Steven Leong’s Blog

Kids Klick…For those who have been close to me for the last 2yr+ would know that I started to do lead a project known as Kids Klick. It’s a really noble idea and all… the goal is to provide underpriveleaged children a chance or glimpse into the world of photography in, the hope is that some of them may find photography useful and will one day make a living out of it.

Like a noble ideas and those involving underprivileaged children, orphans, etc… it was a huge hit when it started and it has gone from one “project manager” to another and another until I took it and started trying to run with it.

The basic way the project works is to take the kids to an outing for a half a day at some location, give them each a camera, assign a “guardian” or mentor to each kid and let the guardian be a role model and mentor in terms of photography to the kid for the duration of the outing.

The survival and success of the project was based on a few things:

• Funding / donations from “Guardians” and other people
• Willingness of people to be guardians for half a day, pay for his/her own expenses as well as the kid’s expenses for the same duration
• Volunteers to handle the organisation, logistics of each outing and the project
• Sponsors or willing corporate entities that would give or loan equipment and other more expensive items during the outings, which are mainly cameras, memory cards and/or batteries.

Due to the lack of interest for volunteers to be organizers and guardians, plus my own lack of time to commit on the project… there hasn’t been any activity on Kids Klick since our last outing 2 weeks before 31st August 2007.

In other words, Kids Klick has been dormant for 13 months now.

Every once in awhile in this one year plus, I would encounter something that reminds me of the project and somehow, I start to feel really responsible for “abandoning” the people who need the project, the children.

I believe both Kids Klick and I am at a crossroad now. Should I revive the project or is it better to leave it buried and forgotten because of the danger of history repeating itself?  Is there anything I can do to prevent the project going dormant again in couple of months or a year? Is there anything I can do better than just taking a group kids out for half a day of fun and then moving onto another group without any follow-up?

As of now, even our website URL has been hijacked or rather bought over because our subscription was not paid… it shall be a long road ahead if Kids Klick is to come back to live.

I shall end this post with some photos that the kids took during a Kids Klick outing which happened in one of the islands off the coast of Sabah, Malaysia. These kids have no electricity, water nor have they ever actually held a camera before but they have been unwitting models for many tourists that grace this beautiful area.

A case of living like a squater in paradise, perhaps?

Disclaimer : ALL images in this post are taken by children that have participated in the Kids Klick project and are not taken by me.