I have known the founder and Executive Director of Yenza for 16+ years and am confident that she will lead this project and make it happen with the utmost professionalism and integrity. Czerina Patel leads by example, she has a "heart of gold" and she has the requisite experiences to make this a true success. Her exceptional record speaks for itself. Yenza will have a true beneficial impact and should receive the funding necessary to get to the next level.
I believe this will be a terrific project! I have known Czerina for a number of years and know her for her terrific social justice and social activism work. She is a committed individual and passionate about her work. I know this project will be a success!
This is a great initiative to bring people together from different parts of the world. To help young people to learn more and to be inspired by others. The founder of this project is a real passionate person and has the perfect spirit to make this a big success and inspire many others to help and reach out. Czerina Patel is a very special person and she will do great things with this project and deserves funding to help and make this a success!!!!
I very much like how this idea combines the possibilities of technology with the power of face-to-face interactions, and will have a multiplier effect through the interactions of the program participants with the interviewees, families, and local communities in which they operate.
I have known Czerina for many years and feel confident that she has the vision and skills to execute this project. What a wonderful opportunity for youth in all 3 countries to build awareness and share their ideas! I am also excited about the partnership with global buddies and the creative use of various media and communications to foster international relationships. I wish YENZA and this project much success!
I am a volunteer associate producer for Yenza in South Africa Cape Town and have seen, first hand, how this project has helped kids grow and learn. It's been a great honour working on this project.
This is a powerful idea, led by a woman of great passion and dedication. I have known Czerina for more than 10 years and could bear witness to her infectious energy and commitment to change. This project offers her a platform to replicate on a global scale what she did with Radio Rookies, with the extra advantage of adding the voice of the African youth to 21st century discourse. I fully endorse the project.
To clarify, I worked on the Apartheid Memory project, which has come to an end. But I look forward to working on amazing projects like the one Czerina has proposed.
This project will provide a unique opportunity for true and meaningful human encounters. Technology is definitely a good tool to interact and keep in touch, but nothing is as powerful as spending time together and working together in a project. <
I hope this programme can be extended to more countries in the future. Czerina Patel has the experience, skills and connections to make it happen.
This is what she was born to do.I fully support her initiative, and believe whole-heartedly that the funding Yenza receives will actually be well worth it.
Although it has always been true, the potential for stories -- particularly the stories and observations of young people -- to push us forward as a people seems particularly needed at this moment in history. Yenza's plan to empower young people to offer a new definition of global citizenship is exactly what we need. And Czerina Patel is the person to lead that important work.
I have known Czerina personally and professionally for 9 years and I think she is one of the most dedicated and creative people I've come across. Before founding Yenza, Czerina was the Senior Producer of Radio Rookies (www.wnyc.org/radiorookies) a youth media project out of WNYC Radio that I took over from her. In Czerina's several years at the helm, she grew Radio Rookies from a small startup project to a citywide and award-winning program that brought the voices of NYC youth to millions of listeners to WNYC and NPR. I am sure she has the smarts and drive to do amazing work with Yenza and the support of funding from Changemakers. Sincerely, Kaari Pitkin, Senior Producer, Radio Rookies
As a former high school English teacher I can really see the value in a project like this. What kids today need are opportunities to develop into global citizens who care about the world they live in and which help them to feel like they can make a difference. The project described here understands this perfectly well. I think it's a great chance for kids to meet others from different cultures and views, not simply as tourists might but as people invested in learning and sharing for the purpose of making a better, more democratic and just world. This is great!
As a former high school English teacher I see great value and opportunity in this sort of project. Children today need the chance to develop lasting, meaningful relationships across cultures and geographies. The use of technology here is also innovative. The emphasis on global citizenship is what I think sets this project apart. I can see how children might come to think that they can effect positive change in the world through such a project. Kudos to the writers/directors!
I have known Czerina for over 18 years and she is a role model and power house of energy and passion, plus she has integrity. I have no doubt she would make a success of this and wouldn't let anyone down.
US$25,000, the money from this prize, would only be enough to cover the planning for this program. Where would the rest come from? Please do a budget to begin working through the reality of making this dream happen... It is where we do need to go in journalism, in the world but, and global youth are the ones to take us there--- but, the costs to really make this happen are far more than US$25k.
