nampally | The Modern Story

As mentioned in a previous post, the students at MGM Government Girls High School in Nampally focused on freedom for their final documentary.

Though it was already an ambitious undertaking, the students had the energy and interest to go further and create something more. We talked a lot about how family and community often dictate what freedom means for girls, even for things as simple as whether they are able to walk outside at night or wear jeans. We discovered that freedom is a nuanced topic, especially for girls. Sometimes they wanted more freedom, other times, they felt that what their family, religion, or community dictated was okay. Regardless, they all mentioned that they don’t have this conversation often with their community.

One big part of the final stage of The Modern Story curriculum is a community service project. Previously, classes have done community outreach about dirty water, a clothing drive, and an activist art project that featured a portrait of the city’s sanitation manager made out of trash. For my MGM students, I thought that something that spoke to their work and their needs would be the most appropriate project.

Bhargavi works on issue 1 of “MGM Magazine”.

So we decided to make a magazine so the girls could continue the conversation about freedom at home. Using the one working computer in our classroom, I set up a team to do the layout of the magazine on Word processing and tasked them with interviewing their classmates about freedom, taking portraits, and typing up the answers. Most people wouldn’t be thrilled about typing for 60 minutes straight, but these girls jumped at the task. They learned how to change the font, make columns, and import a photo. Simple skills, but fundamental ones that can further their future media production.

They also showed off their interview and editing prowess, deciding on which questions to ask about freedom and which photos to use. Some answers are simple, others are profound. But it did provide an array of answers the help continue the conversation.

Once we finished the basic layout with interview questions and photos, I added quotes the students got from interviewing a local NGO, and extra photos from a portrait/photography project the students also spearheaded.

After a long (and pricey) night at my second home aka the photocopy shop with my now good friend Hamesh, we had 30 shiny bright copies of the first issue of MGM Magazine for each student to take home, as well as copies for the headmistress and a few teachers.

I hope the conversation continues at home, but if nothing else I am very happy these students have a physical copy of their hard work to show off to their families and communities.

And thanks to Issu, you can check out the digital copy of their magazine below! Enjoy and share their work!

Nov, 17

Karis

Reflections, Student Writing

clean, Hyderabad, India, mgm, nampally, projectcs, swachh bharat, youth media

MGM Voices

In addition to making these wonderful movies, the students of MGM also elected one of their crew to write a short essay about the topic of their movie. Below you will find out about two of the topics in their own words.

Stop Power Cuts

In our school, Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Girls Government High School (MGMGGHS) we did a movie on power cuts. In the power cut film, there are many characters. We did this film shoot because now a days so many times the power goes out and during that time we can’t do any work. In this film, the children also go to school, and in their class the teacher is teaching a lesson. When she is teaching the lesson, the power goes out and the teacher cannot tell the lesson to students. So many times the power is going out like this, that’s why we can’t do our work successfully. Power is very important to human beings. When we can’t have power, that means in our home, school, etc, we will not have fan, light, computer, etc. We can’t use any of these things. That is why power is very important to us, and that is what this film means. Power cuts means we can’t do any work successfully. Power is very important to us. The power cut film tells this message.

Written by Akhila

(The power cut group includes: Maheshwari, Kavitha, Anusha, Varaikshmi, Sirisha, Sandhya, and Akhila)

Get Rid of Rubbish

Good morning everybody.

We are from MGM Government Girls High School Nampally, Hyderabad, of 8th class.

Our title is Rubbish/Garbage. We did a movie on this because we want to protect our world. It is especially important because of the Swachh Bharat campaign that was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. We want to explain to our world: don’t throw garbage anywhere, throw it in dustbins. Because from garbage we get illness, and from garbage mosquito and small insects will grow and bite people. From garbage we get diseases like poliovirus, infections, and malaria (etc). We want to tell the Municipal Corporation they should clean the road every day but they are not cleaning everyday. With garbage, children are getting illness and that is why they are not going to school– they are irregular to school and they are not getting education. Garbage is very dangerous to our life. In our surrounding areas we are not safe, so I want to tell our world: don’t throw garbage anywhere, throw it in dustbins.

We want to protect ourselves, so we tell our mothers to protect children and family, and our friends help us do the movie on Rubbish/Garbage. We are following Mahatma Gandhi’s rules and Narendra Modi, who is the prime minister of our country. He was sweeping 1 kilometer, that is why we should clean our house, surrounding area, schools, temple, mosque, churches, etc.

Thank you faithfully.

Written by Amreen Fatima

(The rubbish group includes: B. Savitha, Asra Begum, Qareena Begum, K. Bhargavi, Zabunnisa, Afreen Begum, K. Priya Singh, and Amreen Fatima.)