The Make it Grow Project, led by IGSD Fellow Pamela Richardson with Zimbabwean partners, launched a facilitator toolkit to support community groups with making their own video proposals.
The project has pioneered workshops to support skills development at community level. Participants from marginalised communities gain know-how in basic smartphone video-making and project planning to create participatory video proposals. A video proposal can be used for applying for small grants, setting up crowdfunding campaigns, communicating with donors or promoting a group/project more widely. The approach is particularly useful for community groups who struggle to communicate their work in formal lengthy text-only application processes. The project was presented by Pamela Richardson, with Grace Gumba, Mvuselelo Huni, Lawrence Makaure, Pamela Mapedzamombe and Makhosi Ndebele joining online from Zimbabwe.
The purpose of the toolkit is to provide facilitators with a step-by-step guide and some helpful resources for supporting community groups through the process of co-creating a participatory video proposal. The approach is applicable to the UK/local as well as international contexts, and at the launch there were researchers and practitioners working in local contexts in Sheffield, in the region, and internationally. The following discussion drew on these diverse perspectives and insights and discussed how the toolkit could be adapted for organisations and community projects in different cultural contexts, to leverage the potential of participatory digital methods.
The toolkit can be downloaded here.