Hi KrisA, Thanks for your comments. In our explanation of sustainability, we do explain that the cost to pilot this will be $50,000 (in South Africa alone), and that if we raise $90,000, we will be able to do our pilot in both South Africa and Uganda. $25,000 would fund quite a bit more than the planning, including enabling us to buy the necessary equipment for this project, but we have budgeted for, and are planning to raise (from sources described in our last answer), at least twice as much in order to execute this idea. By inserting our project into the already-existing Global Buddies framework, we save a lot of money. The youth are already brought together and significant logistical costs are taken care of by that program, allowing Yenza to focus on empowering them with 21st century global citizenry skills and to work with them to produce thoughtful and quality social change projects. Global Buddies has developed partnerships with local community centers (in South Africa and Uganda) which host the exchange, and which will also host our training and our yearlong work, so there are a many efficiencies in our planned project. Certainly, however, in-depth training and producing quality content requires a significant effort, so success in this competition will give us a huge boost in reaching our goals.
Czerina is a proven leader and visionary, her ideas to connect youth beyond perceived boundaries can be life changing and affirming. Supporting her project is a major step towards bringing about the positive change that we all want to see. There is no doubt in my mind that Yenza will be successful in all of its goals and achievements.
I have known Czerina personally for 10 years and have been consistently impressed by her facility relating to youth, especially at-risk youth. Her award-winning work for WNYC Radio Rookies demonstrates that she knows what she is doing and will have little trouble applying her background and experience on a macro-scale with Global Buddies and beyond.
As a side note, having taught pre-teens and teens in both formal classroom situations (curriculum tutor) and more relaxed, voluntary environments (swim and scuba instruction), it is of utmost importance that kids see both conviviality and competency in their educators, or else they will lose both interest and respect. Engendering this trust is not an easy task -- which is why teaching is one of the most difficult professions -- and rare are those who pursue it with consistency.
Czerina genuinely cares about teens, and they have responded to her in kind. As a result, any funding allocated to her projects will be provide a return on investment in the participants' personal and professional growth, and, ultimately, shape them into future leaders of their communities.
Thanks for your comments Judah (jgould). I wanted to expand on what you said about conviviality - Besides the fact that Yenza will provide a fun way of training youth (through instructor personality/style, teaching methods, and group activities), what's important about building our project onto the Global Buddies program is that the youth will spend some of the time during the 2 weeks program in activities with the Global Buddies program. They will do fun, service and cultural activities (e.g. seeing South Africa's Robben Island or visiting the penguins at Boulders Beach). Their time engaging in these kinds of experiences with Global Buddies is going to give them a break from the media, technology and global citizenship training Yenza will be doing with them and will strengthen the bonds and the friendships between the youth. Giving youth a space to just witness and be is critical to their growth and enjoyment.
P.S. Judah, I just added to our entry a photograph of me with some of the South African and American youth at one of those "fun" Global Buddies activities last year. One of the South African youth, Abigail, is wearing my glasses for the photo ;). It is really exciting to combine cultural exchange, human connection and the power of new technology as we create new paradigms of how to interact globally in the age of technology.
My 2 teen-age children and I traveled to South Africa last year with Global Buddies, when Yenza was just trying out the idea of working with kids from different countries in a global community kind of context. My kids loved having the chance to use radio recorders, microphones, cameras, etc to get to know their South African friends (and vice versa). The media really added to their experience and helped break the ice, as the kids got to know each other.
Czerina, I think the idea of creating an intensive media program with year-long follow-up projects (and support!) is a great one. My daughter, Rosy, has been working on a follow-up project to last year's trip, to raise money to help start a library for her South African friends, and it hasn't been easy working on it all on her own. The kind of structure you're talking about creating would definitely have made the process easier for her!
Hi Terry, Thanks. I am glad that we had the chance to test out some of our ideas about how best to empower youth with 21st century global citizenship skills through the mini-workshops we held during Global Buddies trip to South Africa last year. That experience helped us understand the importance of developing a robust program using media and technology to empower and connect youth in a global framework. I was thrilled to see how the youth lit up when they were given microphones and cameras to use - for many of the South African youth, it was their first time ever using a camera. I look forward to creating the support structure to help youth like Rosy conduct social change projects. If we had this idea already in place, we would have been able to use internet technology to connect Rosy with her South African friends and through online collaboration they could have created lists of books that the youth in South Africa would like to read. Also, Rosy and her South African friends (eg. Nandipha and Analisa) could work on this together. We will also create web tools to help youth to promote their service projects and to fundraise, and train them about how to use new technology to let their ideas have the greatest impact.
Since the start-up of Yenza I have been inspired by the company's objective: 'connecting people, building awareness and supporting change.
