ONE LENS Project
ONE LENS (Look, Engage, Network, Sense) is a Global Connections and Exchange Program between Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and sponsored by ECA to provide scholarships for four student and one educator from Indonesia pesantren to participate in the program. This program is dedicated to increasing media literacy young people in Indonesia , especially pesantren students so that they can harness the power of the media to navigate their place in the world as 21st century citizens. AFS/Bina Antarbudaya in collaboration with Global Nomads Group (GNG) works in a project entitled, “One LENS: Look. Engage. Network. Sense: Cultivating Cross Cultural Literacy Through Film and Digital Stories” [One LENS].
Students ages 15-17 and educators from Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and USA will explore the role of media in an ever-changing global society. To harness AFS’ and GNG’s commitment to connecting youth worldwide, One LENS utilizes live-interactive videoconferencing [IVC], participatory filmmaking, physical exchanges, media literacy workshops, and online project-based networking – to engage youth in active mutual dialogue and empower them with media tools to support their creative processes. In addition to critically examining mainstream media, the project will focus on two major forms of media: video and digital storytelling through photography. As a culminating project – with mentorship from Global Nomads Group [GNG] educational media specialists – students will produce their own public service announcement [PSA] or digital story.
Program Descriptions:
All participants will get and do some assignments during live-interactive videoconferencing [IVC] media workshops and their involvements in a social network platform that connect Indonesian participants to other countries program participants. The educators will be taking role as group leaders, who will be trained to lead the group of students in their schools to do some projects-based networking before they are having live-interactive videoconferences. The selected Pesantren in Indonesia will be paired with US High School.
Then based of the their assignments and projects in the IVC media workships and due to their interview results, we will choose the Group of Five (four students and one educator). The selected group of five (four students and one educator), will have an opportunity to participate in the physical exchanges in “AFS Cultural Program”; the selected American participants from selected US School will come to Indonesia on April 2011, and selected Indonesian participants will come to the US on October 2011.
In America, they will have cultural experience, Hands-On Media Training and Student Field Work/participatory film making, and finally participate in Showcase and Culminating Media Festival.