Engaging Youth through Participatory Filmmaking at an Indian NGO
Project Year: 2017
Role: Lead Researcher
Methods: Qualitative Interviews, Contextual Inquiry, Participatory Filmmaking
Company: Jagori Rural Charitable Trust
Photos by Hannah Carlan
Problem
Jagori Rural is a women’s and girls’ empowerment NGO in the Indian Himalayas. While conducting research for my dissertation in the region, I spent nine months conducting participatory research with the organization to help them identify opportunities for increasing user engagement and demonstrating impact to stakeholders.
In 2017, I piloted a study of participatory filmmaking as a method for crafting clear and compelling stories about the organization’s impact on girls and women. Together with a team of media professionals, we conducted a four-week pilot study of participatory filmmaking about a girls’ cricket tournament organized by Jagori.
Objectives
This study had two interrelated objectives
Test the usability of participatory filmmaking as a tool for increasing user engagement with NGO programs.
Assess the impact of the cricket tournament on girls’ sense of self-esteem and empowerment.
Why Cricket?
Cricket is the most popular sport in South Asia, particularly amongst youth. However, the sport is dominated by boys and men, and gendered norms prevent young girls from accessing the game in public spaces. Jagori spearheaded an initiative to offer adolescent girls from dozens of villages to train and participate in a district-wide cricket tournament.
Methods and Role
Over four weeks in November-December 2017, I partnered with non-governmental organization Jagori Rural Charitable Trust in Rakkar, India to conduct qualitative interviews in Hindi with 20 adolescent girls and 5 adult female social workers to understand barriers to inclusion for girls in sports and how the experience of participating in a tournament impacted girls’ self-esteem and empowerment.
I also collected video ethnography of the tournament itself, collected over two days, along with participant observation of the planning and execution of the tournament.
Findings
The research revealed that participatory filmmaking was highly usable as a tool for increasing user engagement and demonstrating impact.
Project managers and participants reported highly positive feedback to hearing their stories told in a visually compelling modality.
The research also revealed that the experience of participating in a district-wide cricket tournament had several positive impacts on adolescent girls, including:
Valuable exposure and opportunities to travel outside of home village, many for the first time.
Having the opportunity to meet and socialize with girls from the area was even more meaningful than playing the sport itself.
Girls reported increased physical skills in teamwork and leadership
Social workers reported greater awareness amongst girls of the social construction of gender and ability to critique gendered barriers to inclusion in sports and beyond
Girls reported increased confidence and feelings of accomplishment
Deliverables
Through participatory filmmaking, I produced a short documentary film in Hindi that highlighted the impact of the cricket tournament on girls’ empowerment. This film communicated research findings to research participants, organization leaders, and transnational funding agencies.
I subsequently produced a second film on an event to increase women’s access to public spaces at night, which received similarly positive feedback from stakeholders and participants.