A Conversation With Sam Gregory: HKS Alum Returns to Teach Video Advocacy
by Mallika Kaur Sarkaria on February 19, 2010 in News
Interview Conducted on January 19, 2009
Sam Gregory, MPP ’00, returned to a Kennedy School classroom after 10 years—this time to sit on the other side. A video producer, trainer, and human rights advocate, Gregory is currently the Program Director at WITNESS, a New York non-profit that aims to use video to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations. Gregory is the lead editor of Video for Change: A Guide for Advocacy and Activism (Pluto Press). In January, he taught “Human Rights Advocacy Using Video and Moving Image Media,” a two-week immersion activity organized by the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. The sessions predominantly attracted HKS students but also saw participation from the wider Harvard body, Boston University, MIT, and the Cambridge community. Gregory sat down to talk to The Citizen about his vision for the class, the experience of teaching video advocacy, and his thoughts on how video can be best employed to shift policy.
What is it like being back at HKS?
One of things I was looking for when I was at Kennedy School was the skill sets that I am trying to teach now. So it feels personally relevant to me. When I came here, I was particularly interested in looking at how video and policy related, particularly with regard to human rights. And at that time the Carr Center was just kicking into gear and there were few human rights offerings and also limited attention to new communication strategies. So I’ve always want to think about how those can be brought into spaces like the Kennedy School. That was one of the reasons I wanted to come back.
Did you come to HKS from a Human Rights background?
I was a student activist in high school. With Amnesty International — the classic trajectory. And during my undergrad, I became involved with student film. And increasingly wondered how the two could be combined. After undergrad, I worked in freelance television production. The frustration I encountered was that it was firstly very hard to get documentaries on social justice produced. And then if you produced something, it was very hard to gauge impact. If they showed something at 9 PM on Channel 5, you had 100,000 viewers but you didn’t see any practical impact. So when I came to Kennedy, I had something very specific in mind, which was to think about how these tools, documentary film, could be used for policy advocacy.
Did you go to work for WITNESS right after graduating from HKS?
During my final year at Kennedy School, I heard about WITNESS from a colleague who said this sounds like the perfect place for you to work. So when I moved to New York, I worked as a freelance producer for a PBS show and I also started volunteering with WITNESS. Then, in about 6 months, I actually started at WITNESS full time. So I was lucky, my transition after graduation was relatively smooth.
Could you give us a sense of WITNESS today and also your current position in the organization?
In the past 10 years we’ve grown from 4 to 30 staff now. And that has really tracked the growing recognition of the importance of video, and more and more, related multimedia and web 2.0 tools, in human rights advocacy and a growing demand from grassroots groups. Over time my role at WITNESS evolved. I have been very involved in direct support to grassroots, working with them on campaigns, training groups, primarily in Latin America and South East Asia. And I have been involved with working on our trainings initiatives, including a book Video for Change, which has been translated into 7 or 8 languages, and developing an intensive two-week immersive curriculum for training advocates. A few years ago, I moved into management of our program team. Now I work with a team of really wonderful human rights advocates. All of our work is supporting local human rights work. So it isn’t about us going out and filming. We support local groups by providing training to enable them to use video to complement their existing strategies for change from grass- roots community mobilizing, to policy advocacy with legislators and administrations, to working with and through international human rights mechanisms.
What is the most fulfilling aspect of your job? One of the things a lot of students entering human rights careers are considering is the high burn out rate.
I think there is a risk across the board in social justice work and human rights work of burn out. You see a lot of quite young activists in their thirties who are burnt out by activism when they should be just starting long and productive lives of work in this field. What has been really important to me in the context of WITNESS has been the strong connection to local human rights defenders who are fighting passionately for causes they believe in, knowing this is a long haul. And though I work knowing that not everything will have the impact we’re hoping for, it is great when something does, like you see a prosecution go through or see a process of community empowerment.
Which, if you can possibly pick one country or region has been most challenging for you to work in?
Given the nature of our work, the logistical challenges and the risk are taken by local human rights groups. We are not parachute journalists. We don’t turn up in the jungles of Burma with a camera or in Chechnya with a camera, because we really believe that the people who have the strongest voices to speak about situations are those grounded in them. I think in Burma, where I have done the greatest amount of work, the logistical and risk challenges for my partners are extreme. They are working in a situation where they are perceived by the government to be essentially associated with the rebels, and where even if they are arrested, the laws allow massive prison terms. But I have also been tremendously impressed by the commitment there and also the engagement of particularly the younger documenters who spent their whole lives in refugee camps, and in exile, striving to express how they feel through everything from the traditional documentary video, to the Karoke video, to the music videos. Some of the video productions with these groups, for example, a video called Shoot on Sight, have been the most meaningful videos for me.
The Kennedy School trains people going into very diverse careers. How do you think video can be incorporated to the curriculum here in a useful way?
There are two aspects. My inclination is mainstreaming this across a range of courses, because we have to understand how visual media, the internet and Web 2.0 work in a lot of policy settings. At the same time, I think there is a specific place for human rights advocacy, where video is particularly relevant. And it’s not about technology. People sometimes get confused and think “O I don’t want to become a documentary filmmaker” or “I don’t want to pick up a video camera.” The key here is to think about how we use the media and communication tools that people increasingly have available to them to tell effective stories and propose solutions, to enable broader participation and how we integrate these tools alongside tried-and-tested approaches. So for the Kennedy School it strikes me that it is more about understanding visual storytelling, about managing increasingly participatory flows of visual information, and about how this is harnessed for meaningful participation as well as concrete action. It’s how we use visual media and Web 2.0 as strategists and advocates, not about the single documentary film produced by a filmmaker.
Are there opportunities for Kennedy students at WITNESS?
Absolutely. We are always looking for volunteers and interns. Sometimes we are looking for people with very strong regional or human rights expertise, or expertise in new media, and in some cases for people who have a journalistic background≈ But also for PAE type projects. For example, impact assessment, knowledge management, those kinds of discrete topics. We’d welcome people with such specific expertise and would love to hear from students at Kennedy.
Thanks, Sam! We hope to see you at HKS again soon!
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