K4K AFAC Submissions 2015

When Kids4Kids at WIS first got involved with AFAC, like the Christmas Market, it was hard to encourage volunteers to create videos and projects for AFAC because of their exams and tests. We had started to plan around a month and a half in advance; it was all very tough and we learned that it isn't easy to coordinate the students - thus we moved to follow-up emails, sign-up sheets, doing what we can to promote during meetings. However, in the end, thankfully we managed overcome the wall and recevied 4 videos and 1 project!

Planning process:

For the general group, I made a Google spreadsheet where they could record their submissions. I also provided two other tabs "Info and Links" (for requirements and deadlines), and "Project Ideas" for inspiration to write a project.

As I anticipated that a video would prove easier to make, and consequently student volunteers would go for that option; I decided that making a project may be both something new and interesting. Hence, I worked on it with my friends, who were also student leaders for Kids4Kids, on a proposal.

We thought that trying to form a project on poverty and health may be a bit too large of a scope to have a big impact - as a result, we decide to do a crossover between environment and education. As we've had past experiences with teaching primary school kids English, we thought we could extend this a bit further and write an AFAC project proposal. As global warming is a prevalent, ongoing and huge issue right now, even if we can't solve it, we could spread awareness and educate people; starting from the upcoming generation. As we didn't have the resources for a sophisticated simulation of global warming, with consideration of previous teaching sessions, all the kids seemed most active when learning through games and really enjoyed them. Thus, we remembered a game from primary school where we had to stand on newspapers and the teachers would half the size each time a certain time had passed - we thought this was reflective of the melting icebergs in the North Pole in particular. We planned to adapt this game into one that could link to global warming; the newspaper being the diminishing ice and the kids standing on them being the polar bears. Through the diminishing newspaper, we could create a simulation that would perhaps make them feel closer to the polar bear's situation of survival from mankind's actions. Likewise, a similar concept can be explored with the adapation of musical chairs; the chairs being the icebergs that are taken away over time, and the "out" children being the polar bears who lose their homes.

We were taken by surprise when we received an email yesterday (Monday 21st Dec.) saying that we've been chosen as one of the 20 winning projects for AFAC. We knew there would be fierce competition considering the news of many entries. To this stage, we still haven't confirmed our acceptance as we are still contemplating the realistic use of the $3000 (insufficient for booking a bus for past experience Buddy Reading).

CAS L.O. addressed: Engaged with issues of global importance, ...

[14 . 12 . 15]

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