School Reports
I’m valuing the sharing of process. Showing the pieces that build toward a final product. A chance to express layers that may help community projects.
I’m coming back to the media taken during my time in Bodh Gaya, India. I hope this adds digital credibility to projects supporting disadvantaged children.
Breakfast update
Earlier this year I shared a piece on the Maitreya Breakfast Project. An ongoing food-giving program to start the kids’ days with learning, not with hunger.
There has been amazing success. €4,892 euros raised. That’s nearly a whole year’s worth of bananas and peanuts for 285 kids each morning.
Thank you to all those that donated and shared. Your amazing generosity is bringing big smiles and full bellies to the kids.
The grand vision is to offer a banana, peanuts and an egg each day of the week.
A cost breakdown:
€2 = breakfast for an entire class for a day;
€5 = 25 children to starting the day with energy;
€40 = breakfast for one child for the entire school year.
Find the gofundme donation link here.
Follow the project on Instagram @breakfastformaitreya
More shareable images and template messages for family and friends are here.
JSS Vikki Kids Family School
Two video projects are in the works for JSS Vikki Kids Family School. They offer 85 disadvantaged children a free education.
We’re creating two long-form videos to support:
a fundraising campaign by friends Peter and Adam to upgrade the facilities
a video principal Sudhir can use to approach potential donors
It’s a new experience working out how to tell these stories. So much to share in what needs to be short and attentive. It’s a lot of staring at clips determining their value.
Learnings so far:
Pick the song early. It fast-tracks the edits’ emotive direction.
Buy something to sync the camera and audio recorder at the time of shooting. Dragging two of the same audios to match is exhausting.
I look forward to sharing more of this process.
Behind Bars
This is ending the piece as it is a trigger warning to difficult living conditions.
These were the hardest moments on shoot.
The hope that this school is giving to the area contrasted with what might be beyond our lifetime.
Outside the building, children and families stand watching kids having an education. Some look through the bars for hours.
On the surface, there are many reasons why these kids are not at school. They need to work the family business. There is money now begging at tourist sites. The under-resourced school is over capacity. The odds are better for the brother to be learning.
Deeper, they all meet on a lack of opportunity.
Seeing this is a fraction of the difficulty of living it. The free school on the other side of the bars is moving mountains, but still has work to do.
I hope these campaigns support better conditions for teaching and learning. A greater capacity to guide these children’s futures. A chance to invite more from the other side of those bars.
This is a Venerable Thubten Wangdu quote from his dharma teachings in Bodh Gaya. It’s becoming synonymous with these community updates.
‘You don’t have to do everything, but your something is greater than you think.’
