In 2005, WKCD began to work with youth outside the U.S. on a range of projects, most involving photography and narrative. We began in Tanzania, in East Africa and Beijing, China. We just started a new project with young Burmese exiles on the Burma-Bangladesh border. Through our partnership with Adobe Youth Voices, a global youth media initiative inspiring young people to “create with purpose,” we will have worked last year and this with youth in London and Prague; in Hungary and Romania; in Bangalore, New Delhi, and Noida, India; and again in Beijing.
Here we present a directory of what has come, to date, from WKCD’s global youth voices: websites, multimedia dictionaries, audio slide shows, and feature stories.
WEBSITES
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Everywhere you look today, China is in the news. But how much do we know about the daily life there? In April 2006 WKCD, with support from the Asia Society, spent two weeks with students at Beijing No. 12 High School creating a series of photo essays about life—and school—in New China. Here WKCD shares their remarkable images and words in a series of multimedia presentations. |
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In Tanzania, close to the towering Mt. Kilimanjaro, the vast plains of the Serengeti, and the Great Rift Valley, lies a village called Kambi ya Simba. It is a rural village, with one road in and one road out. Its 5,000 residents, spread over 40 square kilometers, are farmers. For two years, WKCD worked with students at Awet Secondary School in Kambi ya Simba to document daily life in their village, with digital cameras and tape recorders. This website offers a virtual visit to this East African village, through the eyes of its youth. |
DICTIONARIES |
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Chinese-English Dictionary
As part of our work with students in Beijing, we created a one-of-a-kind multimedia Chinese-English dictionary. High school students took the photos and middle school students produced the audio. WKCD has created a flash version of the slideshow for anyone wanting to learn a bit of Chinese. (If you are using a dial-up connection, it will take awhile for each slide to load.) |
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 Hindi-English Dictionary
WKCD’s work with students in Bangalore, New Delhi, and Noida also led to the creation of a multimedia dictionary—Hindi-English. Thirty youth contributed to the photographs and students at the Noida Pubic Senior Secondary School recorded the audio. Again, WKCD has created a flash version. |
| AUDIO SLIDESHOWS | |
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Capturing a “day in the life” of a person, group, or place has become a popular form of photojournalism. Through images and simple text, the photographer shows the details of daily life, both ordinary and extraordinary. In these two audio slideshows, students at the Government High School-Cotton Pet in Bangalore, India and at Lilian Baylis Technology High School in London, England photographed the people and places within walking distance or a bus ride from their school. The students organized their photo essays into “chapters,” with each chapter presenting a very different view of the world—indeed, parallel worlds—around them. The soundtrack for the Bangalore slideshow includes live street sounds and voices. |
A Day in the Life of Bangalore, India
Krishna Rajendra Market [2:48 min]
Cubbon Park [2:04 min]
Cotton Pet (Our Neighborhood) [3:12 min]
Living London. Four Views. Many Stories
Purely British: Westminster Square [2:04 min]
Hard Working: Kennington Lane [1:59 min]
Relaxed and Fun: Jubilee Garden [1:59 min]
Busy and Tolerant: Clapham Junction [2:25 min]
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Child Rights in India |
| Of the 203 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 in India, a little over half are in school.
12.6 million Indian children are in full-time employment. The remaining 75 million do housework, work as domestic servants, or provide other forms of cheap labor. For ten years, the Child Rights Information Centre (CRIC) of Bal Panchayat, a youth-to-youth development program in Delhi’s slums, has campaigned. In this audio slideshow, the youth leaders of CRIC bring photographs, music, and facts to their cause. |
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Globalization |
| In cities around the world, globalization is producing contrasts at every turn: old versus new, Eastern versus Western, wealth versus poverty, local versus multinational. As part of a yearlong study on the impact of globalization, students at the Noida Public Senior Secondary School in Noida, India (just outside Delhi) set out with digital cameras to capture these contrasts close up. |
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Roma Youth Voices in Transylvania, Romania |
| In Transylvania, Romania WKCD has teamed up with the Resource Center for Roma Communities in Cluj Napoca. The United Nations has declared this “The Decade of Roma Inclusion,” looking to diminish the discrimination that has kept the Roma (gypsy) population across Europe on the margins of society. Our work in Cluj, the urban center of Transylvania, supports a group of Roma youth in documenting their city and its culture through online short, audio slideshows. Here are the first shows. |
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SELECTED FEATURE STORIES
Burmese youth voices In March 2007 a team of eight young American researchers traveled to Thailand to meet with sixteen youth-oriented organizations operating along the Thai-Burma border. They interviewed many exiled Burmese youth as part of their research and wrote a remarkable report that gives voice to the hardship and yearning for freedom these youth experience every day. (October 2007)
Taking Globalization to Heart: Youth in Action Around the World While international meetings like the G8 Summit grab the headlines, another big story belongs on the front page: a global explosion in communication and action among world youth. Informal or formal, provocative or affirming, this youthful embrace of globalization pulses with vitality. (April 2005)
"We Hereby Call Upon...": Youth Take Charge at Model U.N. The Model United Nations conference in San Antonio (MUNSA) is the largest high school student-run event west of the Mississippi. Now celebrating its tenth anniversary, this year's MUNSA conference attracted eight hundred students who gathered to wrestle with some of the world's most pressing concerns: globalization, religious fundamentalism, and the spread of AIDS, just to name a few. (December 2005)
Living in the First Person: Peace Corps Volunteers Share Experiences and Themselves Peace Corps Volunteers can be found in nearly every corner of the globe, and the jobs they're involved with are just as varied as the communities they serve—from teaching chemistry in a Ghanaian high school or promoting HIV/AIDS awareness in Malawi. Here we present several first-hand accounts of life in the Peace Corps, where cultural immersion is only the beginning. (April 2005)
As the Wells Run Dry, Tanzanian Youth Help Summon Political Will In rural Tanzania, East Africa, where everyone is a farmer, the effects of global warming are unavoidable. Here we present a sample of responses from teenagers in the village of Kambi ya Simba, when asked what steps should be taken to reduce the impacts of global warming. (December 2005)
Taking Charge: Young Social Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, East Africa "Most people in developing countries are undereducated and don't understand the need for conservation," says Khamis Ali Pandu, 23. In his home village in Zanzibar, Khamis has started an organization to preserve the fragile coral reefs offshore while also supporting the fisherman and tour operators who depend on the reefs for their livelihood. In the Tanzanian town of Karatu, Regina Kalwa has started a vocational school for teenaged girls in the barest of circumstances. (April 2005)
Creating A World Fit For Us: Youth Take the Global Stage As part of a new global "youth movement," young people are attending international gatherings in record numbers. The Internet provides these and other socially conscious youth a virtual daily meeting place, allowing the exchange of opinions, ideas, hopes, and dreams. WKCD offers here student commentary, speeches, and photographs, plus results from a recent survey of 1,400 youth worldwide. (January 2004)
