Scott Jamieson: welcome to the empathy to impact. Podcast
Scott Jamieson: we are visiting the International School of Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia and to give a little background recently, in May.
Scott Jamieson: in Munich, the base 10 Sustainability summit was hosted, and that is the 2024 iteration of what was previously the Fis Change Maker Conference. A great opportunity for young people to connect across the region and think about how they can collaborate with others and kind of grow along their Change Maker journey as part of that mad courses
Scott Jamieson: for for the 1st year, as part of this created a dockathon, and Matt is all about making a difference and thinking about global citizenship and service
Scott Jamieson: brought to life in your classroom I will include a link to Mad and their websites in our show notes. But as part of the dockathon.
Scott Jamieson: We have one of the top films from the docket phone produced by students at the International School of Willimatar, and we are gonna be chatting about their film and the process of creating that film and some of the work that they're doing in service, learning at their school. So really excited to connect with this group of students today, and I'm gonna pass over to them to do some quick introductions before we dive in.
mark: Hi, my name is Sugen, and I'm in 10th grade, and I worked on the editing for the docket.
mark: My name is Hustlin, and I'm also in 10th grade, and I worked on editing and translations.
mark: Hello! My name is Sarah. I'm the director, and I worked on helping like lead. The story.
mark: Hello! My name is Irena, and I worked on the photography and filming for the documentary.
mark: Hello! My name is Victor, and I worked on the audio for the documentary.
Scott Jamieson: Fantastic.
Scott Jamieson: I get a chance to watch your film and really enjoyed it, and so that for those who have not seen it, I would encourage you to pause your listening to our podcast go to our show notes, and you can find a link there to the students, film on the dolemelling soup kitchen in their community in Mongolia, and I would love to know what inspired you to make your documentary featuring this, the soup kitchen.
mark: Well, we've worked along with the soup kitchen for many, many years.
mark: and we've supported them through, you know as much as we can.
mark: So we really have this close bond relationship with the soup kitchen and the staff there.
mark: and we wanted them to have the opportunity to share what they're doing, share their stories and share the story of the Mongolian population, and what we struggle with the most.
Scott Jamieson: Cook.
Scott Jamieson: That sounds awesome. And I wanna learn a little bit more about your relationship. So thinking about all of you as high school students.
Scott Jamieson: How did you.
Scott Jamieson: or what inspired you to get involved with the soup kitchen as part of
Scott Jamieson: service learning in your high school.
mark: I think, for me.
mark: I was once a 6th grader that volunteered. For the 1st time
mark: I felt this very deep connection
mark: with the surroundings and learning more about the you know, outside of my small bubble.
mark: Let me a small echo chamber, and I finally, you know, saw what was out there, and how I could help, and how I could be involved with my community.
mark: And then that inspired me later on in 10th grade
mark: to start reopen the opportunity to volunteer at the soup kitchen and get more people included.
mark: and also volunteering.
Scott Jamieson: Anyone else like to share their story. If I came to be involved.
mark: The 1st time I went to the sip kitchen was for the filming, and when I went I didn't expect to see so much people who had struggled with problems like education or healthcare.
mark: And it was pretty eye opening because we also visited
mark: the gear district, and it is
mark: pretty
mark: eye opening to see what it would be like in the winter, since it can get to like negative 40 degrees in Mongolia.
Scott Jamieson: Anyone else anything to add.
mark: I think our school in general really encourages our involvement with our cooperation with the dome in soup kitchen, and I think our students like high school students being able to go and volunteer as for service learning, or just in general.
mark: really helps us, you know, opens our perspective on both our community and also big topics like poverty and education. And it helps us, you know, form a better understanding of these issues and what we can do.
Scott Jamieson: Why is an organization like the Doma Link soup kitchen so important in that community?
mark: I think the main thing that domain achieves is, it gives hope. It gives hope to people that just because, like this is the situation that they're born into, that they don't have to.
mark: you know, continue falling into bad habits, or you know the footsteps of the people, you know, in that situation. I think it gives hope to the children there
mark: that they have an opportunity to learn to grow and to get out of the state, because.
mark: you know, sometimes when we're in in environments where there's abuse, there's neglect, there's lack of education. We lose hope.
mark: and the joomlink soup kitchen gives it creates a community of hope. We're giving hope to people giving education, giving them all the resources they need, so that they can improve. And it also provides this comfortable area a safety net for people to fall into and have warm food through. The winters, survive the harsh winters with warm clothes, food, and a warm community. I think
mark: it's about creating this community that helps people connect people and gives them hope to help. Let them survive.
Scott Jamieson: I really like how you say a community of hope.