Czerina puts these core values into practice by empowering youth and giving them the tools and skills they will need on their journey through life. I believe this is the most significant thing anyone can do and with her dedication, passion and professionalism the project and therefore the future of these kids can only be a success! Let's all build at our future and support Czerina's project!
just one question: Have you thought about how you might evaluate the impact of this project?
Hi Eva, Thanks for your comments and your support.
Yes, we have thought about what tools we might use to evaluate this project. While we haven't yet developed the tools, our plan is to evaluate the program looking both at the impact it has on the youth participants, and the impact their yearlong projects have on both local and global communities.
In terms of the youth participants, we will use a combination of tools to evaluate change in skills gained, the youth's ability to integrate media/technology into global dialogue and social change, changes in their global perspective, their understanding of "story", and other youth development areas (confidence, career aspirations, oral skills etc.)
We plan to use before and after self-evaluation surveys to measure youth development. Instructors will also evaluate technical skills gained against certain competencies (operate a tape recorder, record a good-quality interview, create a new blog, post a blog comment etc.) Youth yearlong projects will also be evaluated for 1) an understanding of a global social change issue(s), 2) the use of media and technology to increase understanding, awareness or impact, 3) the creation of a clear social change outcome. Once the yearlong projects succeed in reaching all of these benchmarks, the youth participants (from all countries) will receive a Certificate in Global Citizenship from U.C.L.A.'s Global Center for Children and Families.
We will also measure the social change impact of the yearlong projects in local and global communities. This will be different for each project based on their design: Stories produced would be measured in terms of distribution or publication, audience size, audience response etc., whereas a local service project might be evaluated in terms of resources provided to a community etc.
We are committed to making sure our work is giving youth the necessary skills and tools to make the greatest impact, and to constantly adapt as we learn more about what works and what doesn't.
I like that Yenza is building off of existing programmatic infrastructure (that of Global Buddies)-- that should leverage the funding invested in the project to greater impact. I also like the idea of deploying social media tools and training to foster lasting collaborative and PRODUCTIVE (they'll produce compelling content) relationships between US and African youth.
By helping youth to communicate and share experiences, Yenza gives them a priceless awareness and opening to the world.
I wish the best to Yenza and I look forward to discover new great projects.
Comments
I have known the founder and Executive Director of Yenza for 16+ years and am confident that she will lead this project and make it happen with the utmost professionalism and integrity. Czerina Patel leads by example, she has a "heart of gold" and she has the requisite experiences to make this a true success. Her exceptional record speaks for itself. Yenza will have a true beneficial impact and should receive the funding necessary to get to the next level.
Great initiative! I especially like the use of the Internet resources.
Btw, Yenza’s founder is really an inspiring person!
I believe this will be a terrific project! I have known Czerina for a number of years and know her for her terrific social justice and social activism work. She is a committed individual and passionate about her work. I know this project will be a success!
This is a great initiative to bring people together from different parts of the world. To help young people to learn more and to be inspired by others. The founder of this project is a real passionate person and has the perfect spirit to make this a big success and inspire many others to help and reach out. Czerina Patel is a very special person and she will do great things with this project and deserves funding to help and make this a success!!!!
I very much like how this idea combines the possibilities of technology with the power of face-to-face interactions, and will have a multiplier effect through the interactions of the program participants with the interviewees, families, and local communities in which they operate.
I have known Czerina for many years and feel confident that she has the vision and skills to execute this project. What a wonderful opportunity for youth in all 3 countries to build awareness and share their ideas! I am also excited about the partnership with global buddies and the creative use of various media and communications to foster international relationships. I wish YENZA and this project much success!
I am a volunteer associate producer for Yenza in South Africa Cape Town and have seen, first hand, how this project has helped kids grow and learn. It's been a great honour working on this project.
This is a powerful idea, led by a woman of great passion and dedication. I have known Czerina for more than 10 years and could bear witness to her infectious energy and commitment to change. This project offers her a platform to replicate on a global scale what she did with Radio Rookies, with the extra advantage of adding the voice of the African youth to 21st century discourse. I fully endorse the project.
To clarify, I worked on the Apartheid Memory project, which has come to an end. But I look forward to working on amazing projects like the one Czerina has proposed.
This project will provide a unique opportunity for true and meaningful human encounters. Technology is definitely a good tool to interact and keep in touch, but nothing is as powerful as spending time together and working together in a project. <
I hope this programme can be extended to more countries in the future. Czerina Patel has the experience, skills and connections to make it happen.
Buena suerte!!
This is what she was born to do.I fully support her initiative, and believe whole-heartedly that the funding Yenza receives will actually be well worth it.
The world needs more people like the founder of Yenza and more projects like this. Well done, Yenza!
