ACHR has compiled 17 videos from around 9 countries in Asia to be distributed to network groups or upon request to ACHR.

This compilation from ACHR friends across Asia is an attempt to start a process of video production and dissemination about urban poor issues in Asia for learning by communities, NGOs and professional and in many cases for public education, advocacy and public media showing.

The main theme across most of the DVD compilation is Community Upgrading. With the advent of ACHR’s program called Asian Coalition for Community Action, the first year saw small and large community upgrading projects in more than 64 cities across Asia. While many of the principals of the process of community upgrading were the same, the political social and other contexts in each county were different. And so communities adapted in different ways and in DIFFERENCE there is learning  - “seeing is believing - So it is hoped that following the ACCA process in Vietnam, Nepal, Mongolia and the Philippines will help others. The Pakistan produced video entitled Why Upgrading? gives a more general understanding as to why this is the best and most efficient option for the urban poor in Asia.  And from India - a similar message as well as understanding of how all actors can be involved. From Thailand there are a number of videos with a focus on how Young Professionals can facilitate community-driven plans for a variety of development and improvement options.

The planning process for the videos took place in Bangkok in 2009 when teams from around 10 countries participating in the ACCA program were invited to Bangkok for a 3-4 day workshop. It was suggested teams consist of one person involved with video production; one linked to ACCA and one linked with mass media. In most cases countries were able to comply with this guideline.
Countries included: Vietnam, Philippines, Mongolia, India, Thailand, Pakistan, Korea, Nepal, UK. Indonesia and Kenya teams were unable to attend.

Our objectives were to share our experience with making videos, develop plans for producing 8 - 10 short videos on urban poor people centred development and upgrading, and to more clearly understand and improve our links and access to the public and public media.

Notes and photos from the workshop can be downloaded by clicking here
PDF file 33 pages 6.3 Mgbs

THE NEW SET OF VIDEO FILMS ABOUT UPGRADING IN 9 ASIAN COUNTRIES NOW AVAILABLE . . .

• From South Korea : A film called "Vinyl House Communities" by Se-Jin Kang at the Seoul-based NGO Asian Bridge.

• From Vietnam : A film called "Upgrading for the Poor" by ACVN and VTV.

• From Cambodia : A film "Shaping their own future" by Peter Swan + Paijong Laisakul from ACHR and Multimedia Thailand

• From Nepal : A film called "Together we can build" by Bishal Shrestha, from Lumanti and Evergreen Films Nepal.

• From India : A film on slum upgrading in Pune, by Indu Agarwal, from SPARC.

• From Pakistan : A film called "Why Upgrading?" by Abid Hasan, from OPP and URC Karachi.

• From Mongolia : Four films about community-driven upgrading in different parts of Mongolia, by UDRC and Nomun Studio

• From the Philippines : Two films on community upgrading by members of the Homeless Peoples Federation Philippines.

• From Thailand : 3 films about community upgrading projects by Chawanad Luansang and Pisut Srimhok, from Openspace

Other Videos from ACHR and Friends

DESIGN WITH PEOPLE
Young Thai Architects facilitate community plans and process

This documentary shows stories of people from various communities, mostly in southern Thailand. Central to this is faith in people’s potential to determine their lives. Instead of reproducing a nostalgic image of community, the films illustrate today’s realities of the ways in which people fight for housing rights through participatory planning, the making of a communal passage way, the making of communities on lands that by legal definition are state property. Amidst sudden adversity and structural injustice, ordinary peoples empower themselves by creating trans-local cooperation, including dialogue and suggestions from community architects via a deliberative process. In this series, this documentary not only present an on-going search for new meaning of community in Thai society, but it also addresses the transformation of society from below.
       Notes by Sirote Klampaiboon - Political Scientist

1. Mapping and Community Survey
in Saturn Province Thailand - 55 mins

2. My Community: Relocation
in Yala province 2004 -2005 - 44 mins

3. Kaleetapee community - 2010
Upgrading the community; re-generating the city - 26 mins

4. Learning from theTsunami Disaster in Thailand - 2005
in Pang Nga Thailand - 70 mins

5. Build the Home , Grow the Community
in Koh Mook Island Trang province, Thailand - 88 mins

Films by Pisut Srimhok and Chawanad Luansang

 

Shaping Their Own Future: the UPDF Camodia

The Urban Poor Development Fund (UPDF) was created in 1998 to provide an effective and fairer alternative to the widespread evictions and social confrontations occurring at that time in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. For some 5 years prior to this, the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR) had been working on setting up more than 250 savings groups in poor communities in the city and helping to form a city-wide network which could effectively negotiate and work in partnership with the Municipality of Phnom Penh. By 1998 it became clear that if such a partnership was going to benefit the urban poor on a large scale and in the long term, it would need to be able to draw on a new flexible source of finance for poor communities and households.
This video explains the origins, achievements and impacts of the community based savings groups and community development fund approach to poverty alleviation in one of the poorest countries in Asia. It also presents a strong case for applying this community led approach to resolving the burgeoning problems of poverty and homelessness in other Cambodian cities and towns.

ACHR Videos on People Cented Disaster Recovery

Surviving the Second Tsunami : Supporting a People Centered Recovery Processes

Peter Swan has crafted a double VCD documentary for ACHR completed February 2006.

After the devastating effects of the Tsunami, ACHR organised a number of regional meetings inviting survivors and their supports, from Thailand, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Burma to share the experiences of their recovery. The video covers these “survivors dialogues” illustrating the effectiveness of people centred solutions. Because the dialogues ran over 2 years we learn clearly the various issues that disasters bring at various times during recovery. The video is particularly good for students of disaster recovery.

