder farmers and gender justice. She has a strong interest in participatory approaches as tools for change, and has been working with Gender Action Learning Systems (GALS) and training in Processwork, a facilitation approach for conflict resolution. Becca has a BA in Spanish and French from Cambridge University and a BTEC Diploma in Art and Design, specialising in video and photography.
Jacob Redman is a highly skilled Video Editor and a participatory video facilitator specialising in youth, peacebuilding, environment and sustainable development.
Jacob has recently been in Ivory Coast carrying out an extended PV MSC process with young people for UNICEF on the programme “Learning for Peace”, and has worked in Ukraine supporting youth and adult internally displaced citizens to tell their stories. As an editor, he has been part of post-production coming from InsightShare projects all over the world.
Since 2016, Jacob co-founded a non-profit organisation that uses video and photoraphy based in France, specialised in social, environmental and culture issues. He has directed feature documentaries, designed and facilitated workshops using smartphones on a variety of subjects such as LGBTQI, equality and immigration.
Madeleine has a BA in film and audiovisuals at the University Paul Valery in Montpellier, France where she co directed a student humanitarian association that conducted projects in Montpellier and Haïti. Some of the projects included facilitating the integration of a Romani community and immigrants into the french society. During her course, Madeleine also orientated her short films and documentaries around subjects such as homelessness and mental illness.
Wanting to pursue her passion in humanitarian work, Madeleine followed a course in “Coordinating Humanitarian Projects” at IFAID in Bordeaux, France.
Zoe Young is an author, film director and Participatory Video facilitator with 25 years experience of research and education in the fields of environment, development & human rights. She grew up in London, travels widely and received Masters degrees in Science and Technology Policy and Fine Art. Collaborating with diverse communities within the UK and internationally, her work includes co-directing documentaries such as ‘Suits and Savages’, print and broadcast journalism and presenting papers at scholarly conferences and in peer-reviewed journals. Since training with InsightShare to facilitate participatory video for community action research, Zoe has run PV consultancies for the University of East Anglia’s School of International Development, Coventry’s Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience and the United Nations.
Jillo is the Director of Programs of the Kivulini Trust, an organisation which envisions a progressive society that cherishes and celebrates its culture, respects its natural environment and enjoying social harmony and prosperity. Their mission is to support pastoralists, fisher folk and other minority communities in semi- arid rangelands of Kenya to sustain their cultural and natural heritage and to realise their socio-economic aspirations. The Kivulini Trust have partnered with InsightShare to use Participatory Video to support this work.
Amos is a teacher and long-time activist in cultural leadership and practices. He is a young member of the Loita council of elders and a member of the Land Committee in Loita. As a member of the council of elders, he has been outspoken on the subject of the position of girls in society and on the practice of Female Genital Mutilation. Amos is a founding member of the Pan-African Living Cultures Alliance, attended the 2019 Video4Change gathering of Indigenous activists in South Africa, and was a member of the 2020 Maasai delegation to the UK as part of the Living Cultures project to decolonise cultural spaces.
Timothée works with the OKANI organisation in Cameroon, whose work focusses on promoting the rights of Indigenous Peoples related to conservation. In his work as a legal advisor, Timothée uses video and media to support his advocacy activities and share the messages of communities. He sees video as a tool that can help to carry communities’ voices at a national and international level. Timothée is one of the Indigenous activists who attended the Video4Change 2019 gathering in South Africa.
Anabela is a community leader in Sonora, northern Mexico. She has engaged with Participatory Video since 2011, principally deploying it within her local Yaqui community as an educational tool to revive traditional ecological knowledge.
Anabela has facilitated various projects since her first work with InsightShare as part of the Conversations With the Earth project, including as a trainer for a capacity building programme for conservation workers in Bolivia.
Scola is a women’s rights community activist in Kenya. She uses participatory video to promote women’s economic independence within her Maasai community. She supports traditional beadwork and has established an organisation, Olmaa Makes, that sells Maasai-made beadwork and pours the profits back into women’s initiatives, education and up-skilling.
Scola also works with Oltoilo Le Maa. In 2018, Scola traveled to the University of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum, as part of the Living Cultures programme, to assess Maasai cultural artefacts. In 2019, Scola helped establish a Pan-African Living Cultures Alliance at a Video4Change gathering in South Africa.
Magella is a pre-primary school teacher and participatory video practitioner based on the shores of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya. Magella predominantly uses participatory video to support El Molo youth and to preserve the endangered El Molo culture and language through video dictionaries
In 2019 Magella participated in a Pan-African alliance building event for video4change activists that was held in South Africa.
Samwel is the founding director of Oltolio Le Maa, a Maasai-led participatory video group that documents human rights issues, social development and Maasai culture. Samwel began using participatory video to defend Maasai territories from land grabs and forced evictions of Maasai pastoralists, and in 2017 he was acclaimed as Tanzania’s Rural Human Rights Defender of the Year.
Samwel also uses participatory video as a tool for preserving Maasai culture and redressing colonial narratives of Indigenous Peoples in western or globalist institutions. He spearheaded the Living Cultures movement (a partnership between InsightShare and the Pitt Rivers Museum Oxford) which dismantles colonial narratives within museums by empowering Indigenous Peoples to curate their own narratives. He is also the co-founder of the Pan-African Living Cultures Alliance.
Kooya is a community activist for land and women’s rights in Tanzania and a leading facilitator for the Maasai-led participatory video hub Otoilo le Maa. In the past, Kooya has spearheaded initiatives tackling the issue of girls’ enrolment in schools and facilitated the ground-breaking Olosho video which helped broker a peaceful resolution to violent and illegal land grabbing by a private safari company. In 2017 Kooya was chosen by her community to travel to the University of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum to assess the significance of Maasai cultural artefacts acquired by the museum and to realign narratives from the colonial past and relate them to the continuous struggles of the present.
Seno is a farmer, primary school teacher and community development worker based in Chizami village in Phek district of Nagaland, North East India. She also works with North East Network (NEN) and has over the last 18 years led a team of community based workers on issues of women’s rights, governance, natural resource management and sustainable livelihood. NEN is a women’s organisation working in Assam, Nagaland and Meghalaya, committed to gender justice, equality and human rights.
Seno established a participatory video hub in Nagaland and supports the team in creating videos relating to the aforementioned themes. Recently, they received the Community Media Award for their video ‘Salt in My Village’. In India, participatory video is helping to forge bonds between communities on the forefront of climate breakdown.