This April we visited the Dumagat community of Tanay, Rizal in the Philippines. Traditionally living on the sea the community had to adapt to their new life on the land. Having learned the basics of farming (mainly sweet potatoes and bananas) the community still struggles to ensure a stable and predictable supply of food, so we decided to help the community by raising funds, and cultivate the land. Since our time was limited, we put a lot of effort in strategy and planning, involving local NGO expert Taktika Multimedia. The founder Joie offered us her free help. With her being not only proficient in charity projects but also having prior experience with the community, we could ensure a meaningful project. The focus was sustainability (bringing several hundred seeds and solar powered lights, with the support of Liter of Light), but we also did not wont to come empty handed. Having bought 15 kilograms of protein rich food that is easy to store it was quite a walk to reach the settlement, not to speak of the 10 rivers we needed to cross. The fundraising was more successful than expected, leaving us with funds to buy a goat for the community. She was still young and feeding on her mother, but should be with the tribe by now. Hopefully, before September we can follow up, and see grown plants, and well fed happy children.
Since films and videos are our passion, it was easy to say yes, when I was asked whether we should make it happen or not: the very first Kino Kabaret in Budapest! Within a few days after accepting the challenge (and before a partial break in San Diego), we dedicated some special time to create a nice homepage, and make Budapest a part of the Kino Kabaret network: a fantastic world wide network of like-minded people, participating in our filmmaking workshops, and contributing to independent film all over the world. The high-energy workshop went great, with little time for proper sleep: the participants had to pitch their work, and had three days from storyboard to finding the proper talent and do the directing, shooting, editing and post production of their work - with one goal: proudly see the result screened in one of Budapest's most popular alternative cinemas: Bem mozi.
Matt
D.I.Y. VIDEO WORKSHOP IN HUBBA (BANGKOK)Hosted by Asia's probably most active Tech Startup experts - Growth Hacking Asia - we just had our first whole day workshop at Bangkok's most welcoming venue - Hubba - in a beautiful green setting. With 13 local startuppers from different backgrounds, and with their unique goals, vision and level of expertise, it was quite a tough challenge to get everyone on board.
Each product being quite exciting (from cosmetics, living houses and spiritual consulting to marketing and mattresses), the 8 hours were probably not enough to go as deep as I had wished to, but a lot of good script ideas arose, which with some work and a good team behind can make these products a true highlight on social platforms. WOrking with charity orgs and local startupsIn March 2016 we thought its best to start with our values, after a busy last year, mainly focused on building our business. After grabbing not only my backpack, but 30 kg of high-tech camera gear I first headed to Bali, and decided to dedicate a full day to helping a foundation, that operates at low cost, and does everything to help local children.
This quickly brought us to Yayasan Sayangi Bali who do a great job, helping abandoned children grow up, and find a local family to adopt them. Taking care of 7 babies at once, Amel, a baby requiring special attention was giving them a hard time financially. Requiring several surgeries, because of problems with her limbs her story felt like worth sharing, in hope of help, and a better life for her. We decided to support the organization with a free online campaign and website fixes, to make online donation possible easily, and spreading the word. Together with Jenny - our local twitter influencer - and Kitabisa, a local charity crowd-founding site we managed to raise 3000 USD, that would suffice for 2 surgeries, giving her hope for a normal life. |
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May 2017
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