Scott Jamieson: and there is certainly a feeling of that watching your documentary. Then, just seeing the the gratitude that people have for the work that goes on there, and just being able to right have access to healthy hot food during those cold months and
Scott Jamieson: just not having to feel that stress. There was one man and talked about being able to feed his family because he's working so hard. And this is just a way that he can kind of
Scott Jamieson: be able to make sure that everybody's getting enough to eat. And I think that just is really touching. I think that that part and something else, the theme that kind of I pulled from the film as I was watching, was about breaking down stereotypes, and how some people have
Scott Jamieson: kind of a formed opinion of people in poverty or people who are struggling. Can you talk about? Why, that was important in your film.
mark: There's definitely a very strong stereotype in our country of what you know the people living in the gear district act like or look like.
mark: So there's this very big segregation of classes. In our country, but with a community with like still mulling soup kitchen, we create the connection between the between the classes, and we understand each other, you know, as humans.
mark: So it was for us, you know, we grew up with a lot of privileges. But
mark: when we're helping, when we're going to the community, when we see what the life is like for ourselves, we understand that you know the stereotype is not is not real. It's a false stereotype.
mark: People are born into poverty. And so our
mark: our role, we feel like is to help them as much as we can, because we're all you know, we're all born human. So we have to help each other right?
mark: So it's about spreading that positivity, breaking down those stereotypes and getting involved with the community
mark: that we're so connected with.
Scott Jamieson: That's really beautiful. I love that. And I think.
Scott Jamieson: yeah, the more we can see that we are kind of all in this together and be working collaboratively to raise everyone up. I think that's just. It's such a great mindset and really exciting.
Scott Jamieson: When you were visiting the soup kitchen to create your documentary coming in with the cameras? When
Scott Jamieson: were people there enthusiastic to participate? Or how did that go? As you were kind of creating your documentary, you were able to kind of interviews. Different people you look, you talk to the staff. You talk to people who are there. You know, benefiting from the services of the soup kitchen, where people enthusiastic to talk to you? Or were there some challenges.
mark: I remember, like some people, were like, Wow, what is this cause? We had, like all kinds of like different equipments, like tripods, and like stands and stuff like that. And some of them were actually really enthusiastic about it, like they wanted to be in the camera. And while I was filming. I showed them some pictures of themselves, and they looked very pleased.
mark: But there were also people
mark: who were like a bit shy
mark: and like
mark: they were kind of anxious when I pointed the camera at them.
mark: Yeah, like, there's always a very big mix of reactions, like depending on the person depending on the situation. Sometimes if there's especially if there's children involved, people don't want their faces on camera, but if maybe it's an adult they want to be. They want to share their story right? They're very enthusiastic about sharing their story and kind of getting
mark: their story out so that people understand their situation better. So it's always a very big difference in reactions.
mark: I think they definitely wanted, like some of them definitely wanted their voices to be heard. They saw it as an opportunity to express their opinions to a wider variety of people that they don't really get
mark: to talk to, and some of them made great speeches about education and their personal experiences
mark: like, for example, one of the guys had
mark: a stroke or like a tumor in his brain, and he couldn't move, but, like
mark: the soup kitchen brought him hope, and he started to recover. And now he can walk and talk again.
mark: and, like some of the people they were born, as Sarnia mentioned, like born into poverty. It's like a cycle of poverty, so like when your parents are
mark: suffering from poverty, there's nothing, really, that you can do. But the soup kitchen definitely brings hope and takes off some of the stress by offering them food.
mark: Yeah.
Scott Jamieson: It is a challenge for sure. We think about that cycle of poverty. And you know the can. All these different kind of interconnected pieces like access to education and just access to healthy food as children. And I think an organization like this can have such a huge impact. And it was so cool that you were able to kind of share their story through your documentary. I wanna circle back to something that's
Scott Jamieson: everyone has said about the different equipment as you're coming in there. And I'd love to know what skills did you have to learn as you're becoming filmmakers and directors and editors and some of the different equipment you're working with, or some of the skills you had to learn as part of this process to create your documentary.
mark: Well.
mark: working as an editor. From my perspective, there was a lot of like new learning curves about working with the software, and then how to create a good narrative that was comprehensive, but also easy to, you know, Swallow, for, like, you know, 5 min or 6 min that we had given with all of these big issues that we had to compress into the small amount of time while still making it. You know, a good documentary. I think there was a lot of
mark: new skills that I learned. Also.
mark: new challenges were faced a lot like apart from the time. There was lots of
mark: like for cutting, and then there was
mark: some parts that didn't make sense, and well, a lot of my team members would come over and say, this part looks a lot. This part looks like it's extra. And then lots of back and forth.
mark: I think it was.
mark: Most of it was a lot of learning.
