Sixteen-year-old Gaukhar Isabekova from Abai School never volunteered before the Tech Age Teens (TAT) [9] program came to her school. Now she can’t imagine life without her visits to the Ak Bota orphanage, where she helps children with disabilities. It is exactly this type of behavior and attitude that the TAT program hopes to create in Atyrau.
Gaukhar has been working at the orphanage, providing needlework and beads courses, organizing concerts, and simply having fun with the children. “I got used to working with the kids and have even fallen in love with them,” Gaukhar said. “People who cannot get around on their own for whatever reason can’t be blamed for their condition—I’d just like to help them. Recently, I started visiting Arman, a disabled boy at home, who has only one leg which doesn’t work. His mom bought him a computer, and I’m teaching him to use it. Even though we spend two hours a session, the time flies.” Gaukhar is just getting started. She is organizing a team of volunteers to teach computer skills to more children with disabilities as part of her next community project. “The more of us who work on this, the more people we’re going to help.”
From November 4-11, Gaukhar and 19 other students, the best and most committed Tech Age Teens in the area, completed daily ten-hour ICT and project-planning courses at the Slanov Library. Local teachers and trainers from Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and the United States challenged the eighth through eleventh graders to design community projects and integrate internet and video tools in their implementation. Each student finished the training with a work plan, Web 2.0 skills, a website, and a video public service announcement focused on filling a social need in the community.
A large part of the final three days was devoted to learning techniques for and developing short films to serve as public service announcements for projects. Students learned to see the world through a camera lens and how to use effective filming, planning, angles, lighting, and sound to tell stories. Finally, the training helped them plan their videos, which were intended to highlight the need for their community project. The students plotted scenarios for their new videos, and practiced their new skills. The practice videos on YouTube [10] prepared the TATs to return home where they will create more serious messages for their projects in December.
The enthusiasm and success behind TAT 2010 has established a pilot group and momentum to encourage greater volunteerism and ICT use among youth looking to create positive change in and around Atyrau.
Photos of the event are online at Flickr [11].