BECA in India: The Project Continues

Last week, we had several changes in our project with the Smile Foundation. And now the focus for our video is different. We are now doing a video aimed at the "privileged class" - and, particularly, college students - in India, with the intent to bring to their awareness two concepts: 1) the need to contribute to India's development (Smile calls it "charity;" we would call it community and individual "empowerment"), and 2) the name and concept of the Smile Foundation. As indicated in the earlier blog, Smile partners with corporations and it partners with, and supports, existing NGOs that are doing good work in local communities, particularly in the field of education. The foundation provides local NGOs with resources and support that will eventually enable those organizations to be self-sufficient. Smile has four main programs: 1) Mission Education, which works with children between the ages of 5 and 12, to get them ready for school, and to support them in government schools; 2) Smile Twin E-learning Project, or "STEP," which targets youth between the ages of 18 and 25, and provides them with a six-month intensive course of English and computer skills that makes them employable; 3) Smile on Wheels, a medical van equipped with 2 doctors, a nurse, and a pharmacist who is also a driver, that travels from community to community providing health care (preventive, promotional, and curative) to people in those communities; and 4) Swabhiman, the program addressing women's rights that I described in the first blog. In the video, we plan to describe the concept of "Social Venture Philanthropy," and how Smile operates, and then feature each of these four programs. Today, students interviewed (on video) the CEO of Microsoft-India. Microsoft is a major supporter of the STEP program. We have been shooting the Mission Education program, the Swabhiman program, Smile on Wheels, and also STEP. Students have also been shooting B-roll around the city. One day, we went to the area where women who are about to be married pick out their saris and their jewelry for their wedding. It's an old neighborhood, with lots of winding alleys, and a most traditional way of doing business. We found some monkeys climbing around on the phone lines directly above our heads! Another group went to the spice market, and got some great shots. As you have heard before, the poverty here is indescribable. Our shooting has taken us from very poor neighborhoods, with self-built "huts" out of found materials to the Microsoft corporate offices. The distance from rich to poor is quite a stretch here in India, and we are getting a front-row seat! One of our favorite days was when we saw street theater put on by a combination of Smile staff and community people. It served to address one aspect of women's place in India, dramatizing the lack of celebration for the birth of a girl, in contrast to the joyous celebration of the birth of a boy. The drama went on to profile a woman who marries a man who becomes a drunkard, thus leaving the woman, without education or skills, to support a family. The theater managed to be humorous, but serious at the same time - and a huge crowd gathered to watch it, in the middle of a very poor neighborhood in the noonday sun!
Again, stay tuned for more reports.