DRISHTI Media, Arts, Human Rights

(from About Drishti Media page)

We are a group of media professionals working on issues of gender justice, human rights and development.

We founded DRISHTI as a Non Profit Public Charitable Trust in 1993, with a firm faith in the ability of video, theatre, radio, other media and the arts to contribute to struggles for a just, humane and peaceful society.

We believe that social communication need not be dry, boring, pedantic or depressing. In fact we believe that good form and technique must be used to communicate issues of social importance more effectively.

We work in partnership with the people whose lives, stories and experiences make the subject of our films. People are not reduced to passive objects of our creative process. They participate in it with a sense of ownership, and get involved in conceptualizing its contents, writing the scripts, acting and making edit selections. In other words, we help communities use the media as a means to articulate their resistance to structures of oppression, to communicate an alternative vision, to put forth their dreams and aspirations. We believe this process itself can be empowering, and therefore is as important as the end product of any project we undertake.

We work to ensure the widest possible dissemination of our films. Through video screenings organized by NGOs and women’s groups amongst small communities, our films create a lateral networking of knowledge and ideas at the grassroots level.

Communicating alternative value frameworks using alternative media does not mean we under-value the power and importance of the mass media, their incredible outreach, along with their ability to impact mainstream and also middle class attitudes. We have worked with the weekly serial format on radio as well as produced public service advertisements for the television networks in India.

Apart from production work in video, theatre and radio, we also undertake training and media planning for campaigns and events.

Drishti is structured as a collective of individuals. We are distinct in our creative identities and areas of concern, yet together in ideology, approach and spirit.