If there is one thing the girls at GHS Afzalgunj love, it is singing and dancing! At times, I would leave the room and come back to find students distracted from the task I’d assigned them, filming themselves performing various film songs and dances instead. I figured it made sense to try incorporating this passion into their second project, so I encouraged the students to create part of the soundtrack themselves. They relished this task – taking popular songs about water, partially rewriting the lyrics, and performing them. Other students were more drawn to the news format and interested in interviewing and taking documentary-style footage of their neighborhood. The class’ second project thus took on a loose news program format, sort of like what you might see on a student-run MTV, with a specific focus on the topic of water.

Although many classes have addressed the subject of community water problems, each project has been unique. This video combines a music video PSA, fictionalized interviews inspired by real-life events, and some documentary footage of a school rally, while touching on serious issues like access to clean water and the impact of heavy rains on electric power failure. The video will certainly give the viewer an insight into some of the water challenges that students are exposed to in their community, as well as the importance of this topic. Further, the progression from photo to video pushed many of the students to experience new roles, practicing their skills in front of the camera (speaking, acting, interviewing, and presenting) and on the laptops (editing). The final video perhaps doesn’t reveal the full extent of effort put in, especially by some of the more reserved or shy students, to push themselves beyond their comfort zones. However, you can still make out the combo of nervousness and excitement that comes with creating something for the first time, while demonstrating your newly developed and emergent skills.