Freedom in vision and sound

Freedom is a theme that sometimes sinks a bit in our society. It is so taken for granted. The coronavirus measures and the war in Ukraine have recently revived the discussion of freedom.

In oral history interviews, freedom comes up regularly. Especially in stories of people who have experienced situations of war and oppression themselves.

Based on the experience with the project My freedom-your freedom?, in which quotes from oral history interviews played a role, we have created an educational program. This program is intended to challenge young people in a fun way to work with the concept of freedom. The program can be used by youth workers (for example in Social Time of Service (MDT) projects and by teachers of MBO and secondary education. A more extensive introduction on the theme of freedom and the pogrammes to be used can be found at the bottom of this page.

Below you will find it worked out in four rounds.

The manual (in Dutch) can be downloaden here

What will the young people do?

The young people talk to each other about what freedom means to them.
They will learn how to use your the smartphone, create a photo art piece, an animation or a video about freedom.

How will they do it?

They take a picture about their own sense of freedom.
Make a short stop-motion movie about a freedom theme that is important to them.
Make a short film based on quotes from oral history interviews with veterans, refugees and people who have lived through war. They incorporate those quotes into their own short film.

Round 1

In this round, you will discuss the theme of freedom with a group of young people.

What do you understand by freedom?

Have all young people say (to themselves) in keywords what they mean by freedom.

On a large sheet of paper write down the keywords.

Now walk through the words and ask for their meaning and have the young people give examples.

Alternative form:

Each person writes keywords individually on Post-its. The Post-its you collect stick on a wall. For each key word, the young person explains what exactly is meant.

Round 2

Listen to at least 4 sound clips (via our website) or read the excerpt texts.

16 fragments about freedom. Each with a specific perspective on freedom.

They are fragments from the oral history collections of Ongekend bijzonder, Veteranen vertellen en Getuigenverhalen / Oorlogsbronnen.

These fragments are meant as inspiration to interpret the concept of freedom yourself.

After listening to an excerpt, have a short conversation.

What does freedom mean to the interviewee?

Do you hear any new concepts around freedom?

Compare the concepts with those from Round 1

Round 3

Three ways to imagine freedom.

In Round 3, the youth will work with their smartphones to represent the meaning of the concept of freedom.

The texts below are addressed directly to the youth. They can view this section on their smartphones, for example, so they can easily download the apps.

1. Photo taking / editing

Take a picture

Use your cell phone to take a picture that expresses what freedom means to you.

Edit your photo

Edit your photo with a free photo editing app to make it more expressive.

Snapseed

[The group facilitator/teacher explains the basics]

Present your photo

Show your photo to the other young people.

They tell what they see in the picture, what they think the picture expresses.

You tell what you meant by it.

Have you heard surprising things?

Is there a difference in explanation? Is that a bad thing?

2. Stop Motion

Think of a short story about freedom that you want to portray.

In preparation, use a storyboard to put your story into scenes.

Making stop-motion animation

Create a stop-motion video with a free app.

Stop Motion Studio

[The group facilitator/teacher explains the basics]

3. Making a video

Use the quotes from Round 2 to visualize a story.

Use a storyboard to prepare your story in scenes/video clips.

Take video footage with your own phone to tell the story

and/or

Find clips on the Internet to represent your story.

Creating / editing video

Use a free video app to paste everything together and make transitions between clips.

OpenShoot-Video Editor of iMovie

or Canva

[The group facilitator/teacher explains the basics]

Round 4

Presenting

Think of a fun way to present the products to each other or a wider audience.

For inspiration, here is an example of young people from the Schilderswijk neighborhood who went through this program together with refugees from The Hague.

The resulting digital exihibition was shown at Sound ad Vision The Hague.

Facilitators/teachers manuals

Background

Many oral history interviews have been conducted in which freedom is directly or indirectly discussed. Based on those interviews, we will take a closer look at questions such as:

What is freedom really and how do people live in freedom?

Are there limits to freedom and what does freedom mean in a more collective sense?

What is the meaning of the democratic rule of law when it comes to freedom?

What are the mechanisms that undermine freedom and how can you recognize them?

Freedom is a topic of great interest to young people but whose scope they sometimes find difficult to grasp. This is especially true when it comes to the conditions that make it possible for us to live in freedom.
In the Social Service Pathways that have been developed in recent years for young people, there are programs, in which the focus is not on doing volunteer work, but on the personal development of the young people. In these programs, young people first explore the important question: Who am I? To then devise activities they want to carry out in their neighborhood. A theme such as freedom and the stories of people who have experienced not being able to live in freedom confront young people with a side of existence that is often new to them. The program includes visits to Westerbork, Camp Vught and the like. With the educational material, based on the interviews from the oral history collections, we offer young people the opportunity to develop their own image of freedom and the conditions for freedom following such visits. This includes not only individual freedoms and the question of who they apply to, but also more collective freedoms and what it takes to protect them.
The material can be used by teachers and youth workers.

(The program was originally developed for the Maatschappelijke Diensttijd-programma “School des Levens”).

Process facilitators/teachers

In preparation, the facilitator delves into a number of background articles on freedom to properly coach the youth’s thinking and doing process.

In preparation for the technical part, the facilitator becomes proficient in the use of the various apps used in the program. Below are links to the manuals of the apps that can be used.