Films as a medium have an unbelievable impact on the society. But not many know how they can help young minds in schools make better choices in life. Realising its potential, Syed Sultan Ahmed used the unique power of story-telling, ability to connect emotionally, appeal visually to create School Cinema — a researched film-based learning module to introduce and reaffirm life-skills, values and morals to children, parents and educators.
Recently, two of his films — Red Building Where The Sun Sets and The Finish Line — have won President of India’s National Film Awards 2012 for Best Film on Family Values and Best Exploration/Adventure/ Sports Film respectively. “It is such a big honour. We have put a lot of heart into this project that is striving to make a difference in the way children learn ‘human values’. I would like to thank the 300-plus school managements who are using this as part of their life-skills/values curriculum and over 200,000 students who are experiencing the magic of films in education,” says the owner of EduMedia India.
According to him, most children encounter difficulties when it comes to problems like tackling failure, relationships, sexuality, exam fear, rejection, peer pressure, stress, adolescent issues. “All this clearly highlights the fact that alongside age-old values and life skills children need to imbibe, there is a whole new crop of contemporary issues that need to be dealt with. The current format of value education system in schools does precious little to address these lacunae,” he adds. Since all it requires are 20 sessions during the entire academic year, it easily fits into the curriculum.
Ahmed plans to take this initiative to 1,000 schools within India and reach 10 to 15 lakh students in the next three years. He says, “Films are an excellent medium of communicating and imbibing life skills, values primarily because it catches the kid in an emotional/non-rational mood.”