The FEMSCRIPT project was designed to empower women in the Niger Delta to make their voices heard in the public arena and highlight women's human rights issues through participatory video.
Led by Media Information Narrative Development (MIND), in collaboration with Stichting FLL from the Netherlands who conducted the participatory video training, the project was supported by CORDAID and the Netherlands Embassy in Nigeria.
The project included training, the provision of camera equipment, and facilitating access to mass media platforms. The training used a learning-by-doing approach, combining in-depth training workshops with hands-on fieldwork in the trainees’ home communities guided by professional researchers and video-makers. In the process, the women were encouraged to critically reflect on their own human rights and conflict experiences.
Nine young women from Bayelsa State, Delta State, and Rivers State were selected to participate in an intensive long-term Action Learning Trajectory programme. Nine Video Case Studies were produced featuring examples of women in the Niger Delta who are managing to make ends meet despite the many challenges they face.
In the future, MIND intends to use the project outputs as local awareness raising tools in collaboration with local NGOs and community-based organisations. MIND and its training partner FLL also hope to find resources for translating the video footage gathered by the FEMSCRIPT trainees into a condensed 30-minute documentary reaching out to a wider audience (including film festivals and TV channels in Nigeria and abroad).
MIND currently has a 5 mins documentary, inspired by the FEMSCRIPT project. Watch the video: http://vimeo.com/14987037
More details about this project can be found here