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.
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
exhibition about wearing hijabs and I got to try out a hijab style. The girls said they get asked lots of questions by people about why they wear hijabs and decided to make this 
exhibition to answer these questions. One girl explained to me that she doesn’t always wear hijab, but she feels different when she does. We had a interesting chat about the idea of being modest and how women should be respected. (and in case you’re wondering… no they take them off at home and don’t sleep in them!)
