Concerned Citizen

Everyone really just wants the same thing, and I believe it is said best in James McBride's The Color of Jesus, "I want the same thing every parent wants -- a good home for my wife and children, good schools, peace and quiet, a good set of wrenches, and a son big enough to hand them to me." We're lucky that for the most part here in the States, if we work hard enough, we can have any of this, or at least some form of it that gives us the same sense of contentment.

But there are so many places in the world that you may be able to have a wife and children, but that doesn't mean you'll have a good home, a good school for your children, or a good set of wrenches. There are so many people in the world who don't have the basic needs for living a comfortable life. In so many parts of the world people struggle with diseases and illnesses that we don't have to worry about here.

This is where Kyla Threlfall comes in. Kyla is a friend of Brontë's, and as we searched for who we wanted to base our Concerned Citizen project on, Kyla popped into her head. We weren't sure if we would be able to get the information we needed from her since she is in India right now. So in the meantime I started getting in contact with a girl I know who we could also work with, just in case Kyla didn't work out.

Luckily we got a very thoughtful response to Brontë's requests for information about what she does, and how she feels about all of it. It was very interesting going through these photos and all this information with Brontë in preparation for this project. The amount of good that Kyla does with Rising Star and Promethean Spark sounds amazing, and what little she told us left me wanting to know more.

With the research that I've done in organizations that help children in third-world countries, sports and other recreational activities help children out a ton. Simply organizing them and getting them in the type of situation where they can interact with each other and learn new things helps these countries out so much more than we would think. But it is important that we provide them these opportunities, and so seeing (even if only briefly), Kyla's work with the children and dancing impressed me a lot.

I also really enjoyed the format that we have for this project in this class. There are so many great youtube videos out there that help broadcast these types of organizations. One video series that comes to mind are provided by the group called Nature Conservancy. They are an organization that helps protect the natural lakes and rivers in the United States. But one way that they spread the word is by getting bands to perform a song while also talking about the organization. They've had Blind Pilot, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, Glen Hansard and even Macklemore do videos for them. The videos are effective uses of technology, music, and information.

Now granted I would have loved to take a camera crew to India and learn more about what Kyla does there, talk to the people, and experience the land, but this is the best we could do with what we had. It was still a great experience to sit down with Brontë and edit the video. It took much longer than I thought it would, so I was glad that both of us were there to switch back and forth at the helm so neither of us went too stir crazy. I'm quite proud of the results. So without further ado, here is our video: