Books and Beyond offers production opportunity for sophomore Alyssa Woolard
IU’s Books and Beyond program is celebrating 10 years of partnership with a community in Rwanda. This program works to provide books, improve literacy and empower through education for Rwandan students. IU students work with Rwandan students to create a book, The World is Our Home, which is published in both English and Kinyarwanda.
Over time, this program has expanded to be campuswide. Students, faculty and staff from the College of Arts and Sciences; the School of Art, Architecture and Design; the School of Education; the School of Optometry; The Media School; the School of Public and Environment Affairs; and the School of Social Work all participated in this year’s trip.
The Media School was represented by sophomore media major Alyssa Woolard, who filmed the whole experience.
Footage of sophomore Alyssa Woolard filming children at a school in Rwanda.
I came as sort of like that media consultant for Books and Beyond, so I went into all the classrooms and I was just filming the students and basically just trying to document our daily lives in Rwanda.
So one of the things that I wasn’t prepared for was just how I would personally feel documenting because, I mean, in America you can whip out your phone or camera, and like no one bats an eye, but here because of like the Rwandan genocide, it’s kind of taboo to have cameras in people’s faces because like just the general public because of like the tragedy that happened and the media companies coming to kind of like to report on it during such a tragic time for them. It’s kind of led them to this — they’re really uncomfortable with cameras.
The kids, the kids are amazing with it because, I mean, they will ask you for a picture. They’re children, they love pictures of themselves, they like seeing themselves on camera.
But, out when you’re in the city, if you whip out your camera, people are not gonna be happy. The kids made a game because. So they like looking at the camera, so I would be like pointing like look at the teacher, look at the teacher, but then they thought it was funny that I was like making faces at them, so they would make a game about like one would turn their head to look, and then I would like do that and then the person next to him would do it.
In one word, I’d say priceless because I, I can’t imagine what I would have been like without going on this trip.
How did you get involved in Books and Beyond, and why did you decide to go to Rwanda?
I took a class last spring with Michael Uslan. He teaches a three-week course in the spring called Live from L.A. where you Skype with people in the film industry. Michael himself is a producer for Batman. During one of his classes, he had Vera, who’s in charge of Books and Beyond, come in to speak about it. They were wanting a media student to come record things and to put together the footage. I was really interested in it because I’m also really interested in human rights and education. I thought it blended both of my interests together because I also like making films.
How did The Media School prepare you for what you did on the trip?
I also took a class last spring, a documentary class. It was taught by Susanne Schwibs, and she was very helpful in preparing me for the work I was going to do because I was on the ground, and I had to do documentary work. Learning about what goes into a documentary and how to create a story out of the footage that you get was very helpful for me. The typical, intro classes for media were helpful too because it teaches you how to use a camera and the lingo and stuff.
What kind of projects did you do while you were in Rwanda?
While I was there, everyone was assigned a class to teach, so there were eight students not including myself, so they all got their own class to teach with a teacher partner. What I would do is I would go into the classrooms and film every single day. I would just record what would be going on. I didn’t actually teach anything, except one day when one of them was sick. I went in there for teaching them a song. I also, on top of recording the students, they were doing eye exams for the students and teacher trainings. I was also there to record those as well, and I made short little videos for IU Communications for that. I also took photos as part of the documenting.
Have you ever done anything like this before?
Like I said, I was in a documentary class so we had this big student project after that, but this was the biggest thing I’ve ever done outside of school. It was really good for me, and I grew as a filmmaker because of it.
What was something you learned that you maybe weren’t expecting to learn?
The coolest part for me was just getting to see everyone evolve. I was there from start to finish, with people who became friends. Just seeing them grow from the start of the trip to their last day of teaching. I remember I got footage of the first week we were in Africa, when we were learning how to teach and how to make lesson plans, so I got footage of them doing that. Comparing that with the last day of teaching was pretty cool to see how much they grew. I feel like that’s a part of documentary work, where you just get to see the story unfold for you, and it’s your job to tell it.
Do you see the people from the trip now? Did you stay in touch?
We hung out a few times. This Friday, we’re having a party because that’s when the whole project is being revealed and IU is releasing the videos of us, so we’re going to get together and watch all the videos together and have pizza.
What was the coolest part of an experience like this? Would you recommend it?
Yeah, I definitely would. It’s something you don’t get to experience in the classroom. Just opening yourself up to a different culture – and it is a different culture – so just going there and experiencing that, you grow not only as a filmmaker, but as a person as well. It was great for gaining new experiences and meeting new people. Even outside of IU students, we have people from Rwanda who we still talk with. They’re all big on Facebook messaging, so they’ll message me like every week just checking in.
Is there anything you want people to know about the trip?
Definitely check out Books and Beyond. It’s a great project. It is a collaboration between both Rwandan students and also American students, so they both get to tell their own stories, then we put it together in this anthology. So I think it’s unique in that aspect. It’s not just us going in and helping them tell their stories, but we’re working on both sides of the globe.
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