The Ready to Read English DVD Series was recently featured in an article about crowdfunding in the Indian Express. Click here to read the article. The team in Chennai is still working on the post-production phase, but things are moving along. Thanks again to everyone who supported this project!

Kirsten

Think Globally, Act Locally: Support education in India @ Salvador Molly’s on Tuesday, Dec 7th

Join the AID Portland Chapter and Salvador Molly's in welcoming Dr. Balaji Sampath, one of India’s leading education advocates and Ashoka Fellow, to Portland. Balaji will be available to talk about the Eureka Superkidz Village Education program and share his experiences leading an NGO in India. And I'll be there to update anyone interested in the video project - it is still in progress, but moving along!

Salvador Molly’s has graciously offered to donate 20% of all food and drink proceeds from the evening to the Eureka Superkidz Village Education program. Everyone is welcome! Bring a friend, co-worker, neighbor or stranger to enjoy the international cuisine and learn more about how Aid India is supporting education in India.

Who: You & Dr. Balaji Sampath
When: Tuesday, December 7th from 5pm-9pm
Where: Salvador Molly's, 1523 SW Sunset, Portland, OR
20% of all food and drink purchases will go toward Aid India’s Eureka Superkidz program.

For more information:
Facebook: AID Potland
Twitter: @AID_Portland
Call: Kirsten 503-320-3822

Hope to see you there!

I shot these with the crew my last day in Chennai. They were a bit exhausted after several weeks of shooting and an already long day, so they were a bit loopy. :) Enjoy the videos. I'm working on the last one and will post it soon.

From Chennai to Hong Kong - thank you
http://www.vimeo.com/13400174

H is for Henry...
http://www.vimeo.com/13373915

Now that I'm stateside, I'll be consulting on post-production via email for the next few months. When we have a final product, I'll let you know.

Thanks again,
Kirsten

The blooper reel has been uploaded to youtube.com. This video will REALLY give you an idea of what went on the last month. Both lots of fun and frustration. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

We had the cast/crew party last night. I'm going to miss this great team of people and these kids. One more week of production with our external directors and then I'm off.

See some of you stateside very soon.
Kirsten

As of Friday, June 25th at 2pm we finished shooting. A comprehensive description of the shoot will come later (too exhausted now), but here are two videos that describe the last month well.

Behind the Scenes Look: http://www.vimeo.com/12724888

Last Day of Shooting: http://www.youtube.com/backpackerjournalism#p/a/u/0/nRSPg-fy02w

A blooper reel is currently being uploaded to youtube.com.

Thanks again for your support!
Kirsten

Hi Friends,

The next episodes are on their way!

A quick update to let you know what's happening with the project. Originally we had hoped to do a lot more fund raising to help us secure funds for this project and kickstarter was just one avenue we were using. Sadly, with the economy, our other attempts have been fruitless. However, that isn't stopping us from moving foward, we've just had to rethink our approach and strategy...like good creative development educationists that we are.

So, we have restructured and rethought the project. We will be outsourcing the creative fun bits: songs and animation to our previous directors. The educational bits, we will produce ourselves.

We are in the process of finalizing 20+ scripts and have started making props. We will begin rehearsals with the students next week while we finalize the schedules, scripts and continue making props. We hope to start shooting the first week of June. It's a lot to get done, but since I'll be on a flight to the US on July 12th (coming home for good??) it's gotta get done!

How are we doing this all?

Luckily, we have a great set of volunteers and interns that are helping us put it all together, everything from writing, editing, prop making to filming and post-production editing. Will keep you posted on the progress of the production. You can follow it on twitter: sistaKAA or on the Ready to Read blog.

Stay tuned for more updates! Thanks again for your support. YOU are making this possible.

Thank you,
Kirsten

Photo: Taken on the first day of prop making. Five of the teachers working on our program in Chennai have agreed to help us with prop-making and rehearsals this month. The props will all be cardboard and paper mache. It's a long process and lots of cutting, sticking and painting required but its a cheap option!

Dear Backers,

I put together a 2 minute video with clips we've taken from our trips into the field during our school visits and DVD screenings. We've gotten an overwhelmingly positive response from teachers and students. Yesterday a student, without being provoked, claimed it was the most 'jolly' video he had ever seen and he learned something too! Although after watching it more than 20-30 times ourselves, we've identified many areas for improvement and segment styles we will change in the next episodes. We are discussing these with our directors now and re-crafting our episode style based on the feedback we've received.

Anyway...enjoy the video and all the very cute kids!

Kirsten

Wow--thank you everyone!!

We did it, or rather you did it. You all helped us reach our $4,000 goal. Thank you so much to everyone who has pledged and is backing this project. Your support means a lot all of us on the English team at Aid India. It is encouraging to know that there are so many people out there supporting and encouraging us to continue this work. We met with our directors last week and have begun talks about the next several episodes. Now that we've raised enough money for another episode we are that much closer to our goal of completing the project. We hope to have the next shoot in June.

But we still have 16 days left on kickstarter and each episode is going to cost about $4000, so please pass this onto friends, family or colleagues. We can still use all the help we can get. Additional funds raised beyond our $4000 goal will go towards additional episodes. And the more episodes we can produce in one go, the more we can bring our costs down.

Thank you to everyone for your support and for spreading the word!
Kirsten
______________________
Below are pictures taken during a field visit to a Government Tribal School 3 hours by bus from Trichy in central Tamil Nadu state. We are running the reading program in this school up in the hills that serves mostly tribal children. I was able to show the DVD on their government supplied TV and DVD player after the power came back on at 3pm. The entire primary school came to watch it. The students had probably never seen a foreign face in their village before and were a tad bit shy at first, but warmed up to me over the course of the afternoon as did their English ability.

Hi Backers,

Just a quick update. My colleagues and I have been screening the DVD in rural areas and also in schools in Chennai (see pics attached). I'm accumulating more train time this month than the last year combined and have many more trips to take. We are getting lots of great feedback from the kids and teachers. The kids especially love the songs and their favorite seems to be Ranga the Rabbit (see pic attached). The teachers are equally excited about this new learning resource and are eager for the next few episodes.

For those interested in the current status of education in India, the Annual Status of Education Report 2009 has just been released. It is a very hefty report and is available for download (http://www.asercentre.org/) or you can read a consolidated report online http://www.hindu.com/mag/2010/01/24/stories/2010012450110300.htm

Among the 31 Indian states, ASER 2009 ranked Tamil Nadu ninth from the bottom in English reading skills. Additionally, it reported that only 14.9% of young learners in third through fifth grades were able to read sentences in English. Given that English is mandatory in the current setting of higher education and employment, there seems to be a need for this type of focused innovative intervention. Although, as The Hindu article points out, the quality of education is only one of the many problems that plagues education in India.

Thanks again for all your support and for spreading the word about this project. We have 41 days of fund raising left and are already 88% funded. This is fantastic!

Thank you!
Kirsten

My apologies for the long delay in updates. I was home for the holidays (great to see so many of you) and just recently returned to India. It's time to jump back into the project feet first and update you on our developments.

On December 23rd, right before catching my flight to the US, we screened the pilot episode at Brinda School where 4 of the 6 kids who starred in the DVD attend. Not only were the kids thrilled to share it with their classmates, their classmates were thrilled to see them on screen--movie stars in their midst. I've attached a photo from the screening. Arranging this viewing for the entire school was a small challenge because as you can see from the pictures, the school does not have a large enough space for all the students except in the 'auditorium' which only has one outlet and lots of outside light, although no overhead lights. After realizing that the wall did not display the picture well enough, we brought a screen in addition to a projector, and speakers from our office which allowed all the kids to see and listen to it. Viewing movies, educational or otherwise, is not part of the regular curriculum at this school, so it was a special treat for everyone.

We are currently in the process of assessing the pilot episode at the above mentioned school as well as others to get valuable feedback from the teachers and students. Since the whole school screening, we've viewed it with the 4th graders three times as part of our initial assessment. Additionally, we are doing pre and post assessments with several students from each class to gauge the overall learning outcomes. Its a learning process for us as well, but we are borrowing ideas from the creators of Sesame Street. We are training volunteers to help us with the assessment and we will continue screening it and collecting feedback for another 1-2 months. This information will be invaluable as we develop the next set of scripts.

We are eager for outside feedback and comments as well. There are several copies of the DVD in the US floating around and plenty of copies in India. If you would like to view it for yourself, or know of educationists that may be willing to provide feedback, please let me know and I'll try to get you a copy.

Happy 2010!
Kirsten

We had a training with our teachers yesterday. They watched the pilot episode and the behind the scenes documentary for the first time. They loved the songs and said the level of difficulty seemed ideal for their students. They also really liked the fact that we used students actors from our target audience, they commented that their own students will be able to relate to them better. We gave them each a copy of the pilot episode which they will be showing to their classes after students return from their winter holidays in January. We will be visiting their classrooms in the new year to get feedback from the students. It's so exciting to finally have it in the hands of teachers!

Wow, this is amazing! Thank you to everyone who has already made a pledge. In less than a week since we launched Kickstarter we have 17 backers and almost 1/2 of our funding goal. And we had over $1000 pledged our first day! If this keeps up, we can surpass our funding goal and hopefully use kickstarter funds for the next 2-3 episodes. I'm really really thankful to all our family, friends and friends of friends who are supporting us! Happy Happy Holidays and many many thanks!

Stay tuned for more programmatic updates. We are showing the DVD pilot to the school where 4 of the child artists are from this afternoon. Can't wait to see their expressions and reactions--that will be the true test!

Santa and her reindeer depart tonight. Santa will be making several Xmas eve deliveries in the Portland, OR area. Thanks for your donations Portland friends!