Operation Eyesight is, at its heart, a community of support. In addition to a small number of employees and volunteers, it’s our large group of active supporters that really makes this organization tick. These supporters come from all walks of life and have a wide variety of gifts to share.
Take, for example, Alana Thorburn-Watt and Levente Kovacs. These two fourth-year students from the Alberta College of Art and Design (ACAD) have a deep interest in the people of the developing world, especially those with special challenges like vision impairment.
We met Alana and Levente through a very interesting project – our need to express the central issues around global blindness in a fresh but effective way, which led to a form of storytelling we had never explored before. We needed something for our website that would grab viewers and quickly explain the urgency behind avoidable blindness, in terms that everyone can understand.
Levente and Alana learned about our communications challenge through ACAD’s Student Resource Centre blog. They, in turn, wanted to contribute their expertise to making a difference in the world, as well as expanding their portfolio to different kinds of projects.
What followed was a series of successful meetings and a true merging of creative possibilities with organizational objectives. Alana’s and Levente’s skill with digital animation and storytelling gave life to the central message that millions of people can’t see things that you and I take for granted – and we can all do something about it, right now.
The result of our collaboration was a two-minute animated video called “See This.” We feature it front and centre on a very different kind of home page, launched on World Sight Day (October 13, 2011). Have a look! What do you think of our project? We’d appreciate your feedback!
We believe the video meets all our objectives, and are very pleased with the outcome, and we really enjoyed working with these talented young people. I’ll close with Alana’s words, which I hope will strike a chord with our other supporters – people like you.
“Be open-minded to different causes. Look around and see the good things people are doing in your community and around the world. You never know what will touch your heart and resonate with you.”