Refugee Documentary Project
Description:
In this project, our team created a mini documentary to tell the stories of local high school refugee students in San Diego. We partnered with the International Rescue Committee's Peacemakers program which consisted of 25 high school refugees from 12 different countries. We interacted with these refugees to learn about them and interviewed them to share their stories. We also partnered with Outside the Lens which is a non-profit organization that works to empower youth to use digital media to create change within themselves, their community and their world, and they helped us with tips and tricks when it came to the filming of the documentary.
We made the documentary to share how the media portrays refugees and then hearing the perspective of the refugees themselves. We tried to humanize the refugees and have people know what it is they could do to help. In the film, the refugees talk about their own stories; where they came from, why they left their home country, what their life is like now. The refugees then share with us their hopes and dreams and what they hope to accomplish after high school.
Click here to view our mini-documentary.
We made the documentary to share how the media portrays refugees and then hearing the perspective of the refugees themselves. We tried to humanize the refugees and have people know what it is they could do to help. In the film, the refugees talk about their own stories; where they came from, why they left their home country, what their life is like now. The refugees then share with us their hopes and dreams and what they hope to accomplish after high school.
Click here to view our mini-documentary.
Storyboard:
We partnered up with a classmate to create a story board that shared our ideas on what we think should be in the documentary and how it should be shared.
Link to Storyboard Draft document.
Link to Storyboard Draft document.
Project Reflection:
Learning the stories about local refugee highschoolers who are students just like us has taught me many things and has actually helped me become a better person because it's taught me to appreciate things more than I already do. Interviewing the refugees has made me realized that I took many things for granted and I have learned to fix that about myself. Although they go through a lot of tough times they always manage to look at the brighter side of things and I want to be like that because I tend to stay sad about things but I need to learn to be more positive and have hope just like the peacemakers. They have inspired me and helped me to change for the better.
I was not able to be apart of my top two group choices (Website designer and Photographer) and Ms. Brooke told me that she would be able to set up arrangements where I would be able to be apart of one of those groups after all but I chose not to and I am very proud of myself because I took on the challenge to be a segment editor which is not my forte but I tried something new and I believe I did a pretty decent job.
Throughout the process of this project we did many Socratic seminars that were challenging for me because they are higher level thinking questions but I did try my best. I sometimes felt a bit I guess you can say lower than than some of my classmates because they are very aware about global problems and know so much information that I had no idea about, but with the Socratic seminars they were able to help me learn those things.
We also had many brainstorming sessions where we would talk about how we want our documentary to be, such as having a specific theme, making the audience feel a certain way after watching it, and what information we want them to know. I believe that we are reaching those goals and after the documentary is finished and shown to others we would have accomplished our hopes for the project.
I’m excited to see our final product and share it with others. I didn’t have high expectations because we are just high schoolers making a short documentary but I already feel like we exceeded those expectations. I believe that the refugees will continue to inspire people throughout this documentary just like they inspired me.
I was not able to be apart of my top two group choices (Website designer and Photographer) and Ms. Brooke told me that she would be able to set up arrangements where I would be able to be apart of one of those groups after all but I chose not to and I am very proud of myself because I took on the challenge to be a segment editor which is not my forte but I tried something new and I believe I did a pretty decent job.
Throughout the process of this project we did many Socratic seminars that were challenging for me because they are higher level thinking questions but I did try my best. I sometimes felt a bit I guess you can say lower than than some of my classmates because they are very aware about global problems and know so much information that I had no idea about, but with the Socratic seminars they were able to help me learn those things.
We also had many brainstorming sessions where we would talk about how we want our documentary to be, such as having a specific theme, making the audience feel a certain way after watching it, and what information we want them to know. I believe that we are reaching those goals and after the documentary is finished and shown to others we would have accomplished our hopes for the project.
I’m excited to see our final product and share it with others. I didn’t have high expectations because we are just high schoolers making a short documentary but I already feel like we exceeded those expectations. I believe that the refugees will continue to inspire people throughout this documentary just like they inspired me.
Exhibition:
During the exhibition I was a greeter at the door. I was there to encourage people to visit our classroom. I enjoyed it a lot because being a greeter gave me the opportunity to share the process of the project with people who visited our exhibition. I was proud of myself for being able to answer the questions our guests had about our project. This photo below is my classmates Lawrence, Ruben and Mariana who were apart of the panel group who were in charge of explaining the reason and process behind the documentary.