For many in the developed world, famine and poverty are too abstract to resonate widely. Rape is different. Women from all backgrounds and socio-economic levels can immediately identify with this issue as it is both a fear and reality for women and girls in every community. Now, increasingly, corporations, politicians and celebrities are recognizing that valuable exposure can be had by connecting themselves with "doing something to help the women of the Congo."

If you are not familiar with some of the popular campaigns to raise awareness in the West, here are a few samples:

Omnipeace: Courtney Cox, Jennifer Anniston and a slew of other Hollywood idols want you to wear t-shirts, bathing suits, and use their credit card to "stamp out violence in the Congo."

Watch Law and Order SVU: This one is a bit tougher to comprehend but here goes. One of the actresses on the hit television series Law & Order contends that watching television (a consumer electronic device incidentally) will encourage people not to use consumer electronic devices that are made from minerals sourced from the Eastern Congo, where the majority of the sexual violence against women occurs.

Eve Ensler, Ben Affleck, Oprah Winfrey, Anderson Cooper; the list of the celebrities who are making the Congo "their issue" goes on and on. While on the surface, raising awareness of this tragically important issue should be praised and even encouraged, important questions should also be raised over who these celebrities are aiming to satisfy: American media consumers or the true victims of rape? The celebrities are packaging up an extremely complicated issue into a nice, easy to digest box.

First, never do they raise the awkward question that we are all complicit in the violence in the Congo because of our insatiable consumption of electronics and other consumer products that depend on the minerals sourced from this part of the world. We are never asked to sacrifice anything. Instead, they call on us to send a pre-written email to 21 of the world's largest electronics manufacturers asking them to stop using minerals, such as coltan, that are mined in the DRC. These minerals, as is widely reported, fund the various factions in the ongoing armed conflict. This here is where the disconnect lies.

Sadly, these celebrities may have good intentions but they are all painfully out of their depth on this issue. It will take significantly more than letter writing campaigns and t-shirts to have any real effect on the warring factions. That said, there is more that can be done at the popular level which, regrettably, few people discuss. Although corporations are largely unresponsive to public pressure, governments are a different story.

Mass letter writing campaigns, sit ins, demonstrations, etc. should be held in Washington, London, Paris and Bonn to pressure the French and German governments into questioning how and why they permit leaders of the war's various factions to live freely in their countries. If the BBC World Service was able to find a handful of commanders living large in Paris and Berlin, then one would hope that the European intelligence agencies would also have an idea as to their whereabouts. The United States has done everything in its power to frustrate Al Qaeda's logistical, financial and operational abilities. It should do the same with the FDLR and other participants in the Congolese conflict. Our leaders and our governments can do something about this today. We choose not to because the political pressure is focused on Apple when it should be directed at Obama, Sarkozy, and Merkel.

Finally, we need to demand more of our governments' international aid efforts on this issue. While tens of millions of dollars are being showered on every kind of SGBV (sexual and gender-based violence) initiative, little of that money is actually traced to any kind of discernible result. The latest evidence of how our tax money is being wasted comes from the Globe and Mail's damning report of the Canada International Development Agency's (CIDA) $15 million GBV effort in the DRC.

Millions of dollars were apparently spent on posters and other printed materials directed at a population that is largely illiterate. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up. Additionally, so few of those funds are spent on anything that will actually help people. Instead they're spent on administrative costs and truly absurd benefit packages for aid workers that include $80,000 SUVs, expensive apartments, satellite television and on and on.

I can tell you from first hand experience here that our governments are failing us in the effort to combat sexual and gender based violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Our money is being wasted, and well intentioned but poorly informed celebrities fill the void with misrepresented facts and ineffective campaigns. We can do better. In upcoming posts, I will detail how.

Felix editing his segment

The key principles that they had to incorporate in their packages were:

• 80-90% of the shots MUST be on a tripod
• Use the "5 second" rule and take longer shots of each piece of video. (see previous post for what the "5 second rule is)
• Tell the viewer a story using the images they record. I should be able to understand what smallpower is just by watching the visuals.
• Demonstrate understanding of wide, establishing, close and cut-away shots.

Each segment is available to view and you will notice that they definitely achieved all of the above key principles, but also revealed that some other basic concepts of news-style videography do need some work. I encourage you to watch some of the clips and follow their progress.

One of the biggest challenges for any videographer anywhere around the equator is light. The light here is so bright, it's hard to explain to someone used to the considerably less intense northern hemispheric sun. This poses distinct challenges for novice video journalists as they cannot rely on the camera's auto settings and must manually manage the iris and light controls. One of the themes you will see through most of these initial practice clips is just how hard it is to manage light.

All five did a nice job in setting up the office. It's as if you can hear the reporter saying "smallpower is located in the heart of Kinshasa's diplomatic district in Gombe and represents a distinct blend of Congolese and American..." as they show the exterior of our offices, and then take the viewer inside to see how Congolese and Americans are working side by side to produce TV shows like Rien que la Vérité. Overall, the visual narrative was done quite well. Specifically, I encouraged everyone to really consider what their first and last shots would be for their packages—so keep that in mind when you watch their work.

One of the biggest challenges of shooting news for non-journalists is getting the sense of timing. All five of the guys have quite a bit of production and shooting experience, but never under such extreme time pressures. I was very diligent in cutting them off after an hour of shooting and later, editing. I want them to understand that in a real-world situation, they will not have the luxury of time to edit/re-edit/talk to their friends on the phone/take a break/etc... It is not easy to make that transition though, coming from a production environment where shows take weeks to shoot and produce. The goal here is that each minute of video will take no more than one hour to edit. So a one minute package should take an hour to edit, two minutes two-hours to edit and so on. For the most part we did OK, but there certainly wasn't that sense of urgency that is essential to be successful in news.

At the end of the day, when everyone was done with their edits, we all sat down together to review the material and offer feedback. The idea here was to emphasize that when you shoot video for television you cannot be shy. You are shooting for a mass audience, and you had better get used to being critiqued, as that is just the nature of the business. Spirits were good and everyone responded well to the feedback. We will be training intensively over the next few days, so hopefully you will see dramatic improvements in shot selection, lighting, and overall creativity.

For a first day, I was extremely pleased and told the team that they should be very satisfied with their debut as video journalists. We will hopefully see even more dramatic improvements over the coming days and weeks.