Surviving the Second Tsunami 37 mins
Making Progress in Phang Nga 14mins
Back from the Abyss in Ache 18 mins
Slow Going in Sri Lanka 15 mins

Learning from the South and Bringing Our People Home

Learning from the South

In September 2006 more than a year after hurricane Katrina had devastated New Orleans, four survivors cam to Thailand and Indonesia to see how victims of other natural and man-made disasters coped with rebuilding their lives, housing and livelihoods. The visitors met with communities of survivors of the December 2004 tsunami in the south of Thailand and in Banda Ache, Sumartra to share their experiences. The folks from the USA, found that they had much to learn from the villagers in these poorer developing countries who refused to wait for “top down” assistance from their governments but instead worked with their fellow survivors and their communities to recover from destitution and despair. In this way the people of the “South” achieved more suitable and better quality housing faster and at the same time strengthened their communities and regained the control over their lives that the disaster had taken from them.
SHORT PREVIEW HERE

Bringing Our People Home

Following 2 exchange visits from Katrina survivors to tsunami affected communities in South East Asia in 2006, a team of Thais and indonesians visited New Orleans, Louisiana and Biloxi in July 2007, to find out why the post-Katrina recovery was taking so long. During their visit the ASian team saw the grim realities of anti-poor policies and corporate greed close up and offered candid and hopeful advice to their counterparts fighting for a just post-Katrina recovery.

We have about 10 cameras in as many countries in Asia and we are all making our own individual videos. ACHR has helped this process through support for some equipment and training- although mostly this has been done by local efforts. 

The Urban Resource Centre in Karachi has completed a 10 minute video on the Hawkes Bay Resettlement Project - for victims of the Lyarie demolitions. There's no narration .... just people themselves .. relating the disapointment and terrible let down they felt of being thrown into a desert with very few ammenities and opportunities for work. For lessons in what not to do for a successful resettlement project contact URC in Karachi or visit their web site.

Another recent second video from URC is "Clifton Beach Shrinking for the Poor " details how Karachi's famous and most popular beach is being privatised by developers and land mafias. How government planning is so inadequate for such a facility, and how thousands of poor who depended on the crowds for livlihood have been thrown off the beach and its surroundings.

The Urban Poor Consortium in Jakarta has completed a video entitled "Power from Disarster" illustrating how the people of Bande Aceh have come together in a network of 25 communities to rebuild their houses and livlihoods after the disarsterous tsunami in 2004. Afrizal at the UPC in Jakarta has over the past year or so produced 12 short videos on Urban Poor topics such as;  State Violence  - Evictions, Transport, Music and Culture,  the Floods in Jakarta, 

ACHR Sec has produced a new Extracts from Cambodia video comprising short extracts from about 8 longer videos on the urban poor movement in Cambodia. 

Mami Nakumura was a volunteer at the ACHR Sec in Bangkok last year and worked on urban poor videos with ACHR and CODI .

On this site: A little about the Tibet Heritage Fund and video HERE

We are developing our use other technologis with the poor HERE

 

 

Below are some links to Video sites:

WITNESS 
An organisation that gives cameras to groups
to help advocate for CHANGE - particularly with a 
Human Rights  focus. Inspired by Peter Gabriel.

Desktop Video
Desktop Video Editing tips, reviews

Homepsge Daily
First Student News Site


ALLTOP Video Links

 

Tribute to Peter ..... who was a great friend and contributor to ACHR videos and development.

My Dear Peter,

Our conversation was cut short and there was a lot more to say. Our one single conversation, the one we started in 1974 at khun Sujin's Dhamma Group in Wat Borworn, went on and on for decades. It hit on everything and brought in everything and everybody. It was a mutual exchange of raves and stoned monologues - in bars, in handwritten letters, on email, at friends' homes, and at our own places - that put down the Bastards in their various shapes and forms and lifted up the Do Gooders, or rather the small minority of Do Gooders that passed muster. Occasionally it brought in other mad ravers, like Kriangsak the Idealist, Peter the Austrian, or Julian the Hopeful, all of us articulate men of integrity and an impossible message for an uninterested sea of humanity. Underlying all of it was the fundamental axiom that if it wasn't fun talking about it, it wasn't really worth talking about. I had such a good time talking to you on your wet veranda down the soi with the monsoon rain pouring down and you strumming your guitar while pontificating on this or that, all pontifications and vilifications inbued with the eternal spirit of the Dhamma and an untiring commitment to defy, deplore and degrade Authority in whatever shape or form. It was the healthy Anarchist in all of us that always got a boost. Yes, we made a living, but not by selling out. What a privilege! I loved you, Man! Your early departure stunned me. It left a hole in my world view and I burst out crying in loud sobs. How sad. How very sad. And yet, sadness seems to be misplaced when it comes to thinking about you and your 'message'. It was a message of crazy fun and a humorous self-deprecating take on even your most difficult moments to which I was a party and a witness and which need no elaboration here. Yes, it is sad to see you go ahead of the rest of us sinners, but we're all standing in line to join you sooner or later, hopefully to continue the mad exchanges, this time with the manna and elixir of the Gods to sustain us. You have my most sincere blessings in this new phase of your journey.

Your good friend,

Solly

 

 

More tributes to Peter Swan HERE and HERE

Photo tribute HERE