Background of co-organiser
Walk in Hong Kong is a leading cultural enterprise. They are known for their wonderful storytelling. They make what could be dry history lessons to memorable experiences, rooted in Hong Kong’s people and culture. Their walking tours are well loved by travellers, corporates, schools, families and locals alike.
Despite their small scale, they are an influential advocate for heritage conservation and driving social changes. In 2016, their team successfully lobbied for a Grade 1 historic building status for State Theatre in North Point, helping preserve one of the city’s most important theatrical venues. In 2017, Walk in Hong Kong won the HSBC Youth Business Gold Award, an important recognition of their enterprising effort.
Project details
[Project overview]
Walk in Hong Kong will train a group of secondary school students to become capable oral historian. They will then conduct oral history interviews in the community to capture the human stories, and then disseminate the stories through community documentary screening and online platform sharing.
[Purposes and expectations]
- To hone the communication and multimedia skills of the participants
- To raise the social awareness of the audience about their own community
- To facilitate the community’s bond through community-based screening and sharing
- To create a systematic and visually appealing online platform to gather oral history records and videos
[Targets]
- Participants: secondary school students
- Mentors: university students or retirees with oral history training
- Tutors: professionals from journalism, history, cultural studies and communication sectors
- Audience: community members of the school’s district
[Outline]
Stage 1: Training to be a capable oral historian
Students are going to learn oral history and documentation skills, including interviewing, copyediting, filming and post-production skills. Storytelling skills will be a crucial part of the training as well, in order for them to deliver interesting stories about the community.
Stage 2: Going into the community
Students will form groups and decide the goal of their oral history project, identify interviewees in the community and formally request for interview sessions. They will exercise the skills learned in Stage I, conduct the interview and document the process.
Stage 3: Community sharing
Students will then compile and create slide shows, videos, audio recordings, or written records of their interviews. We will support them in arranging community sharing sessions and invite community members to join the session. This is to raise the awareness of the local residents about their community’s history and increase their bonding.
[Final output]
- Multimedia products made by the students for sharing in different communities
- An online platform to publish the stories compiled by the students along with other historic information
[Work to do]
- Develop class plans
- Design training materials and interactive activities
- Strong emphasis on interviewing skills and ethics, e.g. humility, empathy
- Determine suitable assessment method and ways of giving critique/feedback