About Clear Vision
Clear Vision is housed in a beautiful office at the top of the Manchester Buddhist Centre. It was founded primarily by Mokshapriya in the early 1990s to record the teachings of Sangharakshita, the founder of the FWBO. It produced lecture videos and newsreels for FWBO Centres and home use.
We became a registered charity in 1993, devoted to promoting Buddhism through the audio-visual media. With changes to the Religious Education syllabuses in England, our film-makers joined forces with Padmasri and Adiccabandhu, two very experienced primary school teachers. 1994 saw the first of a series of video packs for schools: Buddhism for Key Stage 2.
We hold the FWBO archive of images and video, and we have plans for more educational products, especially using interactive media. It all takes time, however, and we are a small but select team!
Support our work
Clear Vision needs friends! Spreading the word about Buddhist values is a worthwhile activity, but rarely a money-spinner. With your help, there is so much we can do.
We'd like to offer far more free services for schools, including developing the student section of this site. We plan to create more teaching materials, including some for the under-resourced exam syllabuses for 16-18 year-olds, and develop more truly interactive dvds. Digitising and archiving our extensive collection of Buddhist images and video is a huge task.
If you'd like to support this work for the preservation and communication of Buddhist values, please do consider making a donation. You can download a gift aid form and mail or fax it back to us, or you donate online below. Many thanks!
The Clear Vision Team
Munisha
Munisha is our education officer. She joined us in 1998 having done many things including cycling alone across China, teaching art in a secondary school followed by eight years teaching school groups visiting the Tate Gallery, London.
Amongst other things, Munisha writes teaching materials, teaches school groups visiting the Manchester Buddhist Centre and is active in the Network of Buddhist Organisations. As befits a member of the Clear Vision team, she has a lively sense of humour.
As Catherine Hopper, she is known for her popular travel lectures.
My mission here is to get young people to ask questions about the meaning and purpose of life. The answers are up to them, of course.
Munisha
Upekshapriya
Upekshapriya is our resident video maker and has been on the team since 1997, starting as an
apprentice editor. He started making videos when he was 22 and
gained a first class honours degree in film/video from what is now the University of the Arts
London in 1990. He worked independently until Clear Vision which was actually his first full-time
9-5 (very ish) job for many years. He also sorts out all the computers when they go wrong and
finds it difficult not to want to help out anyone who comes along with a computer problem (so please don't)!
Clear Vision is a wonderful opportunity to be able to communicate the Dharma and practise my
vocation, with a lovely bunch of positive people to boot.
Upekshapriya
Aparajita
Known to many as AJ, he is actually a founder member of Clear Vision and has found his way back! He acts as general manager, treasurer and webmaster. He also teaches piano and does a bit of website work, such as this one offering Buddhist images.
It's so good working with such talented and delightful colleagues. We have fun whilst being engaged with a worthwhile and creative project - I feel very fortunate.
Aparajita/AJ
And part-time...
Karunavajri is our friendly stock manager, book-keeper and is frighteningly efficient and calm under pressure.
Then there are our trusty volunteers who generously give of their time and skills. Padmakara has been working on our photo archive since 2006 and has scanned and organised nearly 3000 images (so far). He is also learning the art of video editing amongst other things - he is a real boon!
Paul is helping us get started with proper interactive products for schools. He is a master of Flash and makes computer games for a living.
Let us not forget Nathan (www.programx.co.uk) who designed and masterminded this lovely website. He has been a total
star from the outset, generously helping AJ learn an awful lot about website creation/management,
and being a friendly technical whizz. The fact that he lives on the Isle of Man was no obstacle! If you'd like a website almost as nice as ours, get in touch.