History
Witness was founded in 1992 by Peter Gabriel, along with the help of Human Rights First (then known as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights) and its founding executive director Michael Posner.
Musician and activist Peter Gabriel was influenced by his experience using a Sony Handycam, one of the first small camcorders marketed to consumers, to record the stories he heard while traveling with Amnesty International’s 1988 Human Rights Now! Tour. He decided to found Witness after the 1991 police brutality incident involving Rodney King, Jr., in which a bystander's video of King's beating by the Los Angeles police was critical both in raising awareness and in generating widespread public attention. To Gabriel, this video demonstrated the power of video to capture the world’s attention and viscerally communicate human rights abuses.
WITNESS was founded the next year, in 1992, with a one million dollar seed grant from the Reebok Human Rights Foundation and a partnership with the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First). In 2001, WITNESS became an independent nonprofit organization. In 2012, WITNESS released a 20 year timeline about the organization.
In 2004, WITNESS started hosting a benefit dinner and concert called "Focus for Change." The event brings together video activists, funders, and celebrities to share the work of WITNESS' partners.
In 2009, WITNESS initiated a focused use of social media as a part of its outreach for video for change. Since 2009, the organization started reporting social media statistics in the organization’s performance reports.
In 2012, WITNESS launched a joint project with Storyful and Youtube called the Human Rights Channel.
WITNESS has worked in over 80 countries to advance human rights through the use of video for change. Today, WITNESS has a staff of 30 and a $3.9 million budget.
Read more about this topic: Witness (human Rights Group)
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