Transnational Storytelling: Linking Farmworkers in India & Ethiopia with Farmworkers in North Carolina
Student Action With Farmworkers (one of our members) recently announced that Laura Valencia was awarded the 2012 SAF Petrow-Freeman Documentary Award. Her project is an experimental media tool that demonstrates the parallel lives that farmworkers live in different parts of the world. Her work focuses on connecting environmental and social justice in a unique multimedia way that takes you on a global food systems journey, and we encourage you to learn more about Laura and her work.
Laura Valencia was a SAF intern in 2009 with (FAN member) Toxic Free NC in Raleigh, during which time she produced seven short Spanish-language web videos about organic gardening tips and farmworker justice. After her internship Laura continued to be involved with farmworker justice, creating documentary work for Toxic Free NC and NC FIELD. She credits these experiences with shaping her own identity, helping her to see her role in the creative process as a storyteller, and teaching her to think critically about the ethics of storytelling and its role in social change. From her work in farmworker and food justice, Laura became a Presbyterian Hunger Program Food Justice Fellow, doing research in India and eventually joining a bus trip for social justice. As her interests expanded to include communities abroad, Laura credits SAF with her connections abroad and for sparking her interest in social and environmental justice, a passion which continues today.
Laura’s project is unique in that it incorporates audio, visual and other multimedia sources to connect individual stories to a larger systemic problem. She interweaves the themes of food justice, labor rights and sustainable agriculture into what it means to be a healthy community, both in the towns of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Mussoorie, India, as well as in the larger society. Taken as a whole journey, her works points to the need to connect small, seemingly isolated communities to work together to confront unjust systems of oppression. Finally, Laura’s project highlights the importance of storytelling and the role that participatory media can play in the process of social change. We encourage you to watch, listen and interact with Laura’s work, “Food Justice: A Global Food Systems Journey,” to see an example of a SAF alum branching out with the work that SAF engages in for transnational advocacy and cross-cultural storytelling.