[sl] Last of Mariel's Voices of Youth, Global Kids Related Post
This is the Fifth and last post of Mariel's blog from the UNICEF A World Fit for Children Festival. Enjoy!
Educating and Raising Awareness Through Virtual Reality III -and last-
These are the results of the contest. What about the ones of the festival in general? These are my conclusions.
1. At the end, thirteen teams presented their projects; however, more people attended the workshop and actually learned about the A World Fit for Children commitments.
2. In less than two weeks, participants built entire projects; to give you a quick reference, I must have spent about an hour making one single table. I am a newbie there, but building can take a lot of work, and scripting the animations can take a lot of effort, too.
3. Some people from the teen grid were quite disappointed as they could not enter the contest because they did not sign up on time.
4. It does require a lot of work, and also a lot of resources. You’d be afraid if I told you the amount of time I spent on TSL throughout the contest, even when I did nothing compared to the other contributors.
5. People from other ‘islands’ were visiting the projects already when the contest was over.
6. Though many were unfamiliar with the A World Fit for Children documents, others knew a lot about the issues already, so they didn’t learn anything new; others complimented what they learned in social studies lessons at school with information they learned during the contest.
7. Some are now interested in taking action against the issue they chose ‘offline’.
Winners! (photo by Global Kids)
Now that I’ve told you about the results, this is pretty much where my part ends. Should VOY do something like this again? If you want to know my opinion, then definitely. Why? First of all, because it would help VOY expand its barriers. The cyberspace it wants to offer to youth would not be only on the website, but also in popular ‘games’ like TSL, making, after all, its mission stronger. Also, this was the first time it happened; with more experience, I am sure VOY would be able to impact way more people in more effective ways next time. After all, e-education and activism are growing stronger each day in these media; today we can choose not to do it, but it will be a need in a few years, so we would just be postponing it. I hope the decision that is made benefits VOY and young people all over the World.
To finish, I want to thank all the people who made the festival possible. Thanks especially to Alpha Zaius (coordinator that did a bit of everything and great DJ ;D), Katharine Barry (scripter, supersmart girl that can pretty much do it all on TSL), Aesop Thatch (who made great buildings for the festival), MerchantVendor Vega (who pretty much made the awards, hehe) and Mercury Metropolitan (Global Kids’ intern that was always there to make sure everything worked). Also, thanks to VOY and Global Kids for giving me this amazing opportunity to meet so many amazing people and work a little bit on a project that really made an impact in my life. I hope I didn’t let anybody down.
Well, so the superlong post is over now. Sorry! It’s just that it’s the last one Congratulations to everyone. I hope everyone enjoyed this experience as much as I did, and that we all use what we learned to take action against the issues. The road of activism is never over… Meanwhile, I leave you with an image of the TSL residents visiting the projects after the conclusion of the festival.
Greetings and best wishes always from Mariel
mages: http://www.flickr.com/photos/holymea...7594397737153/
Information: http://www.holymeatballs.org/
...and www.unicef.org/voy , of course
