A documentary photography workshop intended for children and young teenagers in order to heighten their creative and technical skills by using computer software for editing, distibuting and publishing material online. The outcome material will be used to illustrate the community magazine called Romano Čaćipe (The Roma Truth) encouraging the younger generations to be included into the magazine.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Zagreb
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
The specific population is the Roma community living in the Pešćenica neighborhood in Zagreb, Croatia. It is represented by an NGO, Zagreb and Zagreb County Roma Association and is actively enrolled into numerous educational programs for children and young adults, which displays it's activities on a official website www.umrh.hr. The initial idea was to divide the website into two seperate sites so that it appeals better with the specific age groups, but instead of dividing them, the goal should be to connect them. Since the younger generation nowdays is the one who is educating the „old“.
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
Sindirela Bobanić, Assistant Administrator at the Croatian Roma Youth Association
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
The outcome will be the photographs each acompanied with stories obtained first handedly by the participants from the community for their own distribution of information – the use in the community magazine. There is also an intention to spread the material to a broader community in Zagreb to make this specific ethnic group more visible by publishing the material online and organizing public display of photographs in schools and public libraries.
What technologies and digital tools do you plan to use in the trainings?
Describe the connections that you or your organization have already established or plan to establish that will contribute to the success of the project.
The Zagreb and Zagreb County Roma Association NGO is directly connected with an another NGO, Croatian Roma Youth Association, and with the Croatian Roma Youth Club by fascilitating the same workspace which includes offices, computer classroom with 13 desktop computers equipped with basic software (Windows…), dance room hall and a caffe. The CRYA has been actively cooperating with a number of Elementary schools as well as preschools, and has a significant support from the City of Zagreb's Mayor Office.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
For the workshop, designed to be an ongoing workshop in the future, for each of them, there will be an opening for a group of 20 participants. After the first workshop, the participants who already developed skills with handling the camera, transfering them onto the computer and publishing online can become mentors for the new participants – the beginners.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
As an Designer of Visual Communications (MA, Uni of Zagreb), I have professional experience with photography, digital as well as analog, photo editing as well as graphic and web design. While studying I worked part-time in design education, organizing workshops held by the Croatian Designers Society and creative workshops at the non-profit organization Lauba.
We will use the tools already at our reach, the 13 computers in our classroom, use accessible free software for photo editing such as Skitch, online service for photo collages pixlr.com.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
The Organization has a classroom equipped with 13 desktop computers with accompanied software, ADSL, 100 Mbps speed internet.
What is your current relationship with the community with whom you plan to work? What makes you the most appropriate individual or organization to implement this project?
Currently I am the graphic designer who designs the official magazine this NGO publishes four times a year, also from May I will begin to teach computer skills for the Roma children and teenagers from the neigborhood. Connected to these classes I will try to implement art and design workshops related to the Roma culture, traditions and history as well as contemporary everyday life. I believe my past experience with tutoring, child education in design and photography will be of a good use. There is a need of more public attention to this ethnic group and I have resources in the Croatian media to spread the word if the project becomes a success!
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
The only challenge might be that we will be faced with to much material and it might be hard to choose which gets publish and who decides that? Still, no participant will be left out, as all the material will be published on an blog dedicated to the project.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
The expectations are that the young and the old community members will have a stronger bound and communicate more and better. The children will heighten their skills and gain confidence, a feeling of involvement. The media will become more aware of the activities in the community which is faced with lots of prejudice and discrimination. This project might turn a new page and be a step forward in discarding these negative occurances. The participants might think of their future and choose a path where they would have a creative professional career.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
The first workshop would start from June 16th and end on Monday June 30th, just before the issue of the magazine, and another workshop would be held from September 1st till September 15th and a another issue of the magazine following it as well.
A small lecture, an introduction to basics of photography with accompanying visual examples which will help the participants learn how to manage with the camera and how to focus on details and composition.
On each day we will explore a different part of the neighborhood and communicate with them, take notes, and later photographs. Try to get feedback about the magazine, their opinion, requests, wishes and suggestions.
Later after we collect the material, the participants will learn more about the technical requirements for digital photograhs to be published online or in print.
Each participant will be a collaborater on the blog, and chosen material will be used for the magazine.
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
1)
one DSLR camera,
similar to (or the exact) Nikon D3200 and Canon EOS 100D
the price is around 670$
2)
workshop costs
lunch and drinks
130$
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
We have no other requests.
Contact name
Vanessa Šerka
Organization
Udruga mladeži Roma Hrvatske
