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

Your World Your Say Schools Conference

On Monday 29th March we attended the Your world Your Say schools conference at BAWA in South Gloucestershire. The event was attended by lots of organisations with the aim of empowering year 8 students to discuss local and global issues and take action in their own schools. We ran 4 half hour workshops in the morning with 50 students from schools all over Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset.

We had two new volunteers supporting the activities, Izzy and Huria and hopefully they’ll be working with us on more projects over the next few months. We ran the UNITY Flag and First Impressions activities which went down really well with students and teachers alike and we hope to have made some new links for project work with other schools in the future.

Here’s what the students learnt and enjoyed:

'You can't judge people by the way they look.'

'Don't judge a book by it's cover'

 'Everyone's different'

'I learnt about not judging people and giving people chances.'

'Very interactive'

'It helped me to think about myself'

'It was brilliant and I would love to do it again!'

What the teachers thought:

'There's a lot about my students I teach that I nevet get chance to ask/ know about.'

'Very good. Proof of the difficulties with identity.' 

'Friendly and interactive session.'

'Great workshop!'

What our peer educators thought:

"The session went great, I really enjoyed myself. The young people were really enjoyable to work with and Ina and Steph were really great." - Izzy, 17

"I learnt a lot of stuff during the session and enjoyed myself a lot." - Huria, 19

 

Why I Respect: Fairfield School DiversEC1ty event

Well we made it! We managed the impossible and completed the film in time to be screened at the Farfield School's DiversEC1ty event, so called as it is a celebration of the cultural diversity of EC1, the community surrounding Fairfield. 

It was a fantastic event with food from all over the world, a Somali fashion show, singing, drumming and activities. UNITY had our own stall showcasing all the photos and information from the Why I Respect project at the event which culminated in a screening of the film.

All the students were really pleased with what they had achived and were able to show off their work to their parents. It was a fantastic way to end the project on such and high and we thanked all the students who were involved with chocolate and certificates.

Why I Respect: Editing at the BBC

We spent the day editing at BBC Bristol with the Fairfield Students to get the film finished for the DiversEC1ty Event at their school next week. The students had the opportunity to work with professional editor Richard Lanciault and really enjoyed the chance to see all the equipment and decide on the look and feel of their finished piece. We’d like to give a big thank you to Richard for all his time and support on the project, without whom it wouldn’t have been possible!

Comments from the students:

'I enjoyed learning how to use final cut pro.'
'I really enjoyed going to the BBC and editing and watching our videos'

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 

Why I Respect: Fairfield School Session 2

This session was great fun as we started off by playing games to get them thinking about their likes and dislikes and also learning each other’s names. Oneil then led a heritage game where the young people had to describe what they thought the heritage of the person next to them was and whether they thought they were born in the UK. This led to some interesting discussion on why they had formed these opinions, some based on surnames and others based on hair and eye colour.


To follow up this activity we got everyone to put stickers on a world map on the countries their family is connected to. This helped them to visualise the diversity of their group.

After looking at their own heritage and cultures we gave them time to plan what cultures they would like to focus on for their project. Each group put forward their ideas and the peer educators facilitated a democratic voting system to give the young people real ownership of the project. The final topic choices were edited several times until the whole group was happy with the direction they were going to take. The students also discussed things they would like to find out about these cultures. The peer educators were fantastic at making sure they considered all the practical elements such as how they could interview people from these communities and ensuring they kept in mind the time frame of the project.

This week we introduced another peer educator to the team, Shagia so it was her turn to sit in the hot seat for the 'First Impressions' activity. The young people were still way off on a few topics but it also led them to ask other questions about religion and travel as well as other topics which shows they are really thinking about all the elements that make up a persons identity.

What the students thought:
'I enjoyed the word association and learning about different cultures.'

'I learnt alot about different cultures.'

'Awesome, best ever!'
 
What the Peer Educators thought:
'I feel this session went very well and the kids felt they had a lot of control over the ideas which was what we want.' Oneil, 22

'At first I was really quiet but then managed to speak to everyone. The whole experience was really good and getting to know everyone. I really enjoyed working with the kids on this project and I hope it goes well in future sessions.' Shagia, 19