Lola Kenya Screen

The Lola Kenya Screen audiovisual media initiative for children and youth was presented at the just concluded 4th World Summit on Arts & Culture in Johannesburg, South Africa (September 22-25, 2009).

Lola Kenya Screen was one of three projects presented under the theme 'Festivals' in an eight-themed Project Networking Session on September 23, 2009.

Lola Kenya Screen Director Ogova Ondego, who spoke alongside Peter Rorvik of the Centre for Creative Arts in Durban (South Africa) and Ryland Fisher of Cape Town One City Many Cultures Festival of Cape Town (South Africa), said "Lola Kenya Screen is an annual international audiovisual media movement founded in October 2005 as an annual international film festival, production workshop and audiovisual media platform to empower children and youth with skills to understand, appreciate, and create quality audiovisual media productions in particular and arts in general" and that "Lola Kenya Screen places production tools in the hands of children (6-13 years) and youth (14-24 years) for the advancement of literacy, gender equity, self expression, independent, democracy and global health."

He added that Lola Kenya Screen "operates on the principle that the comprehension of moving images is a basic skill at par with the 3 Rs—Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic—that contribute to development of societies and nations according to education experts."

Lola Kenya Screen, through her Festival, Production and Market programmes explores, identifies and nurtures creative talent among children and youth in areas such as journalism, filmmaking, arts appraisal and appreciation, and organisation and presentation of cultural and creative events."

With each presenter allocated 15 minutes, Ondego—who used the MS Power Point presentation format—introduced and explained how the following Lola Kenya Screen Skill-Development, Learn-As-You-Do Mentorship Programmes for children and youth work:

(a) The Film Jury inculcates in participants the skills with which to critically appreciate and appraise creativity in general and film in particular. The Film Jury usually works on the films selected by the Film Selection Committee that is composed of children, youth and adult professionals.This is the group that presents the Lola Kenya Screen Golden Mboni prize for the best children's film and the 14-Plus Award for the best youth film. Thirteen participants had gone through the programme by the end of August 2009.

b) The Event Organisation & Presentation (MCs) programe equips participants with the skills to plan and present cultural and creative events. Participants are usually in charge of preparing the daily programme of events and introducing them during the festival.

Seven children and youth had by the end of August 2009 gone through this programme.

c) The Festival Press (Creative Journalism) is aimed at uplifting the standards of creative and cultural journalism in eastern Africa. Articles by the children and youth who go through this practical learning and practising programme are published throughout the festival on lolakenyascreen.org and artmatters.info websites and on various tailor-made blogs.

Some 14 participants drawn from Kenya, Uganda,Tanzania mainland, Zanzibar and Zimbabwe had gone through this programee between August 2006 and August 2009.

d). The Film Production programme empowers children and youth to make at least five high quality, low-budget, moving images per year.

Thirty-one participants had by August 2009 gone through this very popular programme from which 20 short animation and nine short documentary films had been made.

Some 21 young people aged 19-25 years have also been trained in the production of television drama for children and youth and in making documentary films for the generation of today and tomorrow.

Such productions are showcased around the globe through film festivals, cultural events, schools and children’s clubs.

Lola Kenya Screen, Ondego said, is also a marketing platform for audiovisual media works from Africa and the world.

"Products, services and messages targeting children, youth and family are promoted at Lola Kenya Screen," he said.

In conclusion, Ondego said, "Lola Kenya Screen has showed more than 1450 best possible international films for children, youth and family from 95 nations representing all the continents in various genres,formats and lengths between August 2006 and August 2009."

Some 450 delegates from 70 nations across the world deliberated on issues related to the creative and cultural sectors and how they—depending on who and what they are used for—can be instruments for inter-cultural dialogue or root of all conflict. This was the first time that the World Summit on Arts & Culture was held in Africa.

In her remarks that officially opened the summit on September 23, Lulama ‘Lulu’Xingwana, the South African Minister for Arts and Culture,  said culture and the arts “lay the foundations for mutual understanding, for celebrations of difference and diversity, as well as preparing the ground for working towards commonalities and coalescence.”

The first key note speaker at the Summit was Baroness Lola Young, the Chair of the Commonwealth Group on Culture and Development.

Saying culture is—and has been—the missing link in development, Baroness Lola Young called for culture and development to be integrated.

“Governments, development organisations and donors are failing to engage with a crucial component of development by ignoring culture,” she said. “The lack of inclusion of cultural components in development strategies can hamper human development,” Baroness Lola Young noted.

She appealed to governments, development agencies, civil society and donors to “adopt long term strategies to take account of culture. This means coming up with indicators that measure cultural well-being as a development end in itself. It also means finding new ways of quantifying and measuring the impact that support for cultural expression can have. Above all, these strategies must be backed up with financial commitment and political will.”

According to the baroness, whose Culture Programme was established in 2005, culture can be used in key areas of development, such as economic growth, policy, expression, identity and in human rights.