kALAMidad (Calamity)

Ian Valerio and Chris Sante, two Multimedia Arts and Design students finished their final thesis presentation. As natural disasters and disaster preparedness are very timely topics, the kALAMidad project didn’t end in their research defense, but it progressed to a bigger purpose. The Philippines ranked one of the top most disaster affected countries in the world and poses a threat due to being highly exposed to the drastic impacts of climate change, millions of people are at risk, especially the children with high chances of being affected, injured and even worse leading to death during times of emergencies and disasters.

With that, the creators of the kALAMidad manual plan, design and produce it with the help of their school to test the effectiveness of mixing child friendly characters and bold illustration to dive and learn the extensive topics of natural disasters and disaster preparedness. The printed survival manuals are given to children living in disaster-prone areas, with the hopes of enhancing knowledge and adaptive capacity in times of emergencies. They are hoping that people, as adults, would not leave the children behind in this kind of topic because everyone matters.

  • Christopher Sante
    Director
  • Ian Tristan Valerio
    Director
  • Christopher Sante
    Writer
  • Ian Valerio
    Writer
  • Jon Cuyson
    Producer
  • Gilly Tribiana
    Line Producer
  • Adriel Halili
    Videographer
  • Jasper Manalang
    Assistant Cameraman
  • Mikel Guillo
    Assistant Cameraman
  • Camille Satorre
    Production Manager
  • Christopher Sante
    Production Coordinators
  • Ian Valerio
    Production Coordinators
  • Christopher Sante
    Editors, Motion Designers, Additional Footages
  • Ian Valerio
    Editors, Motion Designers, Additional Footages
  • Ian Valerio
    Colorist
  • Rovic Castillo
    Film Scorer & Sound Designer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Genres:
    Non-fictional, Educational, Participatory
  • Runtime:
    25 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    August 31, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    1,759 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Philippines
  • Country of Filming:
    Philippines
  • Language:
    English, Tagalog
  • Shooting Format:
    h.264
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16.9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Christopher Sante, Ian Tristan Valerio

Chris Sante is a 24-year-old Multimedia Arts and Design graduate and an imaginative, forward thinking Filipino creative who constantly searches for growth, new ideas and seeks out the voice of reason through his bold visions, diverse design skills and meaningful works that spark conversations.

Ian Valerio is a 23-year-old Multimedia Arts and Design graduate who is a laid back and a chill person but passionately uses his creative and design skills in driving social change towards an innovative and better future.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Why did we choose disaster preparedness especially for children when we are creating the kALAMidad Project? According to a study from Save the Children, 535 million children are affected globally. In the Philippines, we found out from Ms. Galvez of the Center for Disaster Preparedness that when a disaster hits the country, 50-60% or almost half of the population in the affected area are children and will be victims of various dangers. Aside from being the most vulnerable during emergencies, children are often left behind with these extensive disaster related topics. We, adults, keep on forgetting that they have the right to participate and learn to adapt in surviving natural disasters.

We dig deeper into our topic and interviewed different child-centered disaster-related professionals. We found out that the children in today’s generation do not necessarily lack awareness of disaster topics. However, their building blocks of knowledge need to be structured and designed in a way for them to have a better understanding of the topic because knowing is different from understanding. With that, we still stand and advocate for the need for Filipino children to recognize their rights and roles towards disaster preparedness with the aim of
reducing their risks of being highly susceptible. That is why we created the kALAMidad survival guide Manual and follow its journey in changing the perspective of Filipino children towards disaster preparedness.

Children are visual learners and more into illustration books rather than text-based. We want to emphasize the characteristics of the manual in the film which are bold, fun and distinctive, especially in times of emergencies. We also want to highlight the child-friendly experience of the kids with our main characters of the manual and capture how these characters will inspire future generations of prepared children in society. We want to encourage children to read more and stimulate their imagination towards learning. Chief Executive Officer of Save the Children Atty. Muyot stated that “child protection and child participation should be at the core of the disaster preparedness systems in schools and communities”.

We want the film to serve as an eye opener for adults that we should respect the rights and roles of the children to participate in disaster related topics and preparedness and advocate the thought of “May alam sa loob ng salitang kalamidad.”