Over the summer break due to COVID cases on the rise, and the Sri Lankan government imposing travel restrictions within the country. It left me nothing to do but to be confined within the premises of my neighbourhood. As you may know from my COMUN (Colombo Model United Nations) blog posts, COMUN was an opportunity for all of us to make friends.  One of the friends I made from COMUN actually started a project called The Online Foundation to help students in need to acquire their first computer/technological device. When he had actually called on me to make him to make some posters and the videos as he knew my background with technology especially since I was the Head of Technology for COMUN, “The Online Foundation” had less than 5 people working towards the cause. He first called on me, to partner with him, and I could also help him make promotional videos and a posters for the Instagram page.(LO4:Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.) These two pieces of advertisement was important because we wanted to build up this “project” to gain more sponsors to help beneficiary students. The promotional video I made was a video around 2:20mins essentially promoting this project, and briefly touching on the digital divide in Sri Lanka. Our main goal for this video was to improve reach on our Instagram page as well as to find sponsors. I made the video using Final Cut pro by adding and splicing videos from youtube about the digital divide in Sri Lanka specifically.(LO6:Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.) Towards the end of the video, we also made sure to include pictures of some of the beneficiaries we had already helped, and was willing to help more. Below are some pictures of the process within Final Cut :

Something that I’ve learned from this process was working well cooperatively (LO5:Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively) with someone will definitely yield good results. Because for this video we both put in a lot of effort, and the results/comments we yielded at the time was good. Through videos like this we were able to find new sponsors, and also different ministers in Sri Lanka started to advertise it on their accounts. Link to watch the video: https://www.instagram.com/p/CNhAc2ShmQc/

Lastly another important video I made was about the beneficiaries thanking us for helping them. These types of videos we also tried our best to get out because we wanted the sponsors to see the good work we were doing, and that we were using their money to good use. Understanding sinhala also made it much easier to make these videos because the main languages our beneficiaries speak is Sinhala, so it made it easier to sync the captions. So Link to video: https://www.instagram.com/p/CR1MyKWhJoU/

Overall I think that the work that I’ve done for this NGO does not only benefit me in the sense that I get better at editing videos and making posters, but also helps the children out there without the access to technology a new/refurbished laptop to help them for their future.

 

IB Learning Outcomes:

(LO4:Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.) – As we see from above, we see commitment to the project especially when he called me to make a few videos and posters for his NGO. And I still work with him to make any videos if he needs. I could have turned down his offer to make more videos for him as I wasnt a part of the team, but me choosing to help his NGO and beneficiaries shows commitment and perseverance.

(LO5:Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively) – As I stated above, working collaboratively is very important especially if you want to build an NGO like this. More above this above.

(LO6:Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.) – Finally with the last learning outcome, we see the engagement to issues of global significance especially because I was making videos for an NGO who helps children in need. And making videos and posters to raise awareness and money for the children shows engagement.

For more information on the NGO visit: https://www.instagram.com/theonlinefoundation/ and @theonlinefoundation on facebook.