Partner Portal

This portal is currently being developed and will therefore change frequently. This page explains what the portal is for, who it is for, how it will be collaboratively developed, and what the hopes are for what the portal will become. If you are interested in being involved in this portal with content, skills or funding please contact us
The central aim of the portal is to create a local, regional, national and transnational portal to link communities and individuals using participatory media for collaborative learning and action, to highlight and promote community and indigenous knowledge, and participatory media creation to others – such as other communities, individuals, educators, policy makers, NGOs and academics.

Bridging the digital divide! This will be an online platform for indigenous communities to showcase and share their visions, ideas and solutions to local and global problems. Our emphasis is on promoting traditional ecological knowledge held by the local “experts by experience”. Larger networks, Institutions, NGOs, and participatory media practitioners are important to this network but are of secondary focus to community voice on this portal.

The portal will be open to all, however to be a core community member of the portal and to upload media will be available only by request (to existing portal members), and only for the upload of community-authored media. This means the network will grow slowly for media uploaders, but users will have greater trust the content is Participatory in creation, and the growing network of communities will be stronger.
The hope is that this portal will not only be a resource for communities but that the portal itself will be run in a participatory way and several communities will be main participants in designing the look, feel, tools, use and management of the portal.
In thinking about the portal the current portal members have come up with some initial characteristics we hope the portal will have in all communication. By portal we mean all the members of the portal but also the structure and design of the portal.
Belief in equality
Clear, honest and Respectful
A good listener and Supportive
Always approachable and accessible
Creative Questioning and wanting to learn
Active
Flexible
Passionate
What is the Reason for the Portal to be created
The portal will be a place for people to learn about and discuss any aspect of the process of making and using a participatory video, and also to discuss what the videos portray. In essence the portal will be an easy-to-use interactive structure for a growing network around community communication. A place not only to develop ideas around this type of communication, but also to provide a hub to highlight some of the views, issues and context expressed by communities. The Portal will grow into a place where communities can share knowledge and opinions with each other and express themselves to global audiences. Participatory Video has existed a long time under different names and for different purposes, now the interest in this type of media process and product are growing and a portal such as this will be a useful tool to assist in this growth.
Why is the portal different from other websites?
There are currently many video sites promoting development and social videos (OneworldTV), human rights videos (Witness-The Hub), Channel 4 short documentaries, channels on Youtube and more sites being developed for general videos. The differences between these and a this Portal are: The portal will be focused on Community Created Communication using Video and will be an organisationally independent website. Selected videos would be peer reviewed by development experts as well as viewers. A cross between a film journal and an on-line PV festival – a physical festival could also be developed using content from the portal. Peer review would also take place for a limited number of non-PV media products.
More specifics around why to have a portal?
Debate One reason for a portal is to debate serious questions about the methodology and impacts of Participatory Video. Participatory Video can be facilitated badly, therefore it is important to share and discuss experiences, to learn from each other and also co-ordinate projects. The portal can also be used to highlight videos that have been made which are of interest to development practitioners, academics, policy advisors, activists, film makers, students (development, film, ethnographic, human rights), the general online public and hopefully local communities who produced the videos and also those who can use/learn from them and do the same.
Collaboration The most important uses of the portal will be to facilitate knowledge sharing (and solidarity building) directly between communities, groups and local organisations. These participants do not have to have had direct experience of Participatory Video, but use the videos, discussions and portal as a tool most appropriate to them, just as Participatory Video should be used. It is Insight’s aim to assist the developing network of Participatory Video organisations in setting up physical communication centres in different geographical regions and help with IT infrastructure for these offices. Another key reason for the portal is to encourage and organise more community communication work, projects and organisations to use participatory video.
Promotion and Expression It is important to have a forum where people can express and promote their communities work, ideas and experiences themselves and of course this also promotes Participatory Media as a way of doing this. Whilst other types of media are promoted daily on a global scale, Participatory Video is still not considered in many NGOs or media organisations as yet.
The Online Challenge A challenge of an online portal and online videos is that many of the owners of the videos (the communities themselves, the most important participants in Participatory Video) and the NGOs who help create them may not have reliable Internet access. Currently there is no other way to have a global forum, but the portal will be made so that it is possible to easily download the text and videos to CDROM or other portable memory devices. Portal videos and discussions will also be fed back to communities and replied to, facilitate by the portal NGO partners. Mobile phones will also be researched so that communities may use these to keep updated and feed into the portal.
The portal will provide different types of information Videos Information around the videos, communities and organisations. Ideas and ways to get involved in projects and the issues depicted in videos Ways for organisations and people to get involved in different ideas and projects around Participatory Video Links to resources of different kinds People and organisations interested in participatory or community video People and organisations interested in the different issues in the videos Discussion around different forms of media, particularly Participatory Video, the 'right to a voice', and the overlap with development and social issues and projects RSS feeds from other relevant websites Photograph galleries Music made by or related to community expression Quality, edited reviews commissioned (free) on specific videos
Different ways for the public to contribute to the portal Make constructive comments about videos and information pages Take part in the online forum discussions, and wikis. Suggest new resources Advertise their own interests, ideas, organisations, and projects Eventually: Contribute blogs Contribute videos Contribute photos Contribute discussion topics
What the portal can offer partner organisations and partner communities An area (a smaller sub-portal) dedicated to the ideas, work and expression of one community or organisation. The content and visual style of this sub-portal will be the responsibility of the partner, although help with administration and design within the main structure and design will be given depending on the resources of the partner. A core aim of this portal though is to make is as easy as possible to add new content and interact. A place to showcase the partners' participatory videos and context around these. The opportunity to display videos, views and expressions within a network dedicated to similar participatory projects. Each video will have its own description page, linking to other pages if needed. Guides and help will be provided about how to add different types of content and how to administer the partner area. After initial stages, partners have the freedom to develop their own areas – if they wish. That way the main portal and all partners will benefit from each others' different styles of content. Insight will have responsibility for overall management or facilitation of the portal, and the portal will be more dynamic as partners contribute ideas and expertise. The portal will be an open forum and it will not be biased towards any one community's or organisations ideas.