Scott Jamieson: Definitely a lot of critical thinking that goes into that editing process. Especially, we only have a limited amount of time to tell your story. And what stays, what goes? What's gonna be impactful, what's extra? And so that collaboration as well as you're working with your team? No, it sounds really amazing.
Scott Jamieson: One other thing I wanna ask about, too, is the music I thought the music really added to your story, and it wasn't something that I'm familiar with. I'd like to learn a little bit more about how you chose the music to kind of add to your film.
mark: So every year our school offers a
mark: some a voyage to the countryside.
mark: and one of the teachers during this voyage got the opportunity to record
mark: a Mongolian man playing music
mark: with traditional Mongolian instruments.
mark: and then we use the
mark: we use the recording.
mark: since there was no copyright, since we were the one who got it. We used it in the documentary.
mark: and we thought it would make a good addition to really give people who would watch a good feel that like this is Mongolia.
mark: and it's not any other country.
mark: and the music itself is traditional throat singing, or you can call it a long song. It's a part of Mongolian culture, and it was a reference to our nomadic lifestyles.
mark: especially since the setting in that documentary was in the care district which usually people from the countryside, from that lifestyle come into the urban city and Ulambatar, where they face this great disparity between their lifestyles and face these challenges, like poverty and education.
Scott Jamieson: Thank you for sharing that. I thought I I knew there was a connection to the kind of traditional Mongolian culture, but I am excited to learn a little bit more about that. I think it's so amazing that that's like an original recording that you were able to make as part of the screen with your school. I think that's really kind of adds to the story. Now that I know that
Scott Jamieson: you talk toward the end of the film about sustainability and showed the greenhouse that is at the soup kitchen. Now, can you tell me a little bit about how that came about, and why? That's an important aspect of the story.
mark: So the biggest goal of the soup kitchen is to provide nutritious and healthy food
mark: to those that are visiting. Right? That's why, during the summer they start planting their seeds, and throughout the whole year they grow lots of different types of vegetables and fruits. This is an opportunity also to provide employment to some of the visitors, especially during the summer, to help with the vegetation
mark: and
mark: we've over the years we've built them the greenhouse. We've built them a storage unit for the vegetables.
mark: So with little things like this, I think we make a very big impact.
Scott Jamieson: For sure. I I think it's so cool that this students at your school are able to contribute in such a meaningful way, and thinking about how all those kind of Internet connected pieces like being more sustainable for this new kitchen be growing some of their own vegetables, and also kind of having some control over kind of that process and being able to offer fresh quality food to people who come in there. I think it's really amazing.
Scott Jamieson: What was the reaction from the staff at the soup kitchen when you showed them your final documentary.
mark: They were very excited and happy, because
mark: I think they felt the
mark: felt, you know, with little aspects like the music and the people. I think they felt the impact that they were making and why they do this type of work right? Why they work in this type of
mark: non-government organization. Why, they surround their whole careers around helping people. I think they saw that, you know
mark: all the little tiny aspects tied together in the small 5 min video, and how we were able to tell that story for them.
mark: So I think they were very pleased and happy that their story got to be shared.
Scott Jamieson: I was really inspired when you went and interviewed the some of the staff of this kitchen. So many of them have been there for such a long time like you're just so committed to this work. And I thought that was really inspiring.
Scott Jamieson: Now that you've had this experience as documentary filmmakers, you know, as editors, as directors. Kind of putting this together.
Scott Jamieson: What advice would you have for future dockathon participants as they're thinking about getting into this process.
mark: I think the 1st thing is finding
mark: something passionate
mark: to share.
mark: We've worked with dome and soup kitchen for a very long time. We've built deep connections. We go there almost every single week. We have this very deep rooted passion and sense of community with the domealing soup kitchen. That's why we knew everything we wanted to share from the start, every aspect, every story, every perspective that we wanted to share from the start. So I think, 1st of all, it's important to have something you're passionate, and you truly want to share.
mark: And I also think that documentary, wise rather than thinking more like, you know, statistics and factual evidence of, you know, displaying that sort of information. I think it's important to have really understand what sort of narrative you want to show. I think it's important to really see this as
mark: spreading a reality of a certain community into a larger global audience. I think it's understand, to really capture the heart of the people and the certain essence of the problem rather than you know this happened. This happened, and things like that. So really think about adding emotion and soul into the talkathon.
mark: Him?
mark: Yeah. I think
mark: we also try to aim to bring emotion, bring motivation, bring passion into our like documentary, and we try to bring
mark: the most essential aspects of some of the
mark: experiences of the people or
mark: the contributions like the workers.
mark: and show that to other people who have not witnessed all of this and additionally, when I was filming one of the workers there. So one of the cooks there, she didn't want the camera to be emphasized on her. She wanted the people who are going there like their voices, to be heard.
mark: She wanted me to take pictures or film like her people and the people that she was serving, and
mark: she was very
mark: compassionate about working there and
mark: helping people in need.
