JOB CREATION PROJECT
There's three of us but sometimes five or six. We deliberately keep it small. We meet 3 times each week. We plan, we organise, we study, we experiment and we practice the art and science of video production and website design. A few of us came together after English class, over a bowl of noodles, green tea and a curious question - "What do I really want to do?" No one had ever asked me that before. As a refugee I'd just been pushed from checkpoint to checkpoint. Lots of waiting, lots of lines, but no decision that I could call my own. Our teacher told us: "Assume there's no one coming to save you guys, you've got to save yourselves".
We had poor beginnings with an old wornout computer and a beaten up mobile phone. They worked, but didn't have much memory. Before long our conversations became our experiments. Ideas became simple scripts and scripts became videos, videos were edited using free software and before long our first video entitled "Dead or Illegal” was born.
We showed that video to Bob Anderson at MEP and asked for his support. MEP loaned us a powerful new computer and two small cameras. That loan became our seed capital and gave us the potential to step up to a more professional level. MEP's loan was our "seed capital". Without that seed capital, we were just schoolboys playing.
Fast forward and we've built two websites, almost two documentary videos and we've experimented with online teaching, interviews and podcasts. You can't imagine how hard it was trying to use the latest software on our old computer - often it was impossible.
We started working with MEP's powerful new equipment in February 2025. We studied the hardware, we made decisions about the software, we watched hours of teaching-videos, downloaded free versions and spent hours, weeks and months becoming familiar. Our way of learning was mostly "DIY project based learning". Our MEP teacher helped us with understanding the rapid fire English of the video presenters. We built a prototype website called "The SEEDz Project" and then we contracted with MEP to create a new website. We named our team “The SEEDz Project" to remind ourselves that great things come from small beginnings and a little "seed capital".
Bob Anderson became our sponsor and Greg Madden our mentor. We had a 3x3x3 schedule. 3 months creating a prototype website, 3 months building the new MEP website and soon we will spend 3 months doing a private contract, our first truly commercial project.