After a delayed start – surprisingly not due to the students oversleeping but breakfast being late – we dashed to the UN HQ Africa with it’s very strict security to discover 2 things. Firstly, I had been so busy making sure our partners and students had everything with them and then rushing to get everyone on the bus and out of the campsite that I left a bag of equipment on my bed…..this resulted in me being subjected to many stern looks and good hearted jibes……whoops! Luckily we were able to manage throgh the day with the 4 cameras we had….so all was well….phew!

The second discovery was the announcement that several people who had been attending would be there until the second day due to work committments…..this meant that we had to totally rejig the planned schedule but I had pre-warned the students about the need to think on their feet and adapt and they took it all in their collective stride.

I wont outline the day’s events here because the students are blogging with their own spins and intepretations and I would urge everyone to read and comment on their blogs. I can say that this was quite an intimidating event because in was a) at the UN HQ Africa and, b) everyone was in suits and looked very professional and businesslike. Also they were a little hesitant in engaging, this is more due to the formality of Kenya culture on such occassions than anything the students did or didn’t do. I was impressed with the manner in which they engaged the participants and broke down the barriers of formailty. By the end of the very tiring day all participants were laughing and joking but fully engaged and even coming up with ideas for scenes in the video they are shooting….more on this later.

As I type this we are about to leave for our second day of the workshop. We will post more later but I am eager to see how the students deal with the different challenges that today will bring them….especially as new participants are due to join us and video projects are already in production.

More form me later.