Applied for a Fulbright

Did I tell you I applied for a Ful­bright?  The blog has been on the back burner between that and a few other projects.  Read­ing Lee-Sean’s blog has me moti­vated to post more.  I applied for a 10-month Ful­bright grant to Ethiopia to pro­duce a detailed case study of Sud­den Flow­ers, the youth video col­lec­tive I con­sulted for this sum­mer.  The Ful­bright appli­ca­tion process involved weekly meet­ings with the Par­sons Ful­bright adviser Jilly Traganou from late Sep­tem­ber through mid-October.  Instru­men­tal feed­back also came from Tri­cia Perry, Rachel Aicher, Paul Ross, Orit Halpern, Jes­sica Irish, and Ted Byfield. I should hear the results in February.

Here’s my project state­ment and per­sonal statement:

STATEMENT OF GRANT PURPOSE
Ida C. Benedetto, Ethiopia, Communications|4290
Sud­den Flow­ers: A Case Study in New Media and Visual Cul­ture for Human Rights
With a Ful­bright grant, I will pro­duce a case study analy­sis on Sud­den Flow­ers, a youth video col­lec­tive of HIV/AIDS orphans in Ethiopia.  The collective’s films use domes­tic visual cul­ture in con­junc­tion with new media prac­tices to con­front faulty assump­tions about Africa, poverty, and ill­ness.  My analy­sis of Sud­den Flow­ers will serve to instruct new media projects in cre­atively broad­cast the per­spec­tives of peo­ple in sit­u­a­tions of need to the pol­icy mak­ers, aid orga­ni­za­tions, and foun­da­tions that are craft­ing solutions.

Sud­den Flow­ers is a col­lec­tive of eigh­teen young peo­ple between the ages of fif­teen and twenty who have ben­e­fited from the ser­vices of Hope for Chil­dren (HFC).  HFC houses and edu­cates eight hun­dred chil­dren who have lost one or both par­ents to HIV/AIDS.  Sud­den Flow­ers formed to pro­duce video inter­views where the youth per­son­ally tell inter­na­tional donors how they ben­e­fited from HFC’s pro­grams. Over the past three years, the video inter­views have evolved into award-winning short films.  With the guid­ance of two pro­gram direc­tors, the youth write, direct, and act in semi-autobiographic films about their trou­bled pasts on the streets of Addis Ababa.  Accord­ing to UNICEF, most of Ethiopia’s one mil­lion HIV/AIDS orphans end up liv­ing on the streets, suf­fer­ing phys­i­cal and emo­tional abuse as they beg or work in pros­ti­tu­tion in order to survive.

I plan to eval­u­ate the his­tor­i­cal and social influ­ences on Sud­den Flow­ers’ work from three con­texts.  First, the domes­tic influ­ence of Ethiopia’s long­stand­ing the­ater tra­di­tion has infused the cul­ture with sophis­ti­cated notions of per­for­mance and nar­ra­tive. It is my hypoth­e­sis that this tra­di­tion explains the rapid devel­op­ment of the video work from direct appeals for fund­ing to col­lab­o­ra­tively pro­duced sto­ries drawn from local nar­ra­tive tra­di­tions.  Sec­ond, inter­na­tional news cov­er­age of Ethiopia’s famine in 1984 asserted a dis­tinc­tive image of poverty and depri­va­tion that has been recy­cled through the media ever since.   I will assess the effec­tive­ness of Sud­den Flow­ers’ efforts to over­come the lim­ited inter­na­tional visual nar­ra­tive of depra­va­tion in order to rep­re­sent the full­ness of their lives as includ­ing but not lim­ited to suf­fer­ing.  Third, human rights orga­ni­za­tions are eagerly adopt­ing new media prac­tices as access to pro­duc­tion tools becomes more afford­able and dis­tri­b­u­tion through the inter­net reaches increas­ingly wider audi­ences.  I will demon­strate that the strength of Sud­den Flow­ers’ work as com­pared to other grass­roots media projects is a result of the collective’s mul­ti­fac­eted skills devel­op­ment pro­gram and col­lab­o­ra­tive pro­duc­tion strate­gies. An analy­sis of these three con­texts will elu­ci­date the inter­sec­tion of Ethiopian and inter­na­tional influ­ences in the collective’s work.  It will also serve as a blue­print for other orga­ni­za­tions seek­ing to draw from local visual cul­ture to pro­duce dig­i­tal media that speaks to inter­na­tional audi­ences about salient human rights issues.

