Yesterday we took a trip to a near by gold mining village to capture the photographs for the workshop. The living conditions in the village were very poor and I found the whole atmosphere upsetting, I expected poverty but I interacting with the locals made it more real. The students were proactive and worked with our pre planned topics and were snapping loads. They kept checking up with myself and Sarah to check their framing was correct which was fab as it meant they had took on board what we taught them. When we got back we looked through the photos and as a group selected the photos for the video, there were plenty to chose from! Like in Nairobi, I was really suprised by the quality of work produced by the students. They got to grips with the basics really quick. We had some trouble finding a copy of Moviemaker that worked but eventually found a copy on a students laptop. We taught the students how to import photos, add transitions/text and decided what text to use. Our initial text had to be changed due to the content of the images was different to what we previously planned. It was getting late and both myself and Sarah were losing work momentum/enthusiasm and so were the students but Sarah saved the day by finding somewhere that sold cold Coke!
The visit to the village bothered me, I felt that it was disrespectful for a coach full of students and professors to turn up to the tiny village. Some locals didn’t want to be photographed and it caused a bit of a stir especially with the young children. Peter pointed out despite it being inappropriate we were doing it for a good cause and that this is an ethical issue of the media.
Today we had a meeting the deputy governor. I found it difficult to hear what was being said as I was sat at the back and there were lots of other noise but the response of the DP to our work was positive! Once we got back we polished off our video as a group. We decided that statistics would make the message we are conveying more powerful and showed the video to Peter who made a few suggestions for improvement. The group seemed happy with the finished video although they weren’t as enthusiastic as Nairobi students. I think that the video is visually engaging and raises awareness about health and poverty yet I can’t help but a bit negative about it due to the nature of the visit.