Documenting impact of education on people

KUALA LUMPUR: It was an inspiring journey of 2,650km from Johor Baru to Perak and into the vast interiors of the east coast for an impact analysis expert and a documentary film maker.
At the end of their exhausting trip to 20 community centres set up by a NGO, Science of Life Studies 24/7 Malaysia (SOLS 24/7), they were unanimous that it was one of the most enlightening experiences they ever had.
They made the journey to witness and document Project 100 by SOLS 24/7 where 50 community centres were set up nationwide to empower the underprivileged by teaching them English, basic computing skills and life skills.
Project 100 was carried out in partnership with Tan Sri Vincent Tan's personal foundation, Better Malaysia Foundation (BMF).
"We are an independent team, and we came here to do an impact analysis assessment on SOLS' Project 100 mainly to raise awareness on it and to present this to the world," said Impact Analysis Assessment expert Jasmina Kuka, 40, who is from Serbia.
She has travelled to more than 50 countries and had analysed the works of various NGOs but her experience in Malaysia documenting the works of SOLS, was one she had not encountered before.
"In my job, performing impact assessments of NGOs, often I have to ask difficult questions, questions that are unpleasant. But here, I had no issues. In Project 100, everyone at every level was open and transparent in what they were doing. They were all working together for one thing — to make a life-changing difference for people by educating them," she told theSun at SOLS headquarters in Sungai Besi recently.
In her month-long stay in Malaysia, she witnessed first-hand how by educating people, SOLS changed their lives, and brought them something they did not have earlier — confidence.
"The centres we travelled to were in remote locations, or the outskirts of cities in communities of various ethnic groups including Malays, Chinese, Indian and orang asli, that are very poor. The people that we met though initially shy, later opened up to share their story on how these centres changed their lives," she said.
"In one centre, there was a group of teenage Malay girls who were initially shy. We could not even get a shot of their faces, but after spending two hours with them, they opened up and by the time we left, I had more than 200 selfies with the girls on my camera," she laughed.
The girls were comfortable in the end, because they could speak English and this made them confident.
Kuka also recounted her experience of meeting a 56-year-old grandmother who had joined the centre for one reason — to learn English to prove to her grandchildren that they could do it too.
"We met an orang asli youth who was uneducated, but after six months in the centre, he told how he returned to his village to open two schools for the children there. We also met business owners who managed to expand their business as they were able to speak English now," she said, in recounting some of the moving tales of those whose lives have changed thanks to SOLS.
Kuka's Malaysian assignment came about after she had initially contacted the Embassy of Serbia in Indonesia for recommendations of NGOs in the Asean region which had never done impact analysis work and could use her expertise to improve development programs to better serve those in need.
With a PhD in Political Sciences, she is an in-demand expert consultant with international organisations such as United Nations agencies (like UNDP, Unicef), the Delegation of the European Union and Canadian International Development Agency providing need assessment analysis, monitoring, evaluation and impact analysis, development indicators and assessment tools for different development work areas.
The Malaysian journey and experience was documented by veteran film maker Victor Stipsic, who has produced various documentaries for big names like Microsoft, Oracle and even the US Defence Department.
With dozens of films over the past 18 years under his belt, Stipsic ran his own film, video and CG production studio in Washington DC for nine years before working on projects on a film to film basis.
The latest film he worked on was "Ariadne's Thread", completed last month and has been entered into a number of film festivals worldwide.
"I have worked for many commercial companies and though I am well travelled, this is the first time I am documenting an NGO's work. And I was truly impressed with what they have done. Out of our time here in Malaysia, I will be producing a 90-minute documentary to be submitted to various (film and documentary) festivals," he said.
Among these festivals are the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival to be held in Greece.
A 10-minute snippet of the documentary is expected to be shown during Berjaya Founder's Day next year.