Bonjour tout le monde!

Je suis ravie d'avoir l'opportunité de créer et d'exécuter mon propre projet. Il sera un défi, mais un qui vaudra l'effort.

I have always been fascinated by national identities and how they come to be. So before my meeting with Pascale last Friday lunchtime (28th February), I knew I wanted to base my project around the theme of “identities”. However, I didn’t know how to approach this theme in the manner of a project. When talking with Pascale, she gave me examples of other Young Ambassadors projects, how they were going to do this, and how they were going to present it. This was extremely helpful as I then had an idea of how I could do my own.

So as I was sitting in Physics last period of that day, I played with a few ideas in my head. I eventually found something that I thought would be approachable and give me an idea of different peoples perspectives on identities and the importance of WWI to people.

So here is a rough/draft outline of my project as it stands now:

I will ask a range of New Zealanders from three different generations (teens-20 year olds, 40-50 year olds, and 70+ year olds) on a range of points related to WWI and our national identity.

For example:

These questions will be asked first in a survey. I will then interview certain people, if I think they commented something or raised an interesting point in their survey.

When I go to France I will ask French people from the same age categories the same questions, except their questions will be based around their own national identity. To make it easier for them to answer, and see exactly what context I’m asking, I will create 3 New Zealand profiles from the different age categories for them to read.

When I get back to New Zealand, I will then analyse the comments made to see if there is a difference in perspectives between generations and nationalities. I would like my findings to be of interest to people in the community, whether there is a wide range in opinion, or even if people have similar views.

I will aim to make my project in a documentary style video and present it to a wide range of people in the community. I hope it will encourage people to reflect on the importance of remembering and commemorating our involvement in WWI.

J' ai écrit mes idées du projet en anglais. La prochaine fois j'utiliserai plus de français

(The image is a picture of my great great grandfather James Livingston (on the right), in Egypt prior to his WWI efforts in the Battle of the Somme.)