Following its successful launch in Northwest Syria, AVS developed to become a communication platform for farmers and local and international NGOs in the field of food security.
The AVS Podcast Project has contributed to the empowerment of the farming community in northwest Syria. In May 2021, there were requests from the community to provide video recordings in conjunction with the podcasts, gathered through a survey. This project was designed to address their demand by creating a series of short videos on sustainable agricultural techniques and successful sustainability-oriented projects implemented in the region.
Throughout the AVS Video Project, we produced videos to complement the topics covered within our podcasts, and interviews with the NGOs that implemented these successful farming projects in northwest Syria. This expansion into visual material builds on the knowledge and expertise presented in the audio outputs. It also created further engagement and knowledge-transfer opportunities in an easily-accessible medium, well-suited to widespread forms of access and consumption, mostly mobile phones. The skills and equipment acquired during the duration of the project enabled the participants to continue to expand this work independently, after the project was completed.
The project was organised in 3 stages:
- The project began by purchasing the equipment for filming and organising a training course on video making (March-April 2022).
- During the second stage, the participants in the training course produced videos on agricultural practices and interviews on sustainability-oriented projects with local NGOs (May-June 2022).
- In the last stage the videos were promoted in northwest Syria and the project results were disseminated to stakeholders and wider audiences through a series of newsletters (July 2022).
This project was implemented by the same partnership: University of Sussex (SSRP funding), Cara and the Syrian Academic Expertise (SAE). The videos can be accessed on the SAE YouTube channel and on this website in the section “Outputs”.
For further information about the project, please contact Dr Mirela Barbu (PI) or Prof Martin Spinelli (Co-I). Or you can send us an email at agriculturalvoices@gmail.com. For more information about the production and content of AVS Videos, please contact Dr. Shaher Abdullateef (SAE Director) at shaher.abdullateef@gmail.com.
