Why I Respect : The finished film!

 

This has been a really special project for us and our thanks go to our fabulous peer educators Oneil and Shagia who’ve supported every session and were fantastic with all the young people. We’d also like to thank Charlie Mee and Andy Gove from Fairfield school for being so supportive and helping us make the project possible, we’d really like to work with the school again in the future.

Our thanks also go out to BBC Bristol and editor Richard Lanciault for providing such excellent technical support and enthusiasm. Last but by no means least we’d like to thank the Fairfield Students themselves for bringing such creativity, humour and flair to the project. We loved working with everyone and the commitment and entertainment they brought to the project was brilliant. They’re an awesome bunch and we hope to work with them again in the future.

"As a school, we couldn't have asked for more from the Bread Youth Project in terms of the professionalism, the enthusiasm and the imagination you demonstrated in the way you managed the whole project, and in the way you worked with our students. The sessions were thoughtfully and creatively put together, with care and attention to detail, and the diverse group of young people were engaged and motivated throughout the six weeks of the project. Add to this the inspiring choice of volunteer facilitators and organisations who Bread arranged for us to work with (including the chance to work with experienced film-makers and to edit at the BBC) and Fairfield would have absolutely no hesitation in working with Bread again, or in recommending other schools to do so."

Charlie Mee, Extended School Co-ordinator, Fairfield High School, Bristol

Why I Respect: Filming in the Community

After weeks of planning the students went out into the community to film their project today with  Shagia and Oneil, two peer educators with UNITY.  We split them into 2 groups, one focussing  on Chinese culture and the other visiting the multicultural area of St Marks Road in Easton.

Group 1:

The Chinese group visited the Wai Yee Hong supermarket in Eastgate where they filmed all the different Chinese food, tried their hand at presenting and bought a few items to share with their classmates. They then went on to visit the Bristol and Avon Chinese Women’s Group, a local community organisation that supports the Chinese population of Bristol. Students interviewed staff from the organisation about Chinese culture and were fortunate enough to visit an arts project for older Chinese women. Although the women could speak no English they were clearly pleased to see the young people and took great pleasure in showing them how to make various origami animals to their delight.

The importance of the orgaisation was brought home to the students by the workers at the project who described the isolation felt by many of the women who could speak no English and had never learnt to write before. The project gave the women a space to come together, share skills and meet new people in the community. They showed us a fantastic book that the women had compiled filled with beautifully illustrated recipes and batique Chinese characters that they were really proud of.

Group 2:

The second group visited St Marks Road in Easton, an incredibly diverse and culturally rich street with it’s many local businesses and community groups. The young people interviewed varioius shop keepers, from the barbers to the hallal butchers and Mr Abdul Ismail from the Brisol Sweet Mart, who gave them a detailed account of how his family escaped persecution in Uganda and came to this country to start a new life and set up their own business. The group then had the opportunity to sample some of the wonderful food that the Sweet Mart had to offer from pakoras to gulab jamen before heading back to school to compare their footage with the other group.

Over the next few days we’ll be working on the edit before taking the students to BBC Bristol to edit together the final piece. The finished film will be available to view on youtube in a couple of weeks and will be screened at Fairfield School’s DiversEC1ty Day.

What the students learnt and enjoyed:

'I enjoyed going to the chinese supermarket'

'I learnt how to interview people properly.'

'I enjoyed finding out about different cultures.'  

What our peer educators thought:

'I really enjoyed going out into the community. The young people were very encouraging to each other and seemed quite professional when interviewing.' - Shagia, 19