Two students from Queen Elizabeth II High School have been presented with copies of potentially life-saving DVDs they helped to create as part of a collaboration with the charity Thare Machi Education (Isle of Man).

TME (IoM) uses new media to create interactive lessons that teach basic health and life-skills topics to some of the world’s poorest people in their own language.  The programming (or “authoring“, as it is technically called) of the lessons on DVD is not a straight-forward operation and required the students to work with languages they didn’t understand themselves.
 
Walid Anwar and Michael Diehl, both Year 8 students, are the youngest people to produce a lesson.  Their topic was “Having an HIV Test”, with Walid working in Afrikaans and Michael in Acholi, a Ugandan language. 

The QE2 youngsters were brought together as part of an initiative by the St John’s-based One World Centre which works to highlight and address the issues around global poverty.

One World Centre Director Rosemary Clarke said, “These young people had given up their lunch hours – and been allowed out of a couple of lessons – to create these DVDs which will be vital in helping promote good healthcare in some of the more isolated parts of the world.  I’m really proud of what they have achieved, and I hope we can look forward to doing more in the new school year.”

TME (IoM) currently has 31 different lessons waiting to be translated, recorded and authored into a range of different languages.  Anyone who would like to help should contact Rosemary Clarke at the One World Centre on 01624 800464.

Photo:  Rosemary Clarke presenting Walid and Michael with the DVDs they created.