Jane Goodall Global Youth Summit: Video introduction to VE

from David Shurna on Vimeo
Visual Explorer™ was used to close Jane Goodall's Global Youth Summit, and the event was captured on video. The question posed was "What is one of the most important things that you learned about leadership at the Global Youth Summit?" The power of their week-long leadership experience shines through in their stories and images. Enjoy! Thanks to David Shurna at Global Explorers, and thanks especially to the participants.

The video is a good introduction to Visual Explorer™ in action (another intro to VE is posted here). The main difference from a typical VE session is that in this case, since time was limited, there were no small group dialogues. We recommend breaking into small groups of 3-5 to share the images and stories in great detail, using the dialogue technique called the Star Model.


Notice David's technique of combining the digital images of the selected images with the text written by each person, and making that into an animated power point show. You can view that show by itself, as a powerpoint show, by downloading it here. Below are two examples.

sharing a VE image at the Summit

-----Original Message-----
From: David Shurna [mailto:dave@globalexplorers.org]
To: Palus, Chuck; Horth, David
Subject: Visual Explorer and the Jane Goodall Global Youth Summit

Dear Chuck & David:

I wanted to let you know that I have returned from the Jane Goodall Global Youth Summit and your Visual Explorer activity was amazing! I used the activity at the conclusion of the week long summit as a way for students to share what they had learned about leadership throughout the week. I have attached the PowerPoint presentation that represents all of the images chosen by the students coupled with words about their action projects and their leadership lesson. The session was also filmed and I will be getting this out to you as well.

I was particularly struck by how well this work across cultures. We had youth ages 16-24 from more than 20 countries involved in the activity. Many were from developing countries and English was their second language. The images helped them open up and share powerful lessons and ideas in ways that we had not seen the rest of the week.

I was particularly struck by the variety of images selected and the creative ways in which students expressed their thoughts. One student from Kenya selected an image of a burning house and described the way in which this photo represented the destruction of his country that was taking place right now. Yet beyond the fire, he saw in the image something that represented his hope that he could inspired change when he returned.

Another student from Hong Kong selected the rugby image and discussed the ways in which he felt that he was often beat up, pushed around and discouraged by the lack of progress he was making on environmental issues in Hong Kong. Yet, he said the conference reminded him that we all get beat up at times and we need to have persistence and hope.

Not too many dry eyes in the room after these moments. Thanks so much for being willing to share this incredible resource with our organization. Please let me know how you would like me to post these lessons and information on your blog. Again, video will be forthcoming.

Sincerely,

David Shurna
Executive Director
Global Explorers