We realised last week that only schools that have a lot of resources have web sites around the world. This led us to think about sending letters to places like Liberia, we could not find any schools with a web site. After a little net surfing however we a school that had been set up by a Japanese NGO called Peace Winds Japan. We thought it best to contact them as soon as possible and we got a reply very shortly which read as follows:

“Liberia does not have a postal system and there are no people who deliver post. We can tell you the address of the school but the postal system is not functioning at the moment.”

Hmm, everyone was very disappointed: “If there is no post then we can’t send a letter…” So we either cannot find an address or there is no postal system. In order to communicate with these countries it seems we must make contact with people who deal with these countries. It seems that there is not necessarily a direct correlation between the advancement of technology and the ease of connecting with others.

In order to make this connection easier, we decided it was necessary to hand write our letters. This way we could really appeal to the reader. We also decided to make a video letter so we could express ourselves through pictures and sound, surely this will move the hearts of those who watch it!

We have to make a video to appeal to people wherever they live, whoever they are. To make people want to participate we need to make an appeal to people who can help us collect world stamps and make an original world map.

We used the letter that we wrote as the basis for the video letter. We wrote the letter out really big so that we could read it if we get stuck…but of course everyone tried to remember as best they could! We all tried to remember the right pronunciation and to look at the camera, and most of all smile. It’s not easy when you have to remember a lot of English!

“W….w….we…wii…?”
“Oh no, that’s would not want….”
“How do you say “something” again..oh I always forget…”

For practice we read in pairs and everyone really tried their best to read the whole letter by themselves without any prompting from others. We read the letter over and over again and eventually we all started to remember it. There was a real feeling of purpose from the students, they wanted to read the letter well and spread their message out into the world, it seems they forgot that it was in English!

After practicing it was finally time to actually film our video letter.

“Let’s go to the roof!”
“Yeah, we can have the view of Shinjuku behind us, that way people will know we’re really in Tokyo!”

As usual everyone is full of ideas. The weather was fine so it seemed like the perfect day to film. When we actually set up the camera though, we realized that the fence was in the way of the picture.

“How about standing on something?”
“I’ll bring a table and chair!”

Everyone springs into action and bring a table just the right height not to be dangerous and chairs to put the camera on. One student offers to be the model and the others look into the camera.

“That’s perfect!” The clear blue sky and the Metropolitan Building in the background look great.

It was time for the actual filming to start. Our top batter stands up and 3,2,1 START!
“TCS needs your help!”

Of course the actual filming is different to the practice; everyone is nervous and finds themselves looking at the letter board more than they need to. The wind suddenly picks up and the letter board nearly blows away, our hair gets in front of our faces, we forget what we are reading or we confuse our sentences but finally after 90 minutes everyone has filmed their video letter!

The strength of the wind surprised us all, maybe next time we can find a way to cut the wind noise, but we hope you can hear most of it!

Our letters have been sent and our video letter filmed. Next week we will be reworking our letters and video letter to see if we can make it appeal to people more.

If you can support us we would be very very happy so please email us!