On Oct. 20-12, ten juveniles from the ZANG Program’s regional Community Justice Centers, along with their mentors selected from PH’s partner universities and the local communities, participated in an intensive social media training event in InterNews office, Yerevan. The training was designed and led by a team of young people, teenagers who are alumni of PH’s other youth programs – YouthLAB (Leadership Across Borders) Program, DOTCOM Program , most of whom are also currently acting as mentors for their regional peers within the PLAY (Promoting Leadership among Armenian Youth) Project funded through the U.S. Alumni Engagement and Innovation Fund’s 2012 Annual Grants Competition.
During the training, the participants learnt how to write a script, create a storyboard and create a short film on a social theme. They were taught how to use the user-friendly flip cameras that each mentor-mentee pair received for creating their videos. They learnt the basics of Microsoft’s Movie Maker program, tried uploading, editing and combining videos they shot.
For team building purposes the trainers, PH staff as well as all participants filmed their own “Hello” mini-videos which served as self-introductions, and also served as a very good material on which the trainers explained commonly met errors in amateur videos. Each mentor-mentee team received an item to advertise, and worked to develop their scripts. Afterwards all participants worked in open air, in one of the central gardens of Yerevan to shoot their videos. While working on this task, they advised and supported one another for obtaining necessary items, resources and people to act in their films. Afterwards, all video products were screened, each team received feedback both from the trainers as well as from their peers.
The training was full of different exercises, ice-breakers and friendly interaction which intended to boost trainees’ personal growth and encourage them to actively engage in different community related undertakings. They watched and discussed a couple of short One Minute Junior videos developed youth from across the world, listened to some music and learnt how to match appropriate background music to accompany the key messages of their videos, did some sport activities, etc.
Afterwards, they watched “Fable about Nails”, a film developed by the Vanadzor CJC about the operations of their CJC and received instructions on their next task – development of short films about their CJCs. Both the CJC youth as well as their mentors were happy and enthusiastic about the results of the training and shared collective satisfaction about the fact that they were involved in the program's promotional campaign.
By mid-Nov., with guidance from ZANG Armenia staff and online consultation from their trainers, the mentors and mentees of each regional CJC will work on and submit their draft films. The trainees will help the CJC youth edit and finalize their products. Afterwards, a special jury will evaluate the 10 films and will select from them the 3 products best highlighting the ZANG program’s CJCs with the eyes of their beneficiary children.
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