About Drishti - Media, Arts and Human Rights

Our Community Video Units are a joint venture in India between Drishti and Video Volunteers, and the Community Video Unit model was developed by both organizations. The Co-Founder and Director of Drishti, Stalin K., is also the India Director of Video Volunteers.

Drishti is a leading human rights and development organization that uses media, communications and the arts to strengthen India’s social movements and organizations.

In its fifteen years of work, Drishti has partnered with over 60 NGOs to execute projects in seven key program areas: Documentary film production, Community Radio, Community Video, Theater, Public Arts, Campaign design and Development Communications Training. Drishti has produced over 25 documentary films, two community radio programmes, designed over a dozen rights based campaigns, and conducted over 200 trainings on theatre and audio-visual production.

Drishti believes that arts, media and culture are the very essence and manifestation of struggle, not side activities. People the world over who resist oppression invariably fall back on songs, poetry, paintings and dance, in order to retain sanity and as a range of tools in their struggle. It is through the arts that struggle becomes memorable to a culture. Drishti believes that movements that simply lecture and hand out fliers are in danger of dying out. Movements that are led by the singing and dancing, the joy and the excitement, and the creative pride of the people, will flourish. All of Drishti’s work is approached through the prism of human rights and equality and with a commitment to community participation and ownership.

For more information, visit Drishti’s website.