Travel the backroads of World Learning
May 8, 2008 by Michaela HacknerOver a period of several months in 2007, James Bernard - our Vice President of Communications - journeyed across the globe to capture the essence of World Learning through the magic of movie-making and a large dose of experiential learning. From Argentina to Vermont to the Kenyan coast and several countries in East Africa, James and a film crew from TEO Creative set out to explore the many textures of World Learning in a way that would visually convey how our work transforms people’s lives.
The 5-minute, 30-second video from those trips has recently been released and we are eager to share it with you. I also had a chance recently to sit down with James and get some behind-the-scenes back story on the making of the movie, that helped him understand, up close, the transformative experiences of those involved with World Learning programs — students, international development staff, local study abroad academic directors and staff, and homestay families.
The video project began in Argentina, where the team filmed students working on their Independent Study Projects on two SIT Study Abroad programs based in Buenos Aires. After nearly four days interviewing students who were exploring social movements, learning about a Catholic organization that works with children, and volunteering with a cooperative group in an impoverished neighborhood, the video team gained a great deal of knowledge about the Argentine people and how World Learning brings this culture alive for our program participants.
Next stop was our Vermont campus, where James and the team met with several SIT Graduate Institute students, faculty, and alumni to explore our graduate programs and understand the vast reach of our global campus and international student body. Through interviews with several people, the notion that “We teach what we practice and we practice what we teach” was echoed by students and faculty.
Finally, James and team spent the last leg of their journey exploring World Learning’s programs in East Africa. In Ethiopia, they met with staff and community members from our international development program in Awassa, where they filmed community discussions of parent-teacher organizations working to keep AIDS orphans in school. (World Learning works with more than 1,500 schools across Ethiopia on projects that help keep orphans and vulnerable children in school).
James, who wasn’t able to make it out to the Ethiopia portion of the trip because of a snowstorm in Vermont (ah, the beauty that is a good Vermont winter!) met up with the crew in Nairobi for a flight to the Kenyan coastal town of Lamu, where they were to catch up with SIT Study Abroad’s Kenya: Swahili Studies and Coastal Cultures program. After a few dodgy moments with the Kenya Airways staff and a debate about transporting seven bags of film equipment and four people on the tiny plane to Lamu, the group (baggage unscathed) managed to find their way to the thatched roof airport and landing strip outside Lamu town. Despite the fact that the camera equipment seemed to have a few hiccups, the crew immediately set to work and had an excellent day of filming, accompanying SIT Study Abroad students on a boat trip – in traditional wooden dhows – through the islands of the Lamu archipelago. The rest of the time in Lamu was spent talking with more than two dozen homestay families and tutors (many of whom had worked with us for over 10 years) and interviewing students, instructors and staff from the program and the Lamu community - including the mayor, a big supporter of experiential education himself.
James describes one of his many “a-ha” moments of the trip during a panel discussion students had with Kenyan Muslim women in Lamu:
Students were really able to get beyond stereotypes of Muslim women, and their questions changed over the course of the interview as they gained a better understanding of the women’s daily lives as smart, independent, and savvy Kenyans.
After another close encounter with Kenya Airways before the flight from Lamu to Arusha (where James provided marketing advice in exchange for getting baggage aboard), the group was met by Reese Matthews, academic director for Tanzania: Wildlife Ecology and Conservation. The crew visited the private Endarakwai game reserve, where they saw firsthand how SIT Study Abroad students study the impact of elephants on the ecosystem of East Africa. After completing several interviews with wildlife officials, academics, students, and homestay community members on the slopes of Mount Meru, the crew participated in an overnight camping trip with students, where they went on several game drives and weathered a huge thunderstorm that almost blew the mess tent away!
Back in the states, James and the team marveled over the 50+ hours of video footage they had captured, and began the difficult task of editing the “World Learning story” into a neat, 5-minute package that could be easily shared. Meeting with so many interesting people and seeing so many colorful places made this process challenging, but the unused reels will undoubtedly be used in future World Learning multimedia projects.
James says the entire filming experience helped him see the full spectrum of World Learning and better understand the global impact of the organization and the importance of its deep networks in more than 77 countries. The process also forced him to think about how each piece and each person fits together to form the entirety of the World Learning community, and how we can celebrate the different parts while coming together as a whole. Finally it became clear to him that he - like most of us - had only scratched the surface of a few of our programs, and that there is much opportunity ahead to capture stories from our community.