The grant period is an ideal time to con­duct this analy­sis for two rea­sons.  First, domes­tic film pro­duc­tion has taken off in the past few years, bring­ing sig­nif­i­cant changes to Ethiopia’s pop­u­lar visual land­scape.   Domes­tic films attract nearly as wide an audi­ence as for­eign films and chal­lenge the tra­di­tional live the­ater arts for which Ethiopia is famous. I will study the impact of emerg­ing domes­tic film on Sud­den Flow­ers’ work and the collective’s chang­ing dis­tri­b­u­tion strate­gies given new oppor­tu­ni­ties to screen their films for local audi­ences.  Sec­ond, the Ethiopian leg­is­la­ture is con­sid­er­ing plac­ing rigid lim­i­ta­tions on the way non-governmental orga­ni­za­tions (NGOs) raise funds. This leg­is­la­tion is a reac­tion to the efforts of inter­na­tional NGOs to chal­lenge the dom­i­nant polit­i­cal party in the most recent elec­tion.  In response, Sud­den Flow­ers is explor­ing social entre­pre­neur­ship in the form of con­sult­ing and prod­uct sales as means of fund­ing their projects.  Foun­da­tions like Ashoka, Echo­ing Green, and the MacArthur Foun­da­tion are sup­port­ing the global trend for social entre­pre­neur­ship, which uses for-profit busi­ness mod­els to run devel­op­ment and human rights projects.  The grant period will afford me an oppor­tu­nity to chron­i­cle Sud­den Flower’s appli­ca­tion of social entre­pre­neur­ship in the effort to con­tinue expand­ing their pro­grams amid Ethiopia’s politi­cized aid climate.

I spent two weeks in Addis Ababa this past sum­mer get­ting to know the col­lec­tive and con­firm­ing the rich pos­si­bil­i­ties of pur­su­ing more exten­sive research.  To date, my pro­posed project has gen­er­ated inter­est among pro­fes­sors in sev­eral aca­d­e­mic depart­ments at Addis Ababa Uni­ver­sity, telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions inno­va­tors with exten­sive involve­ment in Ethiopia, and for­mer staff of the office of the Gen­eral Sec­re­tary of the United Nations. Before arriv­ing in Ethiopia, I will study the local lan­guage, Amharic, through a pri­vate tutor and con­tinue lan­guage classes upon arriv­ing in the coun­try. Amharic will aid me in my work, though the key admin­is­tra­tors at Sud­den Flow­ers and many of the youth are pro­fi­cient if not flu­ent in Eng­lish.  In Ethiopia, direct engage­ment with con­stituen­cies rel­e­vant to this project by audit­ing classes at the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Depart­ment of Addis Ababa Uni­ver­sity, attend­ing film screen­ings, and meet­ing the the­ater com­mu­nity will ground the my ini­tial obser­va­tion of Sud­den Flow­ers in the broader cul­tural land­scape. These activ­i­ties in the first four months of the grant period will afford me broad famil­iar­ity with Ethiopia’s cul­ture and history.

The sub­se­quent six months of the grant period will entail focused work with Sud­den Flow­ers.  My time will be devoted to observ­ing their film pro­duc­tion and orga­ni­za­tional oper­a­tions as well as inter­view­ing the collective’s mem­bers.  I plan to teach tech­ni­cal classes in pho­tog­ra­phy and video pro­duc­tion as an imme­di­ate way to enrich the project.  Sud­den Flow­ers has also solicited my input in devel­op­ing their web­site and train­ing tools, work that will directly ben­e­fit from my for­mal research on their projects.  Main­tain­ing my blog through­out the grant period will keep my col­leagues and inter­ested media ana­lysts abreast on my progress and help gen­er­ate inter­est in pub­lish­ing the find­ings more for­mally.   I will deliver a talk on my work at Addis Ababa Uni­ver­sity and pro­vide Sud­den Flow­ers with full access to the final case study reports.  After the grant period, I hope to col­lab­o­rate with the col­lec­tive in the long term to keep its strate­gies cur­rent in the evolv­ing media envi­ron­ment.  Upon my return to the United States, I will present my work at the New School Uni­ver­sity through a pub­lic lec­ture and exhibition.

Gain­ing an inti­mate under­stand­ing of Sud­den Flower’s col­lab­o­ra­tive pro­duc­tion process and busi­ness model will advance my pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment as a media con­sul­tant and pro­ducer for human rights projects. After the grant period, I will work in a human rights orga­ni­za­tion before begin­ning grad­u­ate stud­ies in inter­na­tional affairs.  If awarded the Ful­bright grant, my work with Sud­den Flow­ers will form the foun­da­tion of my career in pro­duc­ing field analy­sis of the global media land­scape and influ­enc­ing pol­icy on the human right to infor­ma­tion and self-expression.  Analy­sis of projects like Sud­den Flow­ers will equip grass­roots orga­ni­za­tions enthu­si­as­ti­cally embrac­ing new media tools with proven meth­ods for ampli­fy­ing the sto­ries of those who stand to gain the most from effec­tive human rights policies.

