Filming 2 social media videos about youth-led, climate change initiatives for UNICEF
As part of Kitty Van Der Heidjen’s visit to Siem Reap, I was asked to produce 2, short social media videos to showcase the young people’s climate-led initiatives.
The request was made on the second morning of the shoot, which didn’t give us much time, but the UNICEF communications team had a clear vision of what they wanted to achieve and everyone was in agreement that the young people’s campaigns were impressive. It was important to give young people a voice and the videos would be a strong tool for advocacy.
We decided to make two short videos. One about Fantastic 5, a group of five girls who had created an app to educate people about plastic use and deforestation.
The second video featured 3 of the young people’s campaigns including Fantastic 5, YOSO, a project about solar power and campaign about reducing the use of plastic in the community.
Fantastic 5
In Cambodia, it’s not uncommon for people to take videos and upload them to their own platforms. While it’s a complement for Apsara to post the video, the adverts for energy drinks they added aren’t really appropriate for the content!
Video showcasing 3 youth-led climate initiatives
Kitty Van Der Heidjen will be leading a UNICEF delegation to the COP29 conference in Azerbaijan and there will be representation from Cambodia.
My hope is that the videos can be shown at the conference and hopefully they can make a small change to give young people a voice at the table. It’s important that more resources are made available to support young people as ultimately the future of the planet is theirs.
Videographing Kitty Van Der Heidjen’s visit to Siem Reap for UNICEF
It was a pleasure to be contacted by UNICEF to make a video of Kitty Van Der Heidjen’s visit to Siem Reap. UNICEF’s communications department are always easy to work with. They have a clear vision of what they want to achieve. They provided me with a solid brief that we went over during pre-production so everyone was clear on what the outputs would be.
Kitty Van Der Heidjen is the Deputy Executive Director of Partnerships for UNICEF. She visited a school in Siem Reap to see how UNICEF has been supporting the life skill development for young people.
In the morning we visited a school and the students made presentations about their campaigns to raise awareness about the environment and climate change.
Kitty was impressed by what she saw. ‘I have been completely amazed by what I saw. In front of me on the podium, I had 12-year-olds, mostly girls, by the way, who were talking about climate change,’ she said.
‘They were talking about what they saw in their community. They were talking about what they saw in their community in terms of how that is impacting their lives. and the need to collect waste and the need to recycle waste,’ she added.
Kitty was also impressed by the tree planting campaign run by the students, ‘They were talking about planting trees and making sure that the trees were well-maintained, so that we could actually do something about climate change.’
In the afternoon we visited the communities to see the positive changes the young people’s projects had created.
‘A big part of what they are doing is not just talking about this in their classroom, but really talking to their parents, talking to other classmates, talking to their communities and making change happen,’ said Kitty.
It was a challenging shoot as Siem Reap was suffering from a heatwave and a severe drought that was taking away vital income from the communities surrounding the school.
‘The village pond, where they would take tourists to go on a boat ride is gone,’ said Kitty.
While the situation is dire, it was great to see youth-led initiatives making such a positive impact in their communities. Hopefully UNICEF can expand their work in this area both in Cambodia and globally and Kitty can mobilise more youth to join the Green Rising movement.
You can see more examples of my work with UNICEF here and here.
On assignment as an NGO videographer for UNICEF in Stung Treng
I’d worked as an NGO videographer on a Generation Future video for UNICEF a couple of years ago, so it’s always good to get the call to come back and make a follow up video to show how the programme has progressed / evolved.
We filmed the last video in Siem Reap Province. This time the location was Stung Treng Province with a focus on female empowerment and getting more girls involved in STEM subjects (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
This area where girls are underrepresented. They can also face barriers when trying to study STEM subjects.
Four Generation Future projects, Code for Girls, Cyclo Day, Meakea and RULErs, ran workshops to recruit and train 48 student volunteers from 4 schools in Stung Treng Province. All the groups featured female trainers and female student volunteers.
‘Code For Girls is a project that encourages girls to learn about coding and engineering,
which are both STEM subjects,’ says Sereny, the Code for Girls project leader.
