Ronit Avni is the Director of the Just Vision project, an initiative that brings the stories of courageous Israeli and Palestinian grassroots efforts for peace to American audiences through video, educational curricula and the Internet.
Ronit Avni recently received the Joshua Venture Fellowship for young Jewish social entrepreneurs in order to found Just Vision. Prior to initiating Just Vision, Ronit worked as the Program Associate at WITNESS. Founded by musician Peter Gabriel, WITNESS advances human rights advocacy using video and communications technology. Ronit has trained NGOs to produce videos as a tool for public education and grassroots mobilizing, as a deterrent to further abuse and as evidence before courts and tribunals. She has lectured at Concordia University, Bard College, the Ruckus Society, NYU and Vassar College. She has also received hidden camera training and was selected as one of 25 participants at the 2001 National Training of the Human Rights Trainers Conference at the Human Rights Center of the University of Minnesota.
Ronit has co-produced short videos and online advocacy features in collaboration with NGO partners in Senegal, Burkina Faso, the United States, Israel, Afghanistan and Brazil, including: Refuge?, The Soul Eaters, Garifunas Holding Ground and Palestinian Arab Citizens of Israel: A Case Study in Discrimination. She recently wrote and produced Rise: Revolutionary Women Reenvisioning Afghanistan in collaboration with the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. Rise was screened at the Women’s Film Festival in Seoul, Korea, at a film series exploring media representations of Afghanistan hosted by MediaRights.org and MAKOR in New York, and at the Globalvisions Film Festival in Edmonton, Canada. Excerpts from Rise were featured on PBS’ World At Large, hosted by political analyst David Gergen.
Ronit graduated with honors with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Vassar College. At Vassar, She received a Burnam Fellowship to intern at B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. While abroad, Ronit volunteered for the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI). Ronit acquired a DEC in Professional Theatre Studies from Dawson College. She has directed theater productions for Show-Off Productions and Threepenny Productions in Montreal.