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Inspiring Story from Comilla: |
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Students of the Chowara Girls School and villagers in Chowara in Comilla no longer need to walk down to the city to take a photograph. They can now take photographs right at the Internet learning Center located at the corner of the school. Previously girl students and villagers had to take a bus to go to the city which is 15 kilometer from the village. The GCE students of the school have been able to insist the school to set up a digital photo studio using the digital camera and computers at the ILC. The school's enthusiasm coupled with RI SOL's technical support has made the digital photo studio a reality for the school.
Setting up the photo studio was a collaborative initiative led by a group of GCE teachers, students and the head mistress of the school. The students used to go to the nearby town to get photographs required for admission documents, especially during their 9 and 10 grades. The student needs to fill in a form and attach a photograph. The students generally go to nearby cities to take photographs and it can take a whole day for a student to fulfill this task. For the girls, the parents have been always worried to send their daughters far away from their home just to take a photograph. This is one problem which has always delayed the registration process of the school.
Some students started to advocate for setting up a photo studio using the ILC digital camera. The headmistress and the GCE lead teachers were inspired by the enthusiasm among the students and eventually came up with a plan for setting up a photo studio at the ILC. The digital camera of the ILC was instrumental in translating this idea into a reality.
The RI SOL Comilla cluster officials supported the school's plan to set up the studio and helped them to gather necessary technical information to utilize the digital camera. The RI SOL officials also helped them to set up their computers with appropriate software such as, photo shop, and showed them how to deal with the technical aspects of producing a professionally looking photo using a digital camera and the corresponding software. All these supports coupled with the head mistress's determination to make the ILC really useful for her students and the community people resulted into the photo studio becoming a reality.
Another strong motivation in setting up the studio is its financial viability in generating revenue which could assist the school in sustaining its ILC in long term. The business model for the ILC is designed in way that the revenue will be deposited in a special ILC fund managed by the head mistress and School Management Committee and the fund will be used to support the photo studio itself and the ILC. The school has also taken initiative to promote the photo studio outside the school so the community can take advantages of the photo studio.
YouTube Video clips
Clip 1, Clip 2
The studio is now being used for photos required to avail some government services such as passport, school admission, ID card for schools and colleges, family portraits, for example. The digital camera is also used for taking pictures of wedding ceremonies, birthday parties, and local community events, and can be sent by email/CD to relatives/friends living in other cities in Bangladesh or abroad. Whoever is taking the photo service have to pay but being a community resource, the ILC photo studio charges less than the market price making it accessible and available for all irrespective of their economic status. The users of the photo studio include but are not limited to students of the ILC schools, its neighboring schools, local community people, traders in the Chowara and adjacent villages.
Story about the photo studio in Telecenter and a discussion on an Online Forum. |
