Sana Nizarahmed and Shama Madhani were the AKF volunteer leaders for the Village In Action at the 2015 Aga Khan Foundation Walk – San Antonio. The Village In Action draws on stories from AKF programs to show international development and what it means to communities where the Foundation works.
Village In Action was the brainchild of AKF Volunteer Zamila Karimi, a Bangladeshi-born artist and architecture professor who volunteered with the Foundation’s first Atlanta Walk (then known as Partnership Walk). Instead of just providing entertainment, she created a living exhibit to show Atlantans how people lived in countries where the Foundation worked. Village In Action spread to all Walk events after that.
Q: San Antonio’s Village In Action went very well. How did you go about organizing and researching the sequence of skits?
A: First we met with last year’s leads and learned from them what worked best. Then we researched stories from Aga Khan Foundation and worked up the content. We spent a lot of time reading different stories on the AKF website, and it really helped us make connections among them.
In the past the Village would present a different story for each of several stations: health, education, rural development. We really wanted the Village scenes to flow in one seamless story. So we thought about our own experience: How would we go through the day? That led us to think about making it a day in a child’s life: it starts when he wakes up, goes to school, and the story unfolds from that. With that, the flow made sense.
Q: Which stories presented particular challenges and opportunities?
A: “Improving Schools through Partnerships” was a big one. We weren’t sure how to show it. We thought maybe a before-and-after comparison might be clearest: before the University of Central Asia trained teachers, and after the training. One team member had the idea of showing the teacher training.
Volunteers performing a skit about microfinance at the Village In Action at the 2015 Aga Khan Foundation Walk|Run – San Antonio.
Another was microfinance. It was a little tricky to see how that would flow. How would a student experience anything about loans? So we decided to shift to the parent’s point of view, and showed the mother applying for a loan and receiving that.
Q: How did you decide what to include for your audience?
A: We wanted it to be interactive. We had a lot of ideas but many were too time-consuming. We didn’t want our audience to get bored. We kept it simple, and kept the audience interacting with questions, for example inviting them to the school blackboard to share their answers. For interaction we handed out bookmarks at the “new school” scene and a piece of yarn at the “new home” scene for them to string through the bookmark as a complete takeaway. After the last scene we served lemonade so guests could enjoy a glass of lemonade and have their questions answered.
Q: Then you’re at the Walk site that morning: What was happening in the hours before opening the Village?
A: The logistics of set-up kept us busy, but we had done our preparation. We had seven scenes, and divided them among our team. So parent coordinators knew the scenes and obtained supplies for each one. That modular approach made it a lot easier getting there and setting up. The tough process was getting the items for each scene – that happened the week before. It made the event day easier. After the set-up we had several last-minute rehearsals with the actors to be sure the script flow was smooth and flawless.
Q: What questions did you get from audiences?
A: First, we wanted to get questions but we didn’t want them to interrupt the flow, so we had the floaters who brought people to the Village say a few facts about AKF and then the Village guides took over. The tour guides had an interactive script with valuable information about AKF and its work that really helped answer questions while visitors waited to get into the Village. Then the tour guides asked groups to hold their questions until after the skits. Questions visitors asked included: Where does the Foundation work? Besides education, what other areas does AKF work in? We were prepared for more questions but we had put up posters with lots of information on the programs adapted, from the AKF website, so visitors got most of their answers from reading those posters. The floaters and tour guides shared a lot of information with visitors before and after their visit to the Village.
Q: What reactions to the Village did you receive afterward from visitors, other volunteers and coordinators, including the post-event debrief?
A: Most people were very impressed and said it was very informative. It made them realize how fortunate we are to be in the position to help others and not be on the receiving end. A lot of people said it looked and felt like an actual village. Some said they had no idea that AKF did so much work. Some said this kind of work improves the quality of lives for generations. We had one family say we always donate to AKF but had no idea that AKF serves globally.
Several visitors said, “Village In Action was the best part of this walk.” People appreciated that so many youth were involved and were doing volunteer service for AKF to help people in the developing countries. That’s exactly the message we wanted to convey! The overall feedback was extremely positive.
Q: What did you learn from creating the Village this year?
A: Organizationally, we learned the importance of being a team player. We also learned time management. Those two lessons really paid off.
On the content creation side, we learned about implementation and to keep it simple when it comes to themes and flow. Being a perfectionist can be miserable but when you put that into good preparation it pays off, for example, with the supplies lists. One reason for our success was the research and pre-planning we did.
It was great to see it all come together on Walk Day. It was a lot of work, but we shared the Foundation’s work with the public and got a lot of great feedback. At the end, we were relieved. We had done it!