"Buhay Ko sa Smokey Mountain" aims to teach 25 scholars from the Smokey Mountain Community how to document and share their lives via prose, photos, videos through personal blogs. The workshops will be taught by prominent Bloggers, Photographers, Writers and Directors. The Manila Jaycees, together with Young Focus Foundation, are working together to empower these kids with the tools and skills to tell their story.
About 2 months ago, I came up with an idea. The concept was pretty simple. Use my most basic geek know how, blogging, photography, videography some post prod and teach it to kids in Smokey Mountain.
The motivation is teach them to document their lives and share it with the world. I'm not special, my life is pretty good, I like bikes and toys and even I have a blog! A boring blog, which is sporadically updated but I have one nonetheless.
Imagine teaching these skills and giving tools to these kids who have so much going on in their lives. Empowering them to share their triumphs and struggles with the world. My daily struggles revolve around waking up early, traffic and parking. It's embarrassing actually, these kids have lived through more than I can imagine and their still just kids!
So I had an idea and luckily I had just joined a group that wanted to help. The Manila Jaycee's. I was sponsored by my friend Charlie Paw, he is such a nice guy and has been nothing but good to me and I just couldn't say no. Needless to say, I joined the group with some trepidation. I always thought these things where networking for networking's sake. I'm part of a lot of groups which create real social interaction and friendships through common interest, be it Motorcycles, Sci Fi, Video games, photography, food etc. I really didn't get the concept of JCI Manila in the beginning. The appication/ invitation process didn't help either. It was all formalities and fancy schamncy. Not my cup of tea. I'm a T-shirt/ cargo pants, mcdo kind of guy. I only wear formal attire at weddings.
Long story short, our initiation to become a full member was to do an outreach project. I wasn't into the "normal" outreach stuff, medical dental missions, giving out food etc. If I was a doctor I would have done medical missions, If I was a lawyer I could have helped out those being oppressed by da Man. But I'm a geek! There is no real clear way a geek can help. Until now :)
Then an epiphany. I know how to take pictures. I'm not great but a few of my shots have been published in the Inquirer, Mabuhay, GamesMaster and T3. So I can teach really basic photography. I also edit my photo's in picasa, again I can teach basic photo editing. I love shooting video, doesn't matter if it's on my phone or digicam. Ok so I can teach videography. I enjoy editing and uploading stuff in FB and youtube. So I can teach basic post prod. And I know how to make a simple blog...
Being a tech geek means I'm a bit of an early adapter. It pains me to admit I've got quite a few cameras that I no longer use and are just gathering dust. It's old tech and not really worth selling, but they work. So I realized I could donate them to the kids. I figure other geeks out there have the same situation going on. I could probably get a few cameras from friends.
This all came together when I presented my idea (part of my initiation) to the JCI Manila board.
They really liked it and my project was green lit. JCI was focused on helping the kids in Smokey Mountain and had tied up with an NGO called Young Focus.
I was part of a team of JCI applicants and they mistakenly voted me as the chairman for the team. I seriously lucked out with this team. They rock! Alvin, my number 2 is the whip cracker. This details oriented and is an incredible task master. Howard Paw of Digital Walker and Game magazine, had all the connection to make this project work. VJ Sianghio business is Film for movies, he's taking up a course in Photography and has taught in other community out reach projects. Dexter Que, part on an events planning group, he has been instrumental in fund raising for the project. It was a geek dream team. Randomly selected but perfect for this project.
So this is how the "Buhay Ko" project began.
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