Part of our Team in Copenhagen

Project Survival Media launched forward in August 2009 after a successful launch party that raised nearly $1000.00 and celebrated the birth of a global youth journalism network.

Our first Team Leader conference call represented India, Singapore, Lebanon, Egypt, Togo, Argentina, Brazil, England, the Netherlands, Australia, the US, and Canada. We soon released our application for the general teams and within 16 days we received 200 applications, testament to the need our program was beginning to fill.

By November we had raised $46,000.00 and at the end of our program we had engaged nearly a hundred youth journalists, brought a team of 18 young people to Copenhagen, and produced blogs, photo essays, and 6 mini-documentaries.

Even though Copenhagen was an extreme disappointment, failing to secure a fair and binding international climate deal, the negotiations were an important step in building an international civil movement. PSM was an important player in this effort, using new-media tactics and tools to urge passage of policies that “safeguard the survival of all countries and peoples.” Our bottom line: To make sure that the survival message of peoples around the world penetrated the political dialogue.

Project Survival Media was created for young people to report on these very issues and strengthen the dialogue on what is possible in order to ensure our survival. We are launching a new part of the program focused on solutions, which we hope will draw some big attention on the cutting edge technologies, ways of thinking, and opportunities out there for our local communities and national governments to replicate. We hope to answer the all too important question of the year, “Do we have to invest in dirty energies because we just don’t have enough clean energy available.”

Project Survival Media’s success on a tight time line and shoe string budget in mobilizing youth journalists, shows that our new program Solutions for Survival is also set up for success. The youth we worked with are hungry for a program like this to continue.

We will take their enthusiasm for reporting on climate change and combine it with new direction and a new program to focus on solutions, especially, solutions of women. With the talent of our story tellers, we will create transformative media that could not come at a more important time.

Join us. Support us.

Images ©Robert vanWaarden

Noting the degree of consciousness shifting society around us, our media focused on what people are doing for the movement toward sustainability: activism, alternative energy, and green jobs. Everyone on our team agreed that it was more productive and inspiring to look at solutions rather than listen to dooms-day predictions, and that made the pursuit of our stories charged with excitement. It was a lot of fun to work hard with a group of people driven by meaningful purpose, and the result of our efforts was very rewarding.

We used borrowed gear, shared our skills, and supported one another in jumping hurdles along the winding way between idea and product. It wouldn’t have worked just fifteen years ago– our team was spread across the Eastern United States, brought together by virtual technologies like Skype and Google Docs. To move large video files across distances, we used Wistia media server technology, with an account donated by the good folks at Animal LLC, a digital media design studio in Providence, Rhode Island.

I’m proud of what we have accomplished so far, but I also feel like this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many more stories that need to be told, and the urgency of learning to grapple with the effects of climate change is increasing daily. In the quest for a sustainable civilization we need to work together, harness technologies, share our resources, and survival will be our profit. Project Survival Media is a prime example of people doing that, and I’m grateful for having been a part of it.

©Robert van Waarden

Over 100,000 people converged in Copenhagen on Dec. 12, 2009 to march towards the Bella Center and demand a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty at the end of the Conference of Parties. This gallery is a selection of some of my best photography from the day.