Africa Interactive zoekt een ervaren full-time video-editor (tijdelijke aanstelling)

Voor het produceren van content producties zoeken we een enthousiaste en creatieve video editor die ons team in Amsterdam kan versterken. Hij/zij is beschikbaar voor een periode van tenminste 6 maanden, beginnende op 1 maart en eindigend op 1 september 2012.

De video-editor is in staat om samen met onze content managers de communicatieve wensen van onze klanten te begrijpen en te vertalen in aansprekende videoproducties. Onze ideale kandidaat is georganiseerd en beschikt over goede sociale en communicatieve vaardigheden. Hij/zij is buitengewoon flexibel en leergierig en past bovendien goed in ons bestaande team in Amsterdam.

Africa Interactive is een jong en dynamisch mediabedrijf met vernieuwende kijk op de kracht van nieuwe media. We combineren een commerciële doelstelling met een sterk sociaal karakter en bewijzen dat deze twee heel goed samengaan. We zijn een platte, flexibele organisatie die snel groeit en verwachten een grote mate van inzet en flexibiliteit van onze medewerkers.

Werkwijze
Voor onze klanten (overheid, NGO’s en bedrijfsleven) in binnen- en buitenland produceren we content (veel video), websites, communicatie- en marketingconcepten, waarbij ons groeiende Afrikaanse netwerk van meer dan 2.500 mediaprofessionals een unieke meerwaarde is. Inmiddels groeit ons netwerk ook buiten Afrika en leveren we ook producties uit Latijns Amerika en Azië. Wij vliegen geen crews in, maar werken altijd met lokale professionals. Hierdoor steunen wij lokaal mediatalent, produceren we milieuvriendelijk en kunnen we goedkoper produceren.

Afrikaans netwerk
Wij geloven zeer in de kracht van Afrika en denken dat dit rijke continent de komende decennia van groot belang zal blijken voor de wereld. Goede informatie is hierbij van groot belang. Wil Afrika zich duurzaam ontwikkelen dan is het bestaan van onafhankelijke en sterke media in dit continent onontbeerlijk. Door ons Afrikaanse netwerk een belangrijke rol te geven bij de stijgende vraag naar goede informatie uit en over Afrika, slaat Africa Interactive feitelijk twee vliegen in een klap.

We zoeken iemand:

- met aantoonbare* kennis van Final Cut Studio
* Ervaring met Motion (Infographics, leaders, DVD menu’s),
* Ervaring met Photoshop
* Ervaring met DVD Studio Pro

- bij voorkeur afgestudeerd WO of HBO (media of journalistiek),
- met ervaring in het editen van journalistieke video producties of met het maken van documentaires,
- met ervaring in het editen van videomateriaal in andere talen aan de hand van transcripties,
- die zowel zelfstandig en oplossingsgericht kan werken, maar ook goed kan functioneren in een team,
- met goede beheersing van de Nederlandse taal en de Engelse taal
- een goede beheersing van Frans, Portugees, Duits of Swahili is zonder meer een grote plus.

Onze ideale kandidaat:

- is georganiseerd en precies, maar weet wel deadlines te halen,
- stressbestendig en evenwichtig,
- is creatief en oplossingsgericht,
- heeft enige ervaring met het werken met NGO’s,
- is representatief,
- beschikt over goede sociale en communicatieve vaardigheden,

Voor meer informatie over deze functie kan contact worden opgenomen met Pieter van Twisk: +31 (0)6 21518875

* Graag bij sollicitaties voorbeelden van het werk toevoegen. Dat kan zijn door middel van een het uploaden van werk via Wetransfer of via het aanleveren van een link naar het materiaal op YouTube of Vimeo.

Graag motivatiebrief en CV opsturen voor 5 februari 2012 naar Pieter van Twisk: pieter [at] africa-interactive.com

New series: Aid or Trade? – Development meets business in Africa

Our newly produced series ‘Aid or Trade?’ shows that aid is no longer about transferring money or shipping goods. It’s rather about setting up sustainable companies, while taking local constraints and the environment into account. An article in the Economist recently stated ‘Western governments should open up to trade rather than just dish out aid … Autocracy, corruption and strife will not disappear overnight. But at a dark time for the world economy, Africa’s progress is a reminder of the transformative promise of growth.’

This 5 episode-series ‘Aid or Trade?’ (5 x 14 minutes) shows an optimistic and nuanced perspective and portrays successful combinations and collaborations. The program highlights high-potential or successful initiatives: often collaboration between NGO’s, private, and public sector organizations. We show that commercial initiatives can be more social and aid can be more sustainable by using a business approach.

In the first episode we see inspiring initiatives in Liberia, Malawi, Ghana and Kenya. We visited Chid Liberty who set up his social enterprise Liberty and Justice. His garment factory in Liberia’s capital Monrovia is committed to a future in which farmers, manufacturers, transporters, distributors, retailers, and consumers are completely aligned in making choices that result in the eradication of poverty, the responsible stewardship of the environment, and the empowerment of workers.

In Malawi we visited communities around the Majete Wildlife Park, where the organization African Parks is making efforts to assist the communities around the park by training them and finding markets for their products.

The third item is about Ghana’s growing tech-scene, partly thanks to the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) in Accra. We spoke to one of the start-ups, Nandi Mobile, who’s founders are trained by MEST.

The fourth and last item of the first episode is about Honey Care Africa, an innovative, rapidly expanding Kenyan social enterprise established explicitly to increase the income of rural farmers.

The four other episodes are highlighting similar initiatives in Zambia, Egypt, South Africa, Benin, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria and Ethiopia. All items of ‘Aid or Trade?’ are produced by African media professionals (researchers/journalists, presenters, camera men/women) in cooperation with and on behalf of producer Africa Interactive.

The 5 episode-series Aid or Trade? is available for broadcasting and can be ordered through our distribution partner FCCE.

We are also working in Asia and Latin America!

In the past 5 years we have been working in many African countries. Our network of highly skilled local content producers has grown from a handful to over 2000 professionals. Driven by our clients demand, we’ve expanded our network also outside