The most significant things people are seeking since the emergence of COVID-19 are guidance, reassurance and credible information. They want to be reassured that their way of life will ultimately improve or at least endure. They want to know that leadership has their best interest in mind and that they will be looked after. They want to be reassured that their children won’t miss out on their education and will continue to be educated and informed. Parents don’t want their children’s future to be uncertain because of this pandemic.
Schools throughout the world have stepped up to the challenge and provided alternative educational platforms for their students. Some responded better than others. The ones who shined, had a crisis management strategy in place already and have been quick to activate it. They ensured that parents and students are informed of the process the school adopted to achieve its mission.
Al Raja School in Bahrain is one of these leading examples. Led by principal Mr Joshua Perkins, this 121-year-old school – the first formal education school in the Arabian Gulf – has once again showed the reason for its long existence is no accident. It survives and thrives based on the adoption of sound strategies.
Once their strategy for continuing education through a time of crisis had been implemented, they made sure that all of their stakeholders are informed, and they chose to do so with a short video documentary.
This proved to be the right approach.
Mr Perkins recognized that COVID-19 has been an unprecedented challenge for everyone, including schools and understood the need to document the schools response to learn from the experience and be part of the schools knowledge-base for posterity. He understood that video was the right tool to document this unique time in the school’s history.
So when Masadir Media approached Al Raja School with the idea of producing a video to help communicate what the school had done and tell the school’s story, the objectives of both organizations coincided.
In order to achieve the objectives, the video needed to define the situation, what the school had done, the challenges they faced and how they were resolved. The video need to also show how patents and students faired under this unique situation and the methods they devised for continuing their children’s education by using the strategy and tools the school provided.
Continuing Education at a time of Crisis
Once the objectives were agreed upon, the school’s PR department led by Ms Noof Esbai ensured the smooth running of the filming schedule, identified who is to be featured from the school as well as students and parents. Ms Esbai coordinated the interviews, locations and acquired the necessary permissions to proceed.
Recognizing the restrictions that the Coronavirus situation dictated, Masadir Media assembled a very small filming team and used the minimum equipment possible to acquire the content without sacrificing quality.
That ethos extended to all the production phases including preproduction with careful planning put in place for filming. This resulted in successfully filming all primary content in a single day. This was followed with the next phase of production immediately. Editing started immediately using the acquired content and a final draft of the film was quickly produced for the school’s review and approval.
With the final approval gained, the final film including several short social media edits were delivered to the school. The PR department then distributed these films to stakeholders through various communication channels including WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
Leave a Reply