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Our Own Olesya Noerper Receives Accolades for Video Project.
By Jean Steele
Olesya and her brothers attend our Sunday School and live in Aina Haina. Olesya is bilingual in English and Russian and is learning Japanese. She is also a student of Karate. But her latest accomplishment will knock your socks off.
Last August, Olesya began brainstorming her ideas for a video touching on her favorite subjects: World War II, African Americans, Civil Rights and Hawaiian history.
As she accomplished her research, she realized
she could expand her topic beyond WW II and could also look at the contributions of African Americans here in Hawaii across time. Some contributions in African American history included the creation of the most effective treatment for leprosy in the 20th century by Alice Ball, and the heroic actions of Doris "Dorie" Miller in the Pearl Harbor attack that earned him the first Navy War Cross given to an African American sailor. Wow!
Olesya spent time collecting photos to support her story. She ended up with 58 sources. In December,
she developed the script. Then she spent two days assembling her materials and creating the video.
Olesya says time management was her biggest challenge over the several month period.
She had made another video in 7th grade, but felt it had not been sufficiently engaging, so this time she paid particular attention to her use of images.
The National History Day Competition (District level) was held at Chaminade University and Olesya’s video competed with more than twenty others. When she was called forward as one of three winners, her schoolmates clapped and whooped as did her family. She reports, “everyone was super happy.”
On April 20, Olesya’s video will compete with others at the State level. Then the National level
competition will come in the summer. Meanwhile, Olesya can bask in the glow of her success.
At home her family celebrated with flowers and cake and her “parents are telling everyone!”
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