LOVE

Taking a risk by sharing your life unites you - GWA student FEB 2011

Last week I facilitated an experimental pilot school video program.

This concept was a collaborative idea generated by Natasica Radice, Ernst van Der Poll, Maria Conceicao and myself and we approached FLIP Video Middle East with a skeleton of the idea and they agreed to sponsor the pilot.

Next we discussed running the program with GEMS World Academy during their week without walls community service program and so we had 15 scholars, 15 Flip Video cameras and an idea!

The idea was to teach the teens how to shoot, edit and upload a 3 minute video about their lives onto our test site, following a set agenda of points to cover: My family, my home, my school, my country, my hopes, dreams and my challenges. The aim was to mirror this project in a developing country and get the kids to gain insight into each other's lives using video as a platform. We aim to charge a fee and all proceeds go towards a cause in the developing community of the school that they engage with. Xische & Co jumped on board and offered to brand the project, which they are currently doing.

I learnt a lot this week. I was doubtful about what the kids in Dubai would get out of it. Did they want to know about kids in Malaysia, Durban of Bangladesh? Would they know what we already were trying to teach them and were they doing this out of choice or because it was the only 'free' community service program offered by GEMS. (Who took us on at a risk I might as we did not have a fully developed curriculum.)

All I can say is that day 5 of the 5 week program sealed all my doubts. Watching a screening of the final videos I flinched at times at the shaky footage, sometimes inaudible audio, but straight after that we went into a branding exercise held by Xische and this is where the kids rocked my world. They discussed at length the experiences they had over the week and I was blown away to hear how much insight they had into their lives during the course of the project.

Simone Weil, a French social activist says that learning is not important, but TO KNOW the meaning of what you learn is the secret.

Some of the kids said they started off feeling uneasy about sharing their lives with kids from developing countries who may not be as fortunate, but they realised that by sharing their lives and looking into someone else's life essentially made them the same. Just the act of risk-taking and sharing united them.

To have a child say, "my life and my point of view of my life was broadened by the very act of thinking about it and filming it" means these kids really started to grasp the concepts of seeing someone else's story and sharing their own.

That's community service! The start of developing a mind and heart that sees equality, unity and sharing.

Have a poke around our test site http://myshortvideo.ning.com/ and watch some of the videos and read their blogs!