The College of Development Communication (CDC) co-led with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (UN-FAO) and Digital Green the five-day capacity-building initiative “Participatory Video (PV) in Agrifood Systems and Digital Environments Training of Trainers” on October 19 and 23-26 via virtual conferencing. 

Being the first of the PV modular training series, the training was participated in by 45 practitioners of Communication for Development (ComDev) from 16 countries, who will serve as master trainers in the second part of the initiative involving a regional PV training course to be delivered by ComDev organizations, such as ComDev Asia, Yenkasa Africa, and Onda Rural.

An approach espoused by CDC and its partners, PV follows a bottom-up media production framework in which community stakeholders are actively involved in planning, creating, and sharing video content. 

This approach is detailed in FAO-UN’s “Communication for Rural Development Sourcebook,” co-authored by CDC and used as a main reference material in the training course.

During the training sessions, mentors delivered lectures on the PV process’s pre-production, production, and post-production phases. Some specific topics covered included participatory rural appraisal, production elements and techniques, and monitoring and evaluation of PV. 

Each lecture was followed by workshops that aimed to surface the capacity-building priorities and opportunities of the participants and their respective organizations so that they could be guided when they organize their own PV trainings. 

A Community of Practice or CoP using an instant messaging app was also created to facilitate peer co-learning and networking.

Dean Maria Stella C. Tirol, Dr. Edmund G. Centeno, and Dr. Trina Leah T. Mendoza served as mentors from CDC. 

CDC faculty members Pilipinas F. Francisco and Ryan Jay I. Galang and CDC staff Juvy Leonarda N. Gopela, Zane Andrei M. Cortez, and Sandra S. San Carlos served as training facilitators. 

Miguel Victor T. Durian, a training participant from CDC, is being groomed as one of the master trainers in the second part of the PV initiative.

The initiative is part of CCComDev, an effort that the CDC spearheads with global partners to share knowledge and increase learning opportunities and collaboration in communication for rural development. (Miguel Victor Durian)