Filming Trip 2012: “In the Can”

 From Aly:

As many of you know, the main purpose of our journey with Dwankhozi Hope to Zambia was to capture footage of the Dwankhozi Community and the school in order to highlight the organization and show the immense need that they are working so hard to address.

Video can take us to places that are so removed from our realities. We hope to visually bring the audience and our supporters to Dwankhozi Community school in order to meet the amazing personalities that we have met; to see the many resources that they lack (which we take for granted every day); to see their hard work in action of striving for a better education and way of life; to feel the hope and inspiration that is infectious here. These are the videos that we have set out to make and we can’t wait to share the finished products with you all!

Kindle Project: A huge obstacle facing these students is the lack of literature.  The Zambian government is only able to provide a VERY limited amount of text books that are shared among the entire school.  Moreover, the transportation of books for all of the reading levels from the US would be almost impossible. Thus, we decided to bring 6 Kindles, each loaded with 50 books- ranging in reading levels, to test the viability of using E-readers to build a library which otherwise could not exist. Kate’s amazing idea to use the Kindles was even more successful than we could have imagined and the video for this project will show just that!

Day-in-the-Life of a Student at Dwankhozi: The life of a young child in the villages of rural Zambia is worlds apart from those of our children in the US. We decided to do a video piece, which encapsulates the hard work that these children put in each day to achieve an education. We followed an 11-year-old student named Martin from Phunga village. His smile will be in my mind forever, I can’t wait for everyone to see this sweet boy’s story.

Scholarship Candidates Video: There are SO many students who have put in the hard work to continue their education but whose families can simply not afford the minimal fees for secondary school. With this piece you will get to meet these dedicated students who are available to be sponsored, learn about their lives, and hear about the dreams they have for their futures.

Masala Family Video: This documentary style piece will tell the inspiring story of the Masala Family (and 10 siblings) and how they have risen from the most difficult of circumstances and how education has changed their lives.

Hope this fills everyone in on what the heck we are doing over here (other than playing with lions). We appreciate the support and love so much! We can’t wait to share these special stories with you all 🙂