A Background

The Millennium Development Goals have a deadline that ends in 2015. Voices across the globe have been coming together to influence a post-2015 development framework that is more inclusive in its outlook and empowering in its possibilities.

Keeping this in mind, Praxis has organised a series of participatory video processes with sexual minorities and city makers in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, and city-makers in Delhi. The participants not only debated on what they had gained in the eight goals that expire in 2015, but also came up with some views they felt must be incorporated in the post-2015 framework. Together, the process focused on how life should change for marginalised communities by 2025.

Alongside, the participants learned to handle a camera, learned the art and craft of film making and donned multiple roles as camera person, sound person, floor manager, director and editor to plan and shoot a film that conveyed their goals and dreams in the post-2015 framework. 


The Process

The six-day process included brainstorming about issues central to marginalised communities, the way exclusion plays out in daily life through stereo-typing and direct as well as indirect forms of discrimination, analysis of the causes for the same and possible solutions to make the world more inclusive. The discussions were carried out using the medium of participatory video to help bring participants together. This was followed by a story-boarding process, which was then executed by the participants to make a film that they own completely – in terms of content, context and product.

The films can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/user/PraxisIndia.