Writing Children’s Scripts that Build Resilience in Children

By: Lee Lai Mee, CCO

About 19 participants from 10 countries attended the 2- days Script Writing Workshop for Children’s Content Creators workshop on 7 & 8 April 2021, 2-7pm MYT. The participants were from Bangladesh, Brunei, India, Mauritius, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Taiwan & Germany. They were mostly programme producers from Radio & TV while some are TV presenter for children programme who had successfully completed the two-days certificate course.

This workshop was the post webinar activity on The Day I Became Strong In The Pandemic, held on 11 March 2021, jointly organized with Prix Jeunesse Foundation, specifically to help children content creators to develop real stories of children in the pandemic. Prerequisite to join was the participants must bring a story of the children in the pandemic to develop the script step by step in the workshop. AIBD was so privileged to be able to engage Dr Maya Gotz, Head of Prix Jeunesse Foundation and the International Central Institute for Youth & Educational Television, (IZI) Germany, as the consultant. She was assisted by Ms Kirsten Schneid, Project Coordinator, Prix Jeunesse Foundation.

The first day of the workshop was spent on finding story and writing for children, discussing formats and treatment story circle.

Telling or sharing story, sometimes with improvisation, theatrics or embellishment- develops a script, it is a dramaturgy consisting eight basic parts

The second day was focused on Writing Scripts step-by step. Dr Maya encouraged the participants to go back to their childhood days to see the children`s perspective when writing their stories. Besides showing short captivating films to trigger the creative minds, she also highlighted the three golden rules when developing the stories and ways to foster resilience with children.

At the end of the workshop, the participants:

• • Have learned the skillsets to know how to foster resilience of children between ages 7-12 years old with stories.
  • Able to tell the story from point of view of children with rightful script & music.
  • Guided how to set up storytelling club to get real stories.
  • Learned step by step how to write scripts & produce short stories with the real stories collected from children on the ground/virtually.

Minhazul Islam, Radio Boral,Bangladesh

“ This workshop reminded us of our childhood and we got a great idea of ​​how we can encourage kids in the days of Covid-19. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share our experiences with our comrades in several countries”

Nadeem Ahmed Malik, Programme Producer, PTV

“ I feel proud to be part of the workshop which focused on thematic areas for finding story and writing children script. I was immensely inspired and felt such opportunities must be given to do something in this field in the future.”

Kalpana Parida, NABM, India

“ Amidst the feeling of isolation during the second surge of COVID, this workshop teleported us to the colorful land of our childhood days. Thank you for showing us how to write something innovative.”

Carine Kistoo Jean, Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation, Mauritius.

“ The 2 -days workshop benefitted me a lot. It allowed me to relive my childhood, then help me to see other perspectives in the way of working on my TV shows with children. I have learned Resilience, a big word with superhero powers.”

Md. Nasim Uddin, Radio Boral, Bangladesh

“ A lot of things happen to the little ones but they don’t come to our notice for some reasons. From this training, I learned something new that will help me create programs for young children on the Radio.”

Ugonma Cokey, Voice of Nigeria

“ The script writing workshop is one of the best workshops on producing content for children. Even though it was virtual, it was  facilitated in a way that technical things were explained in simple terms and practical ways for participants to understand it easily and feedbacks also gave insight to what is expected for children content producers .”