Students' videos of Mali trip to be shown Sunday

Communication studies students Nilmini Gurusinghe, Mary McKee and Nathan Johnson film in Mali.

Students' videos of Mali trip to be shown Sunday

From Communication Studies

The Mali Project Videos world premiere will be held at 2 pm. Sunday, May 22, in O'Shaughnessy Educational Center auditorium. A reception will follow in the Luann Dummer Center for Women, Room 103, O'Shaughnessy Educational Center.

During spring semester, three communication studies students worked on a project that took them to Mali, a country in West Africa, to film material for a series of videos. The videos are to encourage women in rural villages to form cooperatives to help them make and distribute shea butter, which is used in soaps, lotions and food.

The Mali project was a multi-disciplinary effort involving St. Thomas students in engineering, French and communication studies. One group of engineering students created a shea butter mixer and another engineering group created a low-energy appliance to cool buildings in Mali. The French students did translation.

Each communication studies student – Nilmini Gurusinghe, Nathan Johnson and Mary McKee – edited their own short video and a longer piece was edited by Jon Bartholomew, a video professional who accompanied the group as a technical consultant.

The video premiere is free and open to the public.