The first of the Rights of Children (ROC) ‘Living Sustainably’ environmental Public Service Announcements (PSA) produced by secondary schools around the country was aired on Channel 2 during the news on Tuesday.
ROC has compiled 13 PSAs on a DVD, the product of a challenge competition held last year among secondary schools. It was officially launched at a December 28, 2008 ceremony where prizes were handed out to the participants.
The DVD was distributed among the schools that took part in the competition and Tuesday’s airing marked the first time it was being shown to the public.
According to a ROC press release, the challenge competition saw teams from 24 schools involving 103 students from five regions who came together in regional workshops during August 2008. The workshops focused on major environmental problems in Guyana, technical training in the use of video equipment and how to produce PSAs.
However, the release said, the effectiveness of the workshops varied considerably given the physical arrangements, availability of electricity, interest of head teachers or assigned staff and the numbers involved.
Challenge kits were provided to each school at the workshops. The kits were designed by ROC members and contained various sets of guidelines which enabled the teams to produce PSAs in video format.
The release said that of the 24 teams, 20 involved themselves in developing scripts and storyboards. While individual ROC members were assigned to each school to mentor the progress of the teams, several teams were able to film their PSAs without the help of ROC. The release said lack of telephone contact in Regions Five and Six was one obstacle which eventually led to several teams being unable to complete their assignments. Further bottlenecks in editing of the materials by ROC members led to a delay in completion of editing. Filming of the PSAs took place during September and December of last year.
At the end of the competition three experienced judges in video production judged the PSAs for their content, message, techniques and general appeal. Of the 17 videos produced, 13 were selected for the DVD. The three best PSAs were from West Demerara Secondary which won first prize in the competition. Lower Corentyne Secondary came second and East Ruimveldt Secondary was in third place.
ROC is a young people’s organisation which has campaigned on issues such as racial harmony, violence in teenage relationships and more recently on the environment.
