Alocha Children's CD

Background:

Alocha is a children’s CD, consisting of 15 songs sung by Hadja Rastagar, a then six year-old Afghan singer who is now ten. The CD’s composition is made up of lyrics which have characteristics of general children’s songs. These songs are used as teaching materials that help capture the Afghan children culture, and creates an incentive to learn more thru songs that contain the Dari Alphabet, Afghanistan’s geography and old Afghan lullabies. The CD was released through FreeMuse in 2004 and was distributed for free to most Afghan schools and other relevant institutions.

Alcoha Children’s CD was a great success not only in Afghanistan but also in several countries where Afghan children are currently in exile, as this was the first CD of its kind and it took place in a time where it was much needed by Afghan children. The CD has won several awards.

Target group:

The specific target group of this project is Afghan children living in Afghanistan, as well as Afghan children living abroad in order to provide them a greater interest and motivation for learning more about afghan culture.

The purpose of the DVD:

For the purposes mentioned above, making the CD into a DVD is anticipated to create more success and reach more children. As was mentioned, the CD was used as a teaching tool not only in schools in Afghanistan, but also for Afghan children living abroad.

Converting the concept of the CD into a DVD will generate a better use for its purpose, especially in schools where there is a considerable lack of inter-media and educational materials. It is likely that a DVD would have a more effective and visual affect on children thus be more useful and helpful compared to a CD as the level of perception of the material will increase.

Furthermore, there is no doubt that currently there is a lack of children appearing in Afghan media. This combined with the fact that there is an increase of Afghans having access to TVs and computers, creates an opportunity where the DVD will better reach Afghan children and the Afghan general public, therefore achieving its purpose in a larger scale. This transition will also create an opportunity for Afghan children to get introduced to and get familiar with DVDs since the technology is still in its development stage in present Afghanistan.

Technical aspect: There will of course be the need for technical equipment when converting the CD into a DVD. This can be achieved in cooperation with any given qualified music studio. The possibility of creating animations, as well as enhancing the quality of the DVD is also plausible.