Scott Jamieson: Victor or Yusuf. Anything to add.
mark: Think, as an editor.
mark: Working on the documentary was also very eye opening, cause
mark: it took
mark: a lot of my time, and I didn't expect how much time was needed to make a documentary.
mark: So if other people wanted to do a document, it's also important to realize how much time it takes and dedication it takes to make a documentary
mark: and
mark: showing the narrative and stuff.
mark: And to add on to that, I think when you're editing.
mark: you really have to be patient.
mark: and you really have to have a clear mind when you're working.
mark: And you know some things like some mistakes that you don't notice today. You might notice tomorrow, when you have it clear ahead.
mark: So it's really good to have patience and to have opinions from like
mark: other perspectives and other people watching.
mark: because sometimes a mistake. You can't see.
mark: Other people can.
mark: and yep.
Scott Jamieson: Such fantastic advice.
Scott Jamieson: You know, having something, a story that you are passionate about, and a relationship with that organization where you're already a part of that community, and I think that makes it so much easier. And
Scott Jamieson: I really liked how
Scott Jamieson: coupling am I saying that right.
mark: Good plan. Yes.
Scott Jamieson: I really like how Queensland talked about the responsibility.
Scott Jamieson: because it is such a big responsibility in how we tell this story.
Scott Jamieson: and
Scott Jamieson: being able to share that with compassion and with emotion, and
Scott Jamieson: from a place of equity.
Scott Jamieson: And you know, sometimes challenging. Coming into these communities, we're coming in from an international school. We often come in from a place of privilege, and being able to come into that space and share that story responsibly, in a way that
Scott Jamieson: kind of is from a place of equity and from like a really amazing emotional connection.
Scott Jamieson: And I really like how you're talking with time, too. I think that is so so important. This is not a quick process. And anyone getting into, especially the editing piece and you guys were, we're spot on with that? It does. It does take some time. And Victor was talking about how you have to be patient. You absolutely. Do you know, you're going through this, over and over and over again, looking at transitions, looking at, you know, a few seconds here and there, and it's all those little details that
Scott Jamieson: move from like an average film to a really amazing film. And I think you all did such amazing work through your collaboration. And you know, focusing on each everyone's individual skills and really bringing this together to tell such an amazing story.
Scott Jamieson: What is something you are most proud of at the end of this journey.
mark: I think we're most proud of how we decided to join. In the 1st place, I think there was lots of risky factors. We thought we didn't have enough time.
mark: We thought that, you know, we never did something like this together. We didn't work together before, so we felt like it was risky, and maybe even a little bit
mark: of a waste. Maybe maybe like next year we would have started earlier and planned it out better. So it was, it felt, risky to all of us, especially during this very busy of our busy schedule. We thought it would kind of be a waste, so we're very proud that we decided to take the risk to take and just join. Just do it, you know.
mark: That's something that we're really proud of
mark: and I think, despite having all these risks and despite all these new challenges, I mean and skills learned along the way, I think, have managing to finish this docker thorn video, and having this success.
mark: despite all like the mistakes we made and some flaws that were in the Dockathon video, I think just being in this position is something to be proud of.
Scott Jamieson: And we don't see the dead.
Scott Jamieson: Well, certainly, lots to be proud of here. Thank you all so much.
Scott Jamieson: I think you did such an amazing job. And it's a huge accomplishment to be able to share this story with a global audience and really trying to spotlight us people in your community who are doing some amazing work and highlight that reciprocal partnership you have between your school and the soup kitchen, and
Scott Jamieson: I would really encourage everybody to check out the show notes, check out mad courses, but check out the link to the documentary, and have a look and be inspired by this story. I I think it's such a great example of a community partnership that a school might engage with to
Scott Jamieson: have that mutually beneficial experience where we're growing. We're learning as school community, and we are working collaboratively with an amazing organization in our community.
Scott Jamieson: So thank you all very much for taking some time this morning, during a very busy week in in your calendar. I'm feeling so inspired giving a chance to talk to all of you. And really appreciate your time today.
mark: Thank you. Thank you so much.
Scott Jamieson: And we're good.
Scott Jamieson: I turn off the recording.