by Stacey Kohler (Surrey)
I worked on a big and important project this past year called My Happiness Project. I wanted to do this for the International Day of Happiness. Being happy is important to me so that’s why I wanted to do a project on it.
What I did was make a list of some questions to ask when I interviewed people like my friends and staff. I asked them things like: Why is being happy important?; What do you do to be happy?; What places make you happy? I also asked them to share a happy memory.
I had support from some staff to write down the questions on a big whiteboard so I could read them while asking people. I also had support with filming. I made happy props that were fun emoji smiley faces for people to hold while they were being filmed and for when we took pictures after. I printed the emojis and glued them onto sticks for people to hold.
To make this all happen, I had planning meetings with the people who supported me. We had to figure out what questions I should ask, what emojis should be on the props, when our filming day would be, and how we would let everyone know about it.
We filmed for a couple of days to make sure we got everyone who wanted to be part of it. After the filming, I helped do voice recordings, chose music, added colours to the video, and edited. I had an excellent support team to help me finish my project and it was successful! I am very proud of myself.
We uploaded the video to the UNITI Facebook page and to YouTube. International Day of Happiness is important to me because of my mental health. It is important that you have a good and happy heart. My goal is that one day I can make another video that can go to a film festival so that everyone can see all the hard work that I do.
You can watch Stacey’s video on the UNITI YouTube channel at: www.youtube.com/@uniti4all.
