In-school Empathy project using audio and video sharing of situations by children with mentorship from their teachers in Uganda.

Problem

The problem of less realism in helping children and students learn in schools. Children are taught basically using written notes with no audio-visual (Audio and motion picture|) references. Many schools concentrate on their students only getting the right grades and nothing beyond that. Little concentration is paid to how they will apply their knowledge because of the less practical nature of the education system. Personal attachment to topics taught is not created for the students. And I have seen no significant and direct effort to promote empathy in my Uganda not even in communities.

Solution

My solution is to first of all promote empathy practice to the children’s education stakeholders because there has been little done in my country/community. This is to primarily target children in schools, teachers and education system decision makers through outreach activities. This will be implemented through envisaging audio-visual communication platforms that activate empathy to empower teachers and children. School are a very strategic setting because you meet young people in an organised environment. The above will be supported through Increasing Education system policy Advocacy activities to integrate teaching and promoting empathy in the national education system. I emphasize promoting and advocacy because this a unique project/subject which the target beneficiaries and stakeholders are not accustomed to.

Example

By establishing an empathy resource centre, I will primarily focus on building partnerships with schools. These will lead to formation of school empathy clubs with teachers being patrons to achieve acceptability and sustainability. Promoting teaching using video and audio documentary references to schools will enhance the children’s capacity to put themselves in situations shown in videos thus promoting empathy. Through the empathy clubs, inter schools’ empathy debate competitions will be run to create further understanding of empathy in primary and secondary schools. This will be coupled with building a web broadcasting platform for children and teachers to share ideas on activating empathy. Video, audio, photos and texts can be shared on this platform to increase occurrences of children putting themselves in others situations. It will also facilitate feedback from school patrons which will be used by policy makers. I’ll exploit Mobile cinema which is appealing to children. Situational films will be used and empathy promotional materials shown in intervals. This will enhance interest during the empathy activation and introduction days in schools. Lobbying policymakers for curriculum mitigation to integrate empathy activation at primary and secondary schools will as well be integral to this project.

Marketplace

My peers include; community humanitarian workers, school teachers, Day care workers and parents, sports men, people in the music and film production business, actors and musicians and so many more. Ideally, I have no competitors because I have no knowledge of any project that promotes empathy in schools in my country not even at community level. This is a pioneer project and it’s most likely the first in Uganda. My potential competitors could only be entities running entertainment and behaviour change projects in schools.