make.believe (make dot believe). This captures Sony’s revitalized corporate philosophy, manifesting itself in the company’s visionary technologies and content made real and accessible to its customers all over the world.

But beyond offering breakthrough experiences, make.believe also captures Sony’s commitment to help unlock the potentials of the people whose lives it touches, helping them transform their environment to shape a better tomorrow. This is a global direction Sony pursues, as the company participates in a variety of activities that facilitate individual and collective empowerment through its technologies and creative content leadership. In the Philippines, Sony is taking this commitment even deeper, as it partners particularly with groups that enable and build the capacities of the marginalized. Sony Philippines’ “Project Make To Believe” workshops are designed to help these groups develop their creative skills, self-expression, and social involvement. It uses its strength as a company to give a boost to the underprivileged. For its recent partnership with volunteer organization Hands On Manila, Sony Philippines offered a photography workshop by renowned artist Kidlat De Guia for 16 hearing-impaired youth under Pasig’s Immaculate Concepcion Cathedral Parish’s Talking Hands project.

Talking Hands is a volunteer-supported initiative that offers an opportunity for deaf youth to learn new skills that they can nurture as their own means of livelihood. However, with the Project Make to Believe, Sony Philippines does not stop with enabling them with photography skills, but also help them open up a means for them to communicate with the world and let their thoughts and feelings be understood. “Creative photography is a great avenue for hearing-impaired people to express themselves. They can show to us the world through their eyes. With photography, they are equal to normal people, if not better, especially with the full-awakening of their other senses,” said Ms. Donna Cruz of Talking Hands.

De Guia, an artist who has himself worked in capacity building projects for the marginalized, taught basic photography principles to the students such as the rule of thirds, optimizing one’s source of light to better capture one’s subject, and choosing elements that will help build and enhance the image. He encouraged his students to follow their instinct as they pursue themes that truly mean something to them. As part of the workshop, Sony provided Cyber-shot cameras to the students for them to put into practice the photography fundamentals shared with them. Following the lecture was a sponsored trip to Enchanted Kingdom, which allowed the youth not only to enjoy and have fun in different environment, but also prove their mettle as budding photographers. Volunteer Sony employees and members of the Alpha Pinoys (Filipino Alpha DSLR camera users) were partnered with each of the students to serve as photography mentors.

The output of the workshop will be images shown in an exhibit as a fund-raising activity for Talking Hands and Hands On Manila’s other projects. Through “Project Make to Believe”, Sony seeks to share with its partner organizations with the spirit of innovation and creativity that has infused it throughout its history and enlivened it as both a consumer electronics and content company. Driven to discover, dream, and design, for the next generation.