UCR ArtsBlock "My Global Village" Collaboration & Leadership Camp Details

UCR Arts Block Collaboration

Update by Samantha Wilson

Yesterday, I attended the “My Global Village” workshop being held at the California Museum of Photography in collaboration with UCR ARTSBlock (click here for "My Global Village" website). This program provides high school students with opportunities to view films and other media materials to create artistic responses. I viewed their film about Graffiti (they went into the community and cleaned up graffiti under a bridge in downtown Riverside). It was very exciting to watch it knowing that this film would be shown to Indian students next month before they go into their communities to do similar-intentioned activities!

The high school students seemed very excited about the prospect of participating in this project. They have viewed the film, “Born into Brothels,” and as I showed my own personal pictures from my first trip to India, they would comment knowingly about different scenes, or maybe make comparisons between the kids in my photos with the kids they saw in the film. Following a discussion about India and Mali (I recently met a young man who runs an NGO in Mali—the kids were able to see his project and hear him describe some of his activities), we stayed with the students and did a “Leadership Worksheet” where we were asked to describe two people we considered leaders and list their qualities. We had to select one person we knew personally and one we didn’t know personally. I selected my Religious Studies professor and an attorney that works for people’s rights at Guantanamo—it was a very helpful exercise and provided everyone an opportunity to share something of themselves. Many people selected family members!

Next week we will be taking this same group of high school students on a field trip to Little India in Artesia. I plan on contacting local businesses this weekend to see how we may be able to plan ahead a bit with local community members to talk to the students about India. This will be filmed and shown to the students in India as well— those responses will be interesting! We will have Indian students in Tamil Nadu viewing a film made my Riverside students about their personal interactions with an Indian community in Southern California!

This is getting really exciting, very creative, and very inclusive—I would like to see more community members get involved in some capacity.

In other news, I feel more and more like I’m running a real NGO. I worked on budgets and expenses today, as well as sent out MORE (these are endless) emails updating various sponsors on my latest activities.

I’ve also made the 5-day leadership camp more complete. If I find a way to upload those notes onto this blog, I will do so immediately. But, in the mean time, here’s a list of some of the Indian student’s activities:

- Small group meetings to provide more one-on-one time with students

- Workshop: “What is leadership?” (Looking at global leaders, local leaders, qualities, etc.)

- All-Student Workshop: “My Global Village: International Creativity and Dialog” (This is our collaboration with Riverside. The Indian students will view these materials and then respond in similar artistic mediums.)

- Workshop/Training: “Conflict Resolution and International Peace-Making: Peace-making in our communities and our world”

- Workshop: “Intro to Higher Education in Tamil Nadu”

- Workshop (Introductory courses into different fields, ideas):

o Medical Anthropology

o International Affairs and Global Social Change

o Media Communications

- Service Projects

- All-Student Workshop: “Community Organizing: Activism in the United States and India”

- Life Skills Education

- Closing Ceremonies: Performance / Presentations / Photography Show / Awards Ceremony with family

In the meantime, Eamon and Aniee have both been working diligently on different aspects of the program. Eamon is developing the curriculum for “My Global Village.” Aniee has been the fundraising queen while developing her own curriculum as well. I’m blessed to have these two.