About Small World News

Our Story

Small World News was inaugurated in 2005 with its first project Alive in Baghdad, and today it continues to spread across the globe. In Iraq, Small World News produced weekly video packages on citizens’ daily life, but has since expanded to include a number of services beyond video, including audio interviews with audience participation (Alive in Gaza), viral public access for user generated content (Alive in Tehran), and SMS mapping for election monitoring (Alive in Afghanistan).

Our staff has been producing video and web journalism for 10 years including video documentaries and audio interviews from places as diverse as Iraq, Mexico, Afghanistan, and Libya. Our work has previously been featured in mainstream sources like Sky News, BBC, and Newsnight. We have production teams in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, as well as a broad array of citizen journalists, contacts, and coordinators in Mexico, Afghanistan, Honduras, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Kenya, Gaza, and Nigeria.

Beyond providing access to our tools, Small World News has also been supporting, equipping, and training community members and under-served populations to become journalists, storytellers, and documentarians in order to broaden the geopolitical perspectives available to the international community. We specialize in assembling projects quickly, securely, and cost-effectively. Our services are available to clients on request.

Our Mission

Small World News focuses on developing the capacity of citizens to engage with the international community in crisis areas and conflict zones.

Our most recent project, Alive in Libya, showcased the potential of citizen media when combined with affordable digital technologies and professional training. As an organization our primary focus has been to guide local citizens through the entire process, from learning to produce professional media to distributing via social media and leveraging relevant technologies to broaden the impact.

We believe our unique body of expertise with media development in conflict areas such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya makes us uniquely positioned to provide training to existing media professionals, human rights and civil society organizations, as well as independent citizens. In the past year, in addition to our own projects, Small World News has conducted training in Iraq, Afghanistan, India, Rwanda, Bahrain, Libya, and Uganda. Training subjects included: new media tools for civil society, SMS and mobile technology, training for journalists in new media and multimedia, training and advising in online security, training and deployment of Ushahidi.