Music Legend Peter Gabriel Celebrates 20 Years as a WITNESS
Jennifer Birn
If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
If atrocities happen in far-reaching parts of our world are never known outside of those villages – did they happen?
They did. And they do.
Thankfully, programs like organizations like WITNESS, co-founded by iconic musician Peter Gabriel into 1992, are bringing the human right violations occurring in remote villages by equipping them with video cameras to capture and share what happens there with the civilized world.
WITNESS, which celebrated its 20th anniversary at the 8th Annual Focus for Change Benefit last night at the Roseland Ballroom has trained more than 4,500 human rights defenders and partnered with over 300 groups in 86 countries to produce campaign videos that have reached more than 260 million people worldwide.
At the event, hosted by actor Alan Cumming, guest were taken on a journey of the organization’s 20-year history. “Having worked in film for over 25 years, it’s inspiring to see examples of how video has been used successfully in the struggle to protect human rights,” Alan said
Peter Gabriel, who performed at the event in between stops on his Back to Front tour, said, “WITNESS became a vision for me after the Human Rights Now! Tour back in 1988. I traveled with Amnesty International and met brave human rights defenders who suffered grave abuses. I documented their testimonies with my own handheld video camera in the hopes that their stories would not be buried or forgotten,” said Peter Gabriel. “20 years later, WITNESS is now as important as ever, helping people use video to tell their stories and giving them access to strategies and tools to create meaningful change.”
You can learn more about WITNESS here.