Although it has always been true, the potential for stories -- particularly the stories and observations of young people -- to push us forward as a people seems particularly needed at this moment in history. Yenza's plan to empower young people to offer a new definition of global citizenship is exactly what we need. And Czerina Patel is the person to lead that important work.
I have known Czerina personally and professionally for 9 years and I think she is one of the most dedicated and creative people I've come across. Before founding Yenza, Czerina was the Senior Producer of Radio Rookies (www.wnyc.org/radiorookies) a youth media project out of WNYC Radio that I took over from her. In Czerina's several years at the helm, she grew Radio Rookies from a small startup project to a citywide and award-winning program that brought the voices of NYC youth to millions of listeners to WNYC and NPR. I am sure she has the smarts and drive to do amazing work with Yenza and the support of funding from Changemakers. Sincerely, Kaari Pitkin, Senior Producer, Radio Rookies
As a former high school English teacher I can really see the value in a project like this. What kids today need are opportunities to develop into global citizens who care about the world they live in and which help them to feel like they can make a difference. The project described here understands this perfectly well. I think it's a great chance for kids to meet others from different cultures and views, not simply as tourists might but as people invested in learning and sharing for the purpose of making a better, more democratic and just world. This is great!
As a former high school English teacher I see great value and opportunity in this sort of project. Children today need the chance to develop lasting, meaningful relationships across cultures and geographies. The use of technology here is also innovative. The emphasis on global citizenship is what I think sets this project apart. I can see how children might come to think that they can effect positive change in the world through such a project. Kudos to the writers/directors!
I have known Czerina for over 18 years and she is a role model and power house of energy and passion, plus she has integrity. I have no doubt she would make a success of this and wouldn't let anyone down.
US$25,000, the money from this prize, would only be enough to cover the planning for this program. Where would the rest come from? Please do a budget to begin working through the reality of making this dream happen... It is where we do need to go in journalism, in the world but, and global youth are the ones to take us there--- but, the costs to really make this happen are far more than US$25k.
Hi KrisA, Thanks for your comments. In our explanation of sustainability, we do explain that the cost to pilot this will be $50,000 (in South Africa alone), and that if we raise $90,000, we will be able to do our pilot in both South Africa and Uganda. $25,000 would fund quite a bit more than the planning, including enabling us to buy the necessary equipment for this project, but we have budgeted for, and are planning to raise (from sources described in our last answer), at least twice as much in order to execute this idea. By inserting our project into the already-existing Global Buddies framework, we save a lot of money. The youth are already brought together and significant logistical costs are taken care of by that program, allowing Yenza to focus on empowering them with 21st century global citizenry skills and to work with them to produce thoughtful and quality social change projects. Global Buddies has developed partnerships with local community centers (in South Africa and Uganda) which host the exchange, and which will also host our training and our yearlong work, so there are a many efficiencies in our planned project. Certainly, however, in-depth training and producing quality content requires a significant effort, so success in this competition will give us a huge boost in reaching our goals.
Czerina is a proven leader and visionary, her ideas to connect youth beyond perceived boundaries can be life changing and affirming. Supporting her project is a major step towards bringing about the positive change that we all want to see. There is no doubt in my mind that Yenza will be successful in all of its goals and achievements.
I have known Czerina personally for 10 years and have been consistently impressed by her facility relating to youth, especially at-risk youth. Her award-winning work for WNYC Radio Rookies demonstrates that she knows what she is doing and will have little trouble applying her background and experience on a macro-scale with Global Buddies and beyond.
As a side note, having taught pre-teens and teens in both formal classroom situations (curriculum tutor) and more relaxed, voluntary environments (swim and scuba instruction), it is of utmost importance that kids see both conviviality and competency in their educators, or else they will lose both interest and respect. Engendering this trust is not an easy task -- which is why teaching is one of the most difficult professions -- and rare are those who pursue it with consistency.
Czerina genuinely cares about teens, and they have responded to her in kind. As a result, any funding allocated to her projects will be provide a return on investment in the participants' personal and professional growth, and, ultimately, shape them into future leaders of their communities.
Thanks for your comments Judah (jgould). I wanted to expand on what you said about conviviality - Besides the fact that Yenza will provide a fun way of training youth (through instructor personality/style, teaching methods, and group activities), what's important about building our project onto the Global Buddies program is that the youth will spend some of the time during the 2 weeks program in activities with the Global Buddies program. They will do fun, service and cultural activities (e.g. seeing South Africa's Robben Island or visiting the penguins at Boulders Beach). Their time engaging in these kinds of experiences with Global Buddies is going to give them a break from the media, technology and global citizenship training Yenza will be doing with them and will strengthen the bonds and the friendships between the youth. Giving youth a space to just witness and be is critical to their growth and enjoyment.
