My organization, The Tiziano Project, empowers local community members in conflict, post-conflict and underrepresented regions to tell their own stories using new media. In the last several months, our work has brought us to Latvia, Afghanistan, the West Bank and Jerusalem, Philadelphia, South LA and an Apache Indian Reservation.
Just as you would expect, the job is fun, incredibly rewarding and filled with adventure. But simultaneously, it can be ridiculously, insanely, infuriatingly challenging.
Our most recent project involved us getting run out of the West Bank, half the team getting deported from Israel and hospitalization for food poisoning.
In addition to all these field projects, we are also preparing for the launch of StoriesFrom, our new collaborative storytelling platform that will allow organizations and individuals to easily create immersive community driven documentaries (much in the vein of our original 360 Kurdistan). The site will combine locally produced content with that of professional journalists and documentary filmmakers to provide complete and robust looks into communities. Through StoriesFrom, we want to connect interested audiences directly with firsthand sources around the world. And needless to say, we have already learned a few lessons along the way.
Stay tuned and be sure to check out the video above produced by our own, very talented, David Freid for a mentor-produced example of the kind of content we'll be bringing you very soon. Try not to blink.