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Synopsis
The main story wants to show how the Peer Health Exchange volunteers change the lives of these young people who have complicated access to health.
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Peer Health Exchange is a program born in 1999 at Yale. Six undergraduates start teaching health classes in New Haven public schools.
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In 2003, the founders got one step further and replicated this prosperous program in other communities with health education necessities”.
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Through all these years, they have had more than 10.000 college student volunteers. Furthermore, more than 150.000 Public High School students have participated in the program. Not only Connecticut have the benefit of the program.
Health Peer Exchange is nowadays in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Washington, D.C.
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I want to acknowledge the work of the volunteers. To recognize them I will follow Aleksandra Ratkiewicz, a volunteer of Peer Health Exchange and a Brooklyn College student.
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She has been in this project for three years, and she has a lot of experience and stories to tell. She comes from a place where health is free for everyone, and it was a culture shock.
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Thanks to volunteers like Aleks, Peer Health have "achieved a significant positive effect on sexual and mental knowledge, skills, and help-seeking behavior." (Information based on the American Institutes of Research (AIR) study for PHE).
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To sum up, we will deal with health and social inequality.
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It evidences that people with lower incomes register fewer ratios of health. Some data supports these theses:
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Nearly one-third of adolescent girls who drop out of high school cite early pregnant or parenthood as a key reason.
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Less than 38% of adolescents in low-income communities have had a preventative care visit in the last year.
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Through Aleks we will know more stories. When we visit a school with her, we will discover the issues that concern the children, and also how she empowers them to take healthy decisions.
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Also, in the second shooting we will assist in a meeting with other volunteers. There, we will have the opportunity to talk with them about their experiences. Also, in the meetings, they will explain the experiences and difficulties they find during their volunteer.
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We will stay in the meeting, where they discuss the last visits and together, they try to improve.
I hope the audience will realize how necessary is the knowledge of health and sex issues. And discuss: Should the government do it instead of the colleges?
Treatment/script
The documentary is structured according to a strict chronological order. Likewise, we skip the temporal space between the shooting of the class and the volunteer’s meeting.
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First, we will see how Aleks wakes up and gets ready for the school workshop. We will follow her and assist in the masterclass. After it, we will go home with her and ask some questions.
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This first part of the documentary will be shot on Thursday, 7th November.
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The second part of the documentary will be shot the Friday 15th November. We will assist in a meeting in 55 Exchange Place, Suite 405, New York, where Aleks will discuss with other volunteers the difficulties they find working on the volunteer.
Artistic approach
We will be simple spectators; we want to let the story flow. Only if we disturb as little as possible, the characters will behave freely.
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We will shot four different scenarios: Aleks' house, street, school, and the meeting building.
In all of them, we will get good coverage: different shot sizes and camera angles.
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In all the shots, we will take long shots that will be used in the editing to start and finish the scene. We will also take medium and close-up shots.
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We do not know yet if we can take close up shots to students. If not, we will take shots of their backs with the tripod's help.
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For the meeting, we will take opposing angle shots.
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We will keep in mind the rule of thirds and use it as much as possible. We will also carry a tripod and an external microphone to get better sound.
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As we are filming New Yorkers, we will seek an urban visual look. What is more, we will integrate the use of smartphones. That means that when our characters use cellphones or computers we will take close-up shots of the gadgets and integrate it in the edition.
Distribution and social media marketing strategy
The documentary will be posted on youtube.
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Besides, we will create different trailers adapted for all social media.
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PHE will use their media platforms to promote it. They have 3.128 followers on Facebook, more than 2.000 on Twitter, and 1.320 on Instagram.
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It will spread the word. Also, we will keep all the contacts we made during the production and share the results and empower them to share it on their social profiles.
Intended audience
First of all, our intended audience are the persons involved in the project, from Volunteers to students. As we will promote our documentary on their channels, they will see, at least, an advertisement for the documentary.
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Furthermore, we want to reach the potential participants: students who want to volunteer or schools, parents who want their children to participate in the program.
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But not only the people strongly related to the project. We are talking about health and sex: it concerns everybody. Particularly in the United States, where there is no free health, and people allocate part of their budget to pay health insurance.
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When I heard about the project through Aleks experience, I got in contact with the organization. I met them in an informative session carried out at Brooklyn College. I also contact the communication department via e-mail.