P.S. Judah, I just added to our entry a photograph of me with some of the South African and American youth at one of those "fun" Global Buddies activities last year. One of the South African youth, Abigail, is wearing my glasses for the photo ;). It is really exciting to combine cultural exchange, human connection and the power of new technology as we create new paradigms of how to interact globally in the age of technology.
My 2 teen-age children and I traveled to South Africa last year with Global Buddies, when Yenza was just trying out the idea of working with kids from different countries in a global community kind of context. My kids loved having the chance to use radio recorders, microphones, cameras, etc to get to know their South African friends (and vice versa). The media really added to their experience and helped break the ice, as the kids got to know each other.
Czerina, I think the idea of creating an intensive media program with year-long follow-up projects (and support!) is a great one. My daughter, Rosy, has been working on a follow-up project to last year's trip, to raise money to help start a library for her South African friends, and it hasn't been easy working on it all on her own. The kind of structure you're talking about creating would definitely have made the process easier for her!
Good luck!
- Terry Lowe
Hi Terry, Thanks. I am glad that we had the chance to test out some of our ideas about how best to empower youth with 21st century global citizenship skills through the mini-workshops we held during Global Buddies trip to South Africa last year. That experience helped us understand the importance of developing a robust program using media and technology to empower and connect youth in a global framework. I was thrilled to see how the youth lit up when they were given microphones and cameras to use - for many of the South African youth, it was their first time ever using a camera. I look forward to creating the support structure to help youth like Rosy conduct social change projects. If we had this idea already in place, we would have been able to use internet technology to connect Rosy with her South African friends and through online collaboration they could have created lists of books that the youth in South Africa would like to read. Also, Rosy and her South African friends (eg. Nandipha and Analisa) could work on this together. We will also create web tools to help youth to promote their service projects and to fundraise, and train them about how to use new technology to let their ideas have the greatest impact.
Since the start-up of Yenza I have been inspired by the company's objective: 'connecting people, building awareness and supporting change.
Czerina puts these core values into practice by empowering youth and giving them the tools and skills they will need on their journey through life. I believe this is the most significant thing anyone can do and with her dedication, passion and professionalism the project and therefore the future of these kids can only be a success! Let's all build at our future and support Czerina's project!
just one question: Have you thought about how you might evaluate the impact of this project?
Hi Eva, Thanks for your comments and your support.
Yes, we have thought about what tools we might use to evaluate this project. While we haven't yet developed the tools, our plan is to evaluate the program looking both at the impact it has on the youth participants, and the impact their yearlong projects have on both local and global communities.
In terms of the youth participants, we will use a combination of tools to evaluate change in skills gained, the youth's ability to integrate media/technology into global dialogue and social change, changes in their global perspective, their understanding of "story", and other youth development areas (confidence, career aspirations, oral skills etc.)
We plan to use before and after self-evaluation surveys to measure youth development. Instructors will also evaluate technical skills gained against certain competencies (operate a tape recorder, record a good-quality interview, create a new blog, post a blog comment etc.) Youth yearlong projects will also be evaluated for 1) an understanding of a global social change issue(s), 2) the use of media and technology to increase understanding, awareness or impact, 3) the creation of a clear social change outcome. Once the yearlong projects succeed in reaching all of these benchmarks, the youth participants (from all countries) will receive a Certificate in Global Citizenship from U.C.L.A.'s Global Center for Children and Families.
We will also measure the social change impact of the yearlong projects in local and global communities. This will be different for each project based on their design: Stories produced would be measured in terms of distribution or publication, audience size, audience response etc., whereas a local service project might be evaluated in terms of resources provided to a community etc.
We are committed to making sure our work is giving youth the necessary skills and tools to make the greatest impact, and to constantly adapt as we learn more about what works and what doesn't.
----------
Andrew Hoppin
http://www.globehoppin.com
I like that Yenza is building off of existing programmatic infrastructure (that of Global Buddies)-- that should leverage the funding invested in the project to greater impact. I also like the idea of deploying social media tools and training to foster lasting collaborative and PRODUCTIVE (they'll produce compelling content) relationships between US and African youth.
----------
Andrew Hoppin
http://www.globehoppin.com
By helping youth to communicate and share experiences, Yenza gives them a priceless awareness and opening to the world.
I wish the best to Yenza and I look forward to discover new great projects.
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