PERSONAL STATEMENT
Ida C. Benedetto, Ethiopia, Communications|4290
Sud­den Flow­ers: A Case Study in New Media and Visual Cul­ture for Human Rights
As a pas­sion­ate advo­cate for visual media’s abil­ity to shape the sto­ries that con­cep­tu­al­ize our world, I have immersed myself in the field of doc­u­men­tary pho­tog­ra­phy and dig­i­tal tech­nol­ogy. I use these new media tools to inspire empa­thy and pro­mote con­sci­en­tious engage­ment with issues of global import.

My first men­tor was Andrew Stern, a pho­to­jour­nal­ist who pro­duced one of the ini­tial pho­tog­ra­phy essays on Iraq war vet­er­ans.  He noticed my enthu­si­asm for photography’s abil­ity to instantly com­mu­ni­cate emo­tional nuances and encour­aged me to explore a career in visual media.  Trav­el­ing to Guatemala to learn Span­ish, I became fur­ther inter­ested in social jus­tice and post-conflict issues.  My lan­guage school orga­nized a trip to a com­mu­nity of ex-guerrillas who farm fair trade cof­fee.  I was inspired by their com­mit­ment to defend their cul­ture and to rebuild their lives after the civil war.

Upon return­ing to the United States, I enrolled at the New School Uni­ver­sity to study lib­eral arts and design under the dual BA/BFA pro­gram. I am study­ing His­tory and Design&Technology. My courses teach me about the his­tor­i­cal roots of eco­nomic and social inequities and dig­i­tal communication’s poten­tial in moti­vat­ing audi­ences to address these issues.  Dur­ing my first win­ter vaca­tion from school, I returned to Guatemala to pro­duce a doc­u­men­tary pho­to­graph essay on the com­mu­nity of ex-guerrilla cof­fee farm­ers.  I have returned to Guatemala four more times to con­tinue work­ing with the com­mu­nity and local orga­ni­za­tions on devel­op­ment projects.  With the sup­port of my his­tory advi­sor, I secured a grant from the India China Insti­tute at the New School to work with tea farm­ers in India.  In the hills of Dar­jeel­ing, I found a unique coop­er­a­tive that cel­e­brates their eth­nic iden­tity and par­tic­i­pa­tion in local pol­i­tics.  When I showed the tea farm­ers pho­tographs of the Guatemalan cof­fee farm­ers, they were fas­ci­nated and inspired. We turned the pho­tographs into post­cards so the farm­ers could exchange let­ters.  This expe­ri­ence helped me dis­cover the power of col­lab­o­ra­tion to pro­duce mov­ing visual media projects.  The post­cards are now an exhi­bi­tion that will tour ten cities in the United States thanks to fair trade supporters.

I have worked in pho­to­graphic arts insti­tu­tions and a foun­da­tion to under­stand the orga­ni­za­tions pro­vid­ing vital resources to media pro­duc­ers. The oppor­tu­nity to do grad­u­ate level work in Human Rights and Media in Brazil intro­duced me to the val­ues that facil­i­tate a cul­ture of human rights media pro­duc­tion. While intern­ing at the Open Soci­ety Insti­tute, I was inspired by the work of pho­tog­ra­pher Eric Gottes­man. I got in touch with Mr. Gottes­man to dis­cuss his use of Ethiopia’s cof­fee cer­e­mony as a set­ting for his pho­tographs to pro­voke dis­cus­sion about AIDS.  He invited me to visit Sud­den Flow­ers, an orga­ni­za­tion he helped found in Ethiopia. The wit and vivac­ity of the youth in this video col­lec­tive defied all my stereo­types of African AIDS orphans. In con­trast to the farm­ers of Guatemala and India, they took their story into their own hands through col­lab­o­ra­tive video pro­duc­tion. I began ana­lyz­ing their work and offered sup­port through tech­ni­cal trainings.

While usu­ally seen as a dis­abil­ity, dyslexia is the source of my strengths in lat­eral think­ing, inter­per­sonal skills, and visual lit­er­acy. Years in edu­ca­tional envi­ron­ments poorly suited for my learn­ing style taught me to inde­pen­dently seek out means to meet my goals. This drive has taken me around the world to work with peo­ple find­ing cre­ative solu­tions within sys­tems that have over­looked their needs. I am com­mit­ted to a career in visual media to con­tinue deploy­ing these skills in the ser­vice of inter­cul­tural under­stand­ing and human rights.