Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Storytelling: Alex Loves Action Films

The students in 1ºBAC are telling a story to their classmates as their oral exams this term. We have gone over some of the aspects they have to take into account in order to be good storytellers and manage to make their colleagues comprehend the story.

When I saw this video I couldn´t help thinking of them. The boy who tells the story is Alex, a 9 year-old boy who studies at St. Timothy’s School in Moshi, Tanzania. This is what the people who made the video write about Alex and the video itself:

We chose this as our 1st video for two reasons. The first reason is because we love Alex! When he learned we were from California, he immediately started talking about our Governor, former action movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Then he launched into a 15 minute play-by-play recap of the entire plot of Schwarzenegger’s 1985 cult classic “Commando”. How could we not share this amazing footage with you?
The second reason is because we started thinking about the 9 year olds we knew and it was all too clear that even continents apart, they had the same essential qualities we love: imagination, creativity, and hilarity. We realize that this is a message we wanted to share...

After watching the video, keep reading to learn about the people who made the video and the reasons why they made it.

I do hope you enjoy the video as much as I have. I only wish he had chosen a film I like...



This video was made for a campaign called "Stop the Pity. Unlock the Potential" for an organization called Mama Hope. Mama Hope is a non-profit organization focused on building self-sufficient communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. It works together with Community Based Organizations and invests in projects that meet their fundamental needs for food, water, education and health care.

Read the explanation Mama Hope gives for this campaign:

It is time to re-humanize Africa and look to the positive change that is happening. We’ve had enough of the tragic impressions and abundance of sad, oppressive images that flood media outlets and non-profit campaigns. We want to make the statement that it is time to stop the pity and unlock the potential!
Through a series of videos we aspire to introduce our partner communities to you with the integrity and brilliance that we witness everyday. We want you to see the humor, courage, and potential of a wonderful people and continent.
In these videos we plan to feature the shared traits that make us all human—the dancing, the singing, the laughter and bring the compelling truth of their lives to your living room. We believe realistic, positive imagery can be very powerful and that it is time to move past the traditional images of weak and helpless people.
This is a campaign to break the negative perception of Africa and build awareness of the simple fact that we are more similar than different.


What a great turn of the screw in the way we usually we think about Africa, don´t you think?

7 comments:

  1. Xosé López 2º BAC D20 February, 2011

    I think it's true, we can't see the good things about Africa seldom, but we shouldn't forget that their lifes aren't very easy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sara Puente Blanco20 February, 2011

    I think that it's very important people see that there are more things in Africa than diseases, natural disasters, poverty...because many people have pity about Africans but they don´t do anything to help them.You must stop hidding yourself behind pity and start doing things to help African people like doing donations,giving the things(clothes, shoes...)that you don't use... They always welcome you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Xosé, I need your email address to discuss your mistakes!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sara, I think your examples show just what Mama Hope wants to fight against. Why don´t you have a look at their webpage?

    ReplyDelete
  5. tania rellan25 February, 2011

    Our impressions about africa is that Afrca is a country where there are poverty, hunger, disaster ... But,in fact, in this country there are many more things, the most important is the goodness. Also african people are very happy, like, we see in the video, where the child is very happy and expresive withouht think about his problems

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sara Puente Blanco27 February, 2011

    okei teacher, i'll check it, thank you

    ReplyDelete

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