Giving Compass' Take:

• Kimberly Sevcik explains that Women and Girls Lead Global is a multi-country documentary film series aimed to capture gender inequality in different contexts, created by storytellers rather than social change professionals. 

• Why is the power of film documentaries and sharing real experiences through videos so effective to capture social change? And how can these spur social action?

• Read about the impact of the documentary that shows the tangible, devastating effects of warming the planet. 

Many of us who work in media believe that social documentaries and storytelling can change hearts and minds and even behavior—and with the field’s growing emphasis on impact measurement, Independent Television Service (ITVS) set out to prove it.

Women and Girls Lead Global—a multi-country project that used documentaries to move the needle on gender equality—provided ITVS with an opportunity to commission one of the most extensive studies ever on documentary film in the context of global development.

We set out to learn whether documentary films that are not custom-designed by social change professionals or strategic communications firms, but rather artful films made by independent storytellers and supported by ITVS—promote changes in knowledge, attitude and behavior?

First, a bit more context: Working in India, Bangladesh, Jordan, Kenya and Peru, Women and Girls Lead Global partnered with established NGOs doing exemplary gender equality work on the ground. We collaborated with them to design campaigns using film to start breakthrough conversations that led to community-driven action. Each campaign was customized to the culture and the gender issue, and a few programmatic pillars anchored the project across all of the countries—among them, the three-film model.

The three-film model activates a series of facilitated film screenings for the same audience over a limited period of time. It allows each conversation to build upon the last one, providing cumulative learnings as well as opportunities to follow through on calls to action.

Women and Girls Lead and our community partners mapped out the change indicators that would eventually lead to bigger shifts on these issues. For example, women being aware of the laws protecting them against gender-based violence in Jordan; or men developing respect for women as one step along the path to preventing gender-based violence in India.

Read the full article about women and girls global development documentary by Kimberly Sevcik at Media Impact Funders.