Education United States Project #10273

Global Collaboration Project

by Dounia Project

Project Report | Dec 2, 2013
Exciting news from Dounia Project Participants!

By Zayn Abaakil | President

Exciting news from Dounia Project Participants both in NYC and Casablanca!

Participants in the Bronx started producing their web TV project called "What's Up with YouTH?" and decided to focus on themes and topics that would mainly interest and target high school seniors. The idea was to look at how seniors perceive their future and how to do they prepare for it during the last year of high school.

For each episodes, they develop a specific hashtag in order to link it with other social media platforms to engage a large group of young people locally with the prospect of scaling up their engagement strategy to other youth on the national and global level.

They are currently developing the opening of their show and they are looking at examples such as the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the Colbert Report, and Saturday Night Live.

Finally, they are planning on adding for every episodes different trends of the week such as music, movie reviews, fashion, and a buzz story.

This is a rough draft of their first video report. They have received feedback and they are working on improving their video and editing skills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh_UrsZRvMw&feature=c4-overview&list=UUZBcxbVQHCG9h9WOAh1o2Gw

In casablanca, our talented participants welcomed visitors in their space to present their work during open doors days on october 12th &13th 2013. Students were involved in all aspects of the event and assisted our volunteer staff all along the process: planning, space arrangement and staging, guest greeting and catering, outreach etc…

Students helping and cleaning up their space for the event:

The +100 Visitors who joined were able to discover a unique and interesting photo exhibition evolving around portraits and self-perception and were thrilled to interact with the young artist in the making and inquire about their work and experience. They have also watched our students’ video documentaries in a beautiful space created by the students and dedicated to video production, editing and screenings. This space will also be used for the web radio and web tv projects that the students are working on.

Students presenting their work and interacting with visitors:

Our amazing Students were able to practice their outreach skills and succeeded in drawing interest of several organisation representatives who expressed willingness to collaborate and support our students’s work in the future.

We have also started recruiting new participants for the 2013/2014 program sessions. We have 6 new applicants, and can only accept 4 of them, given our budget, space and equipment restrictions. It is always a difficult process for us, and we are hoping to be able to welcome more participants to our programs soon. We will therefore have 20 participants enrolled this year, who will choose between any 2 of the following suggested workshops: english language workshop, french language workshop, office management and computer literacy, video production workshop, Photography workshop.

Student Facilitator helping another student register for the 2013/2014 program sessions online:

As soon as selections are closed, we will start a round of training sessions with our student facilitators, who will be responsible for assisting volunteer staff in the well conduct of the workshops as well as space and equipment maintenance. These student facilitators will also be responsible for the web tv and web radio projects supervision.

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Aug 21, 2013
Summer 2013 Activity Report

By Loubna Rais | Executive Director - Dounia Project Morocco

Students at the Photography workshop

For the past 4 months, participants of the Dounia Project had plenty on their plate! First and foremost, a majority of Moroccan participants in Casablanca went through an important milestone in their education, and therefore, most activities and projects aimed at supporting them in preparing for their high school diploma exam. Workshops in English language, led by Mohamed Zakaria, who has been volunteering with us for more than a year now, not only allowed them to communicate with their peers in the US, but also helped them improve their grammatical, writing and reading skills. The French lessons focused on the public program in order to prepare the texts that students would be tested on. Lively discussions with Mrs Odette, one of our most dedicated volunteers, help the students feel much more comfort and ease expressing their ideas in French. Students were also given some support in other subjects when possible.

Maria Karim, a very talented Moroccan artist, has ensured photography workshops every Saturday with a group of participants. Part of their worked dealt with identity and perception of self. During these workshops, students were able to learn basics of photography, developed their critical thinking and their self-awareness, and also got to hold and use professional photography equipment.

In NYC, participants are currently off for the summer holidays. Nevertheless, two of them are taking the lead in reaching out to their peers and enroll other students in the Bronx. They have been preparing to ensure the sessions themselves and they are very excited to start in September 2014. Navellys and Esmeralda Nivar and their group will also apply to participate in a meeting with the UN inter-agency network on youth development, which will take place at the UN headquarters September 18-20, where they plan to discuss challenges faced by youth and how to address them.

This year, the students will hold their celebration for International Youth Day later this fall. The students are also still working on their web tv project.

More information on the event here: Link: http://undesadspd.org/Youth/UNInterAgencyNetworkonYouthDevelopment/callforparticipants.aspx

Don’t forget to check out our latest participants’ videos:

Handicap isn’t a Barrier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qN6r-HqfMw

What would you do for JB?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5l7h2Q-OEM

Dreaming of a Right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyl5wN9gle8&feature=c4-overview&list=UUZBcxbVQHCG9h9WOAh1o2Gw

Odette during a 1 on 1 session with a student

Abdelhadi Giving on site filming lessons

A participant self portrait: Kawtar's talent

Another Self Portrait by Ghizlan

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May 6, 2013
Video Projects on Global Issues

By Zayn Abaakil | President

DP Casablanca with Khalid from ANPS

Last Year, Dounia Project Students in Casablanca participated to the Adobe Aspire Awards contest, and won Third place for the Audience Award with a video on the theme of Women's Rights in Morocco! This year, they tackled the theme of children with disabilities and wanted to raise awareness on ability rather than focus on disabilities. Youth participants have produced this video to show people around the world and their communities that children and young people with special needs are courageous, smart, and ambition who have dreams and hopes as all other kids their age. During several weeks, our participants were honored to interact and establish a friendly relationship with students of the Moroccan Association for the Hearing Impaired (ANPS), who have welcomed us with open heart and smiles! And have we learned a lot! Most importantly, ANPS students Kawtar, Khadija, Khalid, and Marwan showed us that a handicap isn't an obstacle to success, and that if you work hard towards your goals, nothing will stop you from reaching them, not even a difference that others consider a disability! Currently, all Dounia Project participants, volunteers, donors, friends and supporters are running a social media campaign on Facebook and Twitter to spread the word so this video gets as many votes as possible from the global online community to win the Audience Award. Please see the link to the Aspire Award video on Disabilities.
Participants in the Bronx created a video to support and illustrate presentations scheduled in middle schools and high schools to raise awareness on Human Trafficking and convey that this global issue does not only happen in other countries but also in their own communities. They chose a narrative that teenagers can easily relate to making sure that the message comes across. Please see link for the video on Human Trafficking Prevention ironically called “What Would You Do For JB (Justin Bieber)?”
Youth participants in Brooklyn started working on a mural project telling the story of their communities from their own perspective. The point of their work would be address the issue of violence without using the usual clichés but rather showing how their community can be safe and beautiful. Moreover, they started French lessons, which they are practicing while video chatting with their peers in Morocco.
Unfortunately, youth participants in Rio de Janeiro could not participate in the program this year due to school administrative complications, however, school administrators and local volunteers are confident that the program will be able to start in the new academic year (March 2014).
Finally, youth from Casablanca, the Bronx and Brooklyn are planning a new collaborative project: creating a Web TV For Youth and By Youth. They are currently on the preparation phase of the project.

DP Bronx on their way to record their video

DP Brooklyn thanking global giving donor

Links:

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