Everyone’s a teacher, everyone’s a student

While HIV/Aids continues to imperil the agricultural workforce across Africa, an Aids support group in Malawi is using participatory video to boost their own self-esteem and to encourage others to get tested.

Via participatory video (PV), the Tichezerane Aids support group in M’deka, Malawi, is promoting healthy ways of living with Aids. It is also helping to build group solidarity, by enabling members to tell their own stories and to film themselves engaging in different agricultural activities. Communication and awareness raising are among the most effective weapons in the fight against this disease, and participatory video is a powerful technology of communication indeed.

HIV/Aids is having a devastating effect on countries in Southern Africa, and remains one of the greatest obstacles to development efforts. The condition has a ruinous impact on agriculture; some 80% of populations in the most adversely affected countries depend upon agriculture for subsistence. As Aids often claims the lives of people in their most productive years, it is depriving many developing countries of their farmers. In Malawi, one of the nine African countries worst hit by the pandemic, Aids is projected to reduce the agricultural workforce by 14% over the period 1985-2020.
Six months after its formation in June 2005, the Tichezerane Aids support group was asked by its donors if they would like to have a go at making their own film. This self-help community group, whose members are all HIV positive, had been set up with the assistance of GOAL, an Irish NGO, but had become self-sufficient through income-generating farming activities. To introduce participatory video to the group, GOAL provided two facilitators, Dominic Elliot of Insight, a group specializing in participatory video, and trainee assistant Basimenye Mwalwanda of Nanzikambe, a local theatre-for-development NGO.

Handing over the camera

The training took place over the course of three sessions. The group of 12 members gathered in the shade outside the local health clinic in M’deka and needed no persuasion to try out the first few PV exercises. At this early stage in the process, it is important to hand the camera over to the group as soon as possible, to demystify the technology and to avoid making technical presentations about how it functions. Thus, in the first session, we started with the ‘name game’, in which the group members form a circle and introduce themselves by making a simple statement to the camera. The first person was shown how to hold the camera and press ‘record’ to film the person opposite them in the circle. They then passed on the camera to the next person in the circle and told them what they had just learned. Everyone films, everyone is filmed, everyone is a student and everyone is a teacher. We finished with the ‘disappearing game’, in which the members of the group disappear, one by one, as the ‘record’ button is turned on and off. The screening session afterwards was the first time any of them had seen themselves on a video screen. There was much amusement and everyone was keen to continue with the process.
The second session was designed to further familiarise the group with the camera, but also to build confidence in directing and planning sequences of shots. Each scene was built up from one camera angle, and the overall piece had to contain a variety of close-ups and long shots. Two people were in charge of each shot, but all had to plan and agree on the story. Using marker pens, they drew the sequences on large sheets of paper and assigned responsibility for each of them.
In the film the group members re-enact their main activities – visiting the sick, helping them with household chores, and trying to persuade them to get themselves tested. They sing as they walk to a sick woman’s house, holding utensils on their heads in expectation of helping her with chores. When they arrive they say a prayer and listen to the sick woman tell of her fears and her intention to visit the local witchdoctor for advice. The group dissuades her from doing this, and instead encourages her to get tested at the local clinic.

Personal stories

The third and final session was to cover planning. However, by the time the facilitators had arrived, the group had already discussed and worked out what they wanted to film. Thus the initial planning meeting was more about assigning responsibility for filming each scene, ensuring that everyone participated, and making the best use of the time available. The group began with a prayer and a song. One member gave a brief history of how the group was formed, and some others recounted their own personal stories directly to the camera. The group then filmed themselves performing their regular activities – making compost, growing vegetables and raising blue gum tree seedlings to share or to sell at the local market, and harvesting maize in the field they are able to rent using the income from the vegetable garden. In each scene, as the members prepare compost or hoe their fields, for example, one of them presents an audio commentary in the foreground. Throughout the film, the members urge the viewers not to be frightened of being tested, and reassure them that there is life with HIV, and that it can be led with joy and dignity.

The finished film has been shown to the local community, and has helped the group to grow to 46 people. The members have also extended some of their activities, in particular their vegetable garden and group therapy sessions.

So far, the group has sold 17 copies of their film to other NGOs working with HIV/Aids in Malawi, and the members are using the proceeds to support their other activities. GOAL is currently translate the film into Portuguese for use in Mozambique. The film has been well received by members of the development community and has been screened to staff at UNDP and DFID.

This and other films like it are important tools for sharing experiences and raising awareness, but also for inspiring and empowering people living with HIV/Aids. ‘Right now, many of those who hide their status are envious of us because we’ve had a really good time,’ said one participant.

Gaining such confidence and spirit in the face of HIV/Aids is no minor victory, by any measure.

Dominic Elliot works with Insight, a UK/France based organization specializing in the use of participatory video to bring the voices of the marginalized to the fore and empower them to manage their own forms of development based on local needs. Or visit the GOAL website.