Teen panel talking about GK programs in SL in the past year
On Wednesday March 14, 2007, as part of the one year anniversary celebration in TSL, GK leaders gathered up on the GK event stage to reflect on their experience with Global Kids through various activities and programs, and talked to teens from all over the world. The GK leaders shared about their accomplishments, provided examples of their past work in TSL, and encouraged teens to get involved with future GK activities. Some of the teens are from our after-school programs based in NYC, while others participated in other activities such as the UNICEF World Fit for Children Festival.
Below is a short excerpt of the dialogue during the panel:
Tabitha Gkid: The panel begins now! Please have a seat everyone. Well welcome GK leaders! Please tell us about yourself and how you got started with Global Kids…
Tyguy Homewood: There's all kind of people here.
Introduction – Joe Gkid and Jack Gkid from our after-school Machinima program
Joe GKid: Hi my name is Joe.
Joe GKid: Well the funny thing about me getting into GK is that they were passing out flyers to certain schools and my school wasn’t one of them, but I managed to get my hands on it through my music teacher
Joe GKid: I read about the GK Machinima program and I found it very interesting so I signed up
Jack GKid: ok : ) Hey people I’m jack
Jack GKid: I got into this program because Tabitha came to our school and gave out information
Nicholas Burns: cool
Jack GKid: the funny thing was I never thought so many people from
Jack GKid: I joined since I’m a sucker for computer stuff and because i wanted to learn more about global issues.
Introduction – Mercury, Nate, Malarthi and Brooke, from Camp GK, 2006
Mercury Metropolitan: Hello everyone! I am a teen intern that works for Global Kids remotely from home.
Mercury Metropolitan: In May of 2006, Global Kids was looking to hire an intern to help with the development of their Camp Global Kids Summer Program in Second Life, so I wrote an essay describing my interest in the position and submitted my resume.
Mercury Metropolitan: Shortly after, I was accepted.
Mercury Metropolitan: During that time, I helped to advise other staff members about the overall designing of the Camp GK Program in Second Life, helped to facilitate events, and managed our estate.
Mercury Metropolitan: More recently, I have been hired by Global Kids again to advise them on their upcoming programs and to do lots of behind the scenes stuff that most of you don't get to see.
Nate Kongo: Alright, hey guys, I'm Nate
Nate Kongo: well one year ago, a new island came to the Teen Grid, Global Kids island..
Nate Kongo: this was amazing for all of us that were current residents as there was no private island owned by an organization yet
Redsamba Hall: that’s very true
Nate Kongo: alright, and on one night Lori GK and Mercury here had a special announcement
Nate Kongo: and that announcement was about the summer program Camp Global Kids
Nate Kongo: I signed up, and a year later here I am
Nate Kongo: camp was in summer 2006
Malarthi Behemoth: For those of you who DON'T know me, I'm Malarthi, the big bright (literally) dog that took that first small step for teens, first huge step for man kind.
Malarthi Behemoth: I was really just sitting in world one day as I'm wont to do and a friend of mine told me that Camp GK had a summer camp that was going to be happening.
Malarthi Behemoth: I came over to Global Kids island (the only one at the time) and poked around until I found the booth about summer camp.
Malarthi Behemoth: And I took a notecard, went to the website, started filling out the form, asked a few questions, filled out some more stuff, asked a few MORE questions, then hit submit and waited :)
Malarthi Behemoth: So I ended up being one of the people in the first Camp GK
Malarthi Behemoth: And we had TONS of fun.
Brooke Barmy: So.. I'm Brooke Barmy
Brooke Barmy: and I originally just signed up for the summer camp
through Mercury
Brooke Barmy: I knew they had to be pretty big and all of this to be able to want to have an island on Second Life and start reaching out to teens
Brooke Barmy: It went on for ~ 3 weeks
Brooke Barmy: I wanted to learn what global kids was about
Brooke Barmy: and I learned that if it wasn't for people like Rafi and Barry and Lori, then this great place wouldn't be here
Brooke Barmy: Because they really do awesome things for this place and make it all work for you guys
Brooke Barmy: So I ended up building a lot for GK during the camp, when they needed certain things and I even build a bit randomly after the camp now, as you can see I created this stage
Brooke Barmy: So I just like being able to help people out with my talent and being able to share what I have
Introduction – Jay, GK volunteer on the GK anniversary celebration event
Jay Clostermann: Okay, I'm Jay.
Redsamba Hall: yay jay
Jay Clostermann: So, how I got involved...
Jay Clostermann: I had actually heard about Global Kids in Teen Second Life from a friend. Which is one of the reasons I joined.
Jay Clostermann: So, when I got to global kids, the maze was in it's final weeks of being.
Jay Clostermann: Sadly, I didn't have enough money to donate, but I was still extremely interested on the subject.
Jay Clostermann: I knew that Global Kids island was probably extremely educational and interesting, so, I came alot.
Jay Clostermann: And as you can see, I built the Birthday Cake Making Contest area as well.
Describing their experience:
Joe GKid: So I was in the machinima program also known as the virtual video project and what we basically do is learn about film making in real life so we can learn how to use it in machinima in secondlife
Joe GKid: right now we are working on PSAs (public service announcements) which we will use to talk about an issue
Joe GKid: for example my issue is media piracy which is like illegal downloading
Trextron Sukra: yah
Joe GKid: I have sets of CD stores closed down and a set of a house where there are tons of CDs in someone who has a media pirates room
Ivan Ortega: good idea...
Jack GKid: my PSA is about identity theft
Jack GKid: so we have this one guy who gets his credit card info stolen, due to his carelessness of checking whether the thing he was buying off the website was approved or not
Quert Donaldo: COOL
Jack GKid: and he clicks it and the next day he finds out that he has nothing left becuase they stole his information such as his credit card number, bank account etc.
Mercury Metropolitan: Camp GK was a wonderful experience - Teens took part in various interactive and engaging events relating to Global Issues
Mercury Metropolitan: All ranging from gross Domestic Product, to the very final PROJECT - building a maze to end Child Sex Trafficking
James Canto: cool
Mercury Metropolitan: We also held a workshop outside of GK Island, in which other teens were made aware of our final issue - Child Sex Trafficking
Malarthi Behemoth: Well, as some, though not most of you may know...My favorite experience was what we called the "Race to the Bottom"…
Malarthi Behemoth: Basically, we were assigned a team of 3, and a third world country to represent. And then we had to decide how much financial, legal, ethical and other kinds of incentives we were going to give to a large corporation that was considering moving it's labor to a foreign country to increase profits.
Malarthi Behemoth: The amazing part for me was when I realized that the name of the "game" wasn't random, it was directly related to what we were doing. So I tried to get everyone to take a stand against the corporation, and it didn't work. And I realized that's the problem we face today.
Nate Kongo: well the one thing that comes to my mind right away was fixing the maze, malarthi probably knows what i'm talking about;)
Nate Kongo: There wasn't anything as far to say challenging, but we really had to work together to plan our final project
Jay Clostermann: I wasn't at Camp GK, sadly.
Jay Clostermann: But, I have been involved since January.
Daniel Voyager: any more events happening on global kids soon please
Storm Basiat is Offline
Jay Clostermann: I have been involved with sometimes "personally assisting" the GKids, which I actually enjoy quite alot.
Jay Clostermann: And I have also been running the GK Birthday
Jay Clostermann: It was quite fun setting it up, and even more fun to watch people's ideas of what and ideal GK cake would be when they make it in SL.
Question from the audience
Redsamba Hall: what did you find most enjoyable in your experience for working for global kids?
Jay Clostermann: Well, for one, Genocide in Darfur
Nate Kongo: Well, yes the Darfur one was rather important
Jay Clostermann: I find just helping out and stuff is really great.
Nate Kongo: we even had a guest speaker come in to us at camp and talk to us about it
Nate Kongo: another issue was racism, we did an activity on that
Redsamba Hall: all you guys have filled the empty void the was the boredom of having nothing to do in the teen grid
Mercury Metropolitan: My most enjoyable experience with Global Kids was planning out the Child Sex Trafficking Awareness and Activism event. The audience was very attentive and understood the validity and importance of the issues being presented.
Mercury Metropolitan: It was executed very successfully, and we all worked together to make it happen.
Comments from the audience:
Trextron Sukra shouts: *Repeats* Global Kids Rocks!!!!
SupaNeo Nori: I loved this! Awesome!
Jay Clostermann: Global Kids Rocks!
Nafiza GKid shouts: LOl YepYep~ GK is the best~
Redsamba Hall: *Gkids are the best*
Ivan Ortega shouts: yeah!!!!!
James Canto: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Ivan Ortega: WOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTT!!
Daniel Voyager: this was great today thanks!
Isadora Petrova shouts: I just want to applaud everyone that just got up there because you guys are making TSL a better place!!!!! *claps*
A later comer strolls in…Alister Harrington wonders what he just missed…
