Tracy Wares is an America India Foundation Clinton Fellow currently volunteering at Video Volunteers. She first lived in India from 1999-2000 while participating in a year abroad at UC Berkeley. She filmed a documentary there entitled, “Shakti: The Performance of Gender Roles at Kamakhya, Assam”. Her first experience working with non-profits was in Thailand from 2002-2004 with the Burmese pro-democracy movement living in exile.  There she had the opportunity to create a documentary about child soldiers, conduct video camera trainings, and write extensively about human rights abuses. She produced and filmed a feature documentary about street art and graffiti around the globe that explores issues of public space entitled, “Bomb It”. She has also produced television programming for networks such as ABC, Discovery, A&E Bio, WeTv, and TLC. She writes about her experience at a community screening in our CC Devidas Gaonkar's village in Cotigaon, South Goa. Having finally made it to Goa after a delayed arrival in India, I was very excited to be thrown into the workings of my NGO, Video Volunteers, straight away. Based on my previous media experience, I have been placed with an NGO that focuses on empowering marginalized community members to produce media content that enables them to create social change. This form of citizen journalism is especially powerful in a country like India, with its multitude of languages and cultures, where local issues can often be overlooked by mainstream media. Not only was the training a fantastic way for me to learn first hand Video Volunteer’s mission and work, but it was powerful to meet the individuals from the front lines so to speak. Over the course of 10 days they each grew immensely from the contents of the training, but also from the continued support they gave each other, creating a truly unique community. The most memorable part of the training for me was attending a community screening event held here in Goa in one of the community correspondent’s tribal village. Devidas produced a video entitled: “Goan Rural Women Await Biogas” to educate his community about a government scheme that subsidizes the purchase of biogas stoves. Often in India laws are in place to create improvement in rural areas, but community members lack the information they need to access the assistance. By holding his first community screening, Devidas was not only showing off his journalism skills to his community, but he was educating them on issues that effected them on a very real and daily basis. By using biogas stoves women would no longer have to walk great distances to cull wood from the forest, they would be less likely to suffer health conditions from cooking in smoke-filled rooms, and the environment would be protected. Not only were Devidas’ family members proud of him, but the other community correspondents lent a supportive and festive atmosphere to the whole event. I felt truly blessed for the opportunity to experience so many different levels of “community” in India and be inspired again to participate in a movement that utilizes media for social change! (originally published at the AIF blog)