Festival Spirit

 Youth Insight Festival 


Opening Persentation

The Youth insight festival was a major mile stones for my ESC volunteering experience. Our organization Pangeya Uiltima worked together with Voronovytsya House of Culture to create a festival for the local youth who wish to get involved in both media production and the performing arts.    

Planning and Organisation

The planning of the festival began as early as February when our team lead by Anna, our Italian Volunteer, began brainstorming ideas of what actives or events should be included in the festival. As the weeks went by our team built a festival schedule that included the following;
  1. Open Screen (we youth could enter their short films for screening)
  2. loop Cinema (The viewing of Pangeya films made during 2020-2021) 
  3. light Cinema  (A theater preformist by a local theater group from Voronovytsya) 
  4. Photo Exhibition (Digital Story) 
  5. Theater Workshop
  6. Singing Workshop
  7. Calligraphy Workshop
  8. Painting with a Local Artist (A local painting from Voronovytsya gave a painting workshop)
  9. Media Quest (Task given to local youth who than needed to make a sort film to be judge at the end of the festival)
  10. Panel talks (talks given by guest speakers about media production and about volentering through the ESC project)

Workshop Calligraphy

With this list in place the Organisation began to full into place after the numerous location scouting and the fine tuning of the schedule triggering the count down to day of the actual festival Itself. The most challenging aspect of this festival for me was the difficulty of language for translation was not always possible or quick enough to led to smooth discussion or decisions making which can led to frustrations. This experience; however frustrating, gives one patination's when communicating and practice in non verbal communication.  

Media Quest Persentation

Preparation and Realisation

On the day of Preparation, chaos is the only word I could use to explain the mood. Some many things were being done at the last minute it was difficult to think about how to be most useful. This was not helped by language as no clear orders were given and a lot of standing around doing nothing was common place. This did not created a positive atmosphere for the team worked needed to make such an event run smoothly. However, even with this less than ideal start, the festival began to take shape and local people especially youth began to join our actives.

Theater Workshop


The Realisation of this festival was amazing to see given the amount of effort that was poured in by everyone involved. The amount of young people who attended and actively participated in our workshops and media quest was encouraging to see how much joy they received form participating. All the final enters submitted were really good and showed that a lot of effort had put in by those making the short films. As a media quest judge I was blown away by the level of professionalism these amateur film makers manage to achieve. It was encouraged to see how this festival engage the local youth of Voronovytsya and gave hope that the house of culture and Pangaye can build on this success in the coming years.

Open Screen

Conclusion 

To conclude my experience of running the youth insight festival, my frist though was challenging. Not only with the language but with working with multiple cultures different from our own. This leeds to a lot of miss communication and the need for constante conflict resolution. Though this does create a good learning opportunity for all involved to grow in many areas related to working in a multicultural team which is what ESC is all about. Therefore, my advise to all new volunteers is that even though this part of the ESC project might be the most challenging. It is also the project that wil teach you the most during your time within ESC. Therefore, don't be afraid and take it one step at a time. This will lead you to the joyous monument of seeing those youth taking pleasure in what you have created for them making the hardship worth it.

Live Music 

  

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