Training kids to make pocket film

A Swedish kid being taught the use of her mobile phone to make a short film 

Many of us use our mobile phones either to make or receive calls, take and send photos, or send text messages.

These are in fact the most common usage of this piece of technology not just in Sierra Leone but in many parts of the world.

A few others go the extreme of using theirs to engage in other dastardly acts, like making or watching pornographic films, as we have seen in Sierra Leone recently.

We Yone TV, a Freetown based non-profit organisation which specialises in filmmaking, has envisioned a project it says will revolutionise the use of mobile phones in the country.

The organisation is working towards replicating a project recently seen in Sweden.

With the support of the Denmark based Rapolitics, a non-profit making organisation that dedicates itself to promoting youth creativity around the world, in collaboration with the Denis Center for Arts and Culture, Arthur Pratt, national coordinator of We Yone TV, travelled to Denmark where together with another member of his organisation

they helped train children on the use of their mobile phone as tool for film making.

The trainees were able to make several short films for between one and two minutes. And these films were then shown to their classes, and in some cases in the presence of parents.

“When we returned we thought it fit that this is a very good thing that we need to do in Sierra Leone,” Pratt says.

We Yone TV was founded in 2009 to train youth and disadvantaged Sierra Leoneans the art of film making.

It was born out of an idea aimed at enabling the youth to be self expressive, and it sees filmmaking as a perfect medium for this.

The organisation has worked with war affected youths, among others.

“There was a time in Sierra Leone when we had a story telling culture…but it died down. And so we want to transform this culture into filming and want this culture to remain,” Pratt tells me in an interview.

He adds that We Yone TV was in Sierra Leone to ensure that untold stories were told, and that people were not shy or afraid to tell their stories as it`s only so others might be able to help you.

“And this is a culture that we want to develop…”

The ‘pocket film’ project could be a perfect medium of conveying such messages as the Attitudinal and Behavioural Change (ABC) secretariat of Sierra Leone seeks to do.

The government spends millions of Leones annually, through the national civic education outfit, to mend a missing part of this war-torn West African country`s psyche. But the ABC`s campaigning activities have mainly been media talk shows and town hall meetings.

“If you want to do campaign I think it`s very important that we get everyone involved and students are very, very important to get them involved in such campaigns,” Pratt argues.

“Creativity helps in development. So when they are creative they will be able to develop in many spheres of life,” he adds.

He says if children could be taught to use their mobile phones and do documentary for short stories, which teaches attitudinal and behavioural change or show things that happen within their schools and their homes to the outside world, “I think we are making break through to information dissemination and campaign to whatever issue we want to raise awareness on.”

In Sierra Leone, the training will be pioneered in Freetown, and then in the second city of Bo in the south of the country.

The organisers are looking at early February for commencement of the first session.

Pratt says the main reason they consider these cities is because of their susceptibility to the ills of the effect of rapid modernisation within urban Sierra Leone.

“So in another words it`s like transforming the minds of the people and telling them that you can do positive things but not negative things,” he says, stressing the need for the ABC national secretariat to possibly take a lead role in ensuring the project is successful.

Plans are also afoot to create a website where people can access these films created for downloading and viewing.

We Yone is currently completing a parallel project which seeks to break the regional and tribal divide in Sierra Leone through a documentary on the making.

It will focus on the recently concluded general elections.