Have you seen the ”Most Significant Stories” of RESPEKT yet? If not, you are in for a treat. We have created four marvellous videos showing the impact of project RESPEKT as experienced by the students and teachers from the secondary schools that we have visited, as well as by our volunteers.
”Most Significant Stories” of RESPEKT was an idea that emanated from the partnership between MSAKE and IMCC. We were planning to show the world the impact of project RESPEKT through stories of the people involved, and the Most Significant Stories became one of the projects for the Youth Leader Exchange 2019.
A team comprising of three members from the advocacy working group (Ndirangu Ngaruiya, Embeywa Madegwa and Eugene Gisemba) and two youth leaders (Atiyya Tul Munim and I) was constituted. The team then participated in a two-day course on shooting and editing of videos.
Two of the volunteers leading this project, Mika and Embeywa, spoke to us about their personal experiences with this particular project. Mika killed two birds with one stone as she also toured Kenya while working on gathering the stories: After creating a master plan for the collection of videos, we set out on a quest to collect stories from all chapters of RESPEKT. I got to lean back and watch my Kenyan colleagues manage all the logistics, visit schools and collect stories from students and teachers. Everything ran more smoothly than we could have hoped (a special thanks to Bidian Otieno Okoth for arranging a pleasant visit to Ithanga Secondary School, as well as the Nakuru volunteers for helping us out). Along with my faithful buddy and guide Atiyya, I got to visit Nakuru, Eldoret and Kisumu to interview our volunteers about their RESPEKT experience and enjoyed seeing more of beautiful Kenya on my way.
After collecting everything that needed to be featured in the videos, our three advocacy members worked hard to finish the videos in 48 hours. It was a miracle, and no one knows how it happened. I hope you enjoyed the videos. I enjoyed being part of the production, and I am so proud of every member of the RESPEKT team who helped us in reaching out to schools, participating in interviews, and so much more!
Embeywa had this to say: Participating in MSS really helped me expand my tech skills – but more than that, I was honored and proud to document the great strides we have made as a team! I enjoyed the whole process, right from brainstorming and ironing out details on how to execute the project, to that feeling of satisfaction at uploading completed videos. There’s nothing that can compete with how good it feels to see the end product of hours and hours of work go live! Another highlight was the training we underwent on videography and training, led by an exceptional trainer who hails from Kakuma.
That’s not to say we didn’t face challenges, either – in particular, getting people to stick to timelines! It’s all part of the process, though – and I’ve got some great memories out of this! I’m looking forward to doing this again, as RESPEKT continues to grow and has an even bigger story to tell.