‘We want them to use coding and 3D printing to come up with solutions to solve everyday problems,’ she adds.
‘I really enjoyed learning how to draw 2D and 3D models. I’ve never done this before,’ says Sovy, one of the student volunteers.
‘I've learnt a lot of new skills and gained a lot of new knowledge,’ she adds.
‘I’d like to see all Cambodian girls being confident and assured in the decisions they make,’ she concludes, which is a sentiment we can all agree with.
It was great working with the future generation of trainers and volunteers. Living in a country with such a young demographic, it’s essential that the younger generation, especially girls, learn leaderships skills and demand a voice in the decision-making process.
You can see the last video I made for Genreation Future here and more examples of my NGO videography work here.
Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have an NGO videography you would like to discuss.
Collaborating with WHO on a Video Case Study About Malaria Prevention in Siem Pang, Cambodia
This was the third time in a bit over a year that I’d been hired by the World Health Organization to work as a videographer on a case study for them.
This time it was malaria prevention in Stung Treng Province following Chan Sophal, who supports The Mekong Malaria Elimination (MME) programme at the provincial level.
Sophal works with remote communities close to the Lao border in Stung Treng Province.
‘I am stationed in Stung Treng Province, with a focus on Siem Pang, which is a malaria hotspot’, he says.
Sophal works closely with the head Siem Pang Health Center and the nurse in charge of the malaria elimination programme.
‘We plan our outreach campaigns together’, he says.
It was a great experience to work as a videographer for WHO and get to follow Sophal to some of the remote villages he works in.
Siem Pang itself is very remote, but it took a small ferry, a horse and cart and small boat to get to some of the highest risk communities.
As part of the Last Mile to Malaria Elimination, Sophal and his team of Village Malaria Workers (VMW) focus on the target group of men aged 15-49 years, who go regularly go into the forest and are the most likely to catch malaria and transmit it in their community.
‘We educate and encourage them to take preventive medication before they go to the forest or other high-risk malaria areas. They have never heard of preventive treatment, so taking the medicine when they're not sick worries them a lot. It is important to build trust so the community believes the medicine is good for their health,’ he says.
The medical care and education they provide is a key factor in helping to eliminate malaria in Cambodai.
This isn’t something Sophal takes lightly.
‘The work I’m proudest of is the contribution I’ve madeto eliminating malaria in Stung Treng Province’, he says.
For me working as a videographer on projects like this is a pleasure. Sophal and his team are dedicated in their work, they’ve won the trust of the communities they work in and their efforts are having a genuine impact.
Here’s a shorter version that was used as part of WHO’s 75th annievrsary social media campaign.
Working as an NGO Photographer Covering Leprosy Elimination for WHO in Cambodia
After a successful collaboration with WHO last year, it was great to be asked to work as a documentary photographer to produce another photo essay as part of their People of the Western Pacific Series.
The brief was to produce 25 photos to tell the story of Visal and the invaluable work that he does in eliminating leprosy from Cambodia.
Visal works for the National Center for Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control, under the Ministry of Health, and has been instrumental in implementing the National Programme for Leprosy Elimination.
Visal is dedicated and passionate about his work and even faced discrimination from his own family. They asked him not to visit his home town before he educated them about how easily treatable the disease is.
I spent a day taking photos of Visal as he worked in the community.
I photographed Visal conducting a training session, speaking to the local health authorities to explain their activities and conducting screening in the community.
At the end of the day, we visited a couple who both had leprosy and suffered disabilities as a result.
Visal’s work has helped to reduce the stigma within their community and he’s helped them to establish a chicken husbandry business that helps them to be financially independent.
Visal has also been instrumental in establishing networks using social media to help identify new cases. This has been very effective, particularly when working with people from remote areas, which is where most new cases are detected.
Leprosy is easily treatable and can be eliminated from Cambodia.
Due to the hard work of people like Visal, there are very few new leprosy cases in Cambodia and by educating people, their work has helped to reduce the stigma.
I wish them luck in achieving their goal.
You can see more of my photography work for WHO here. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any NGO photography projects you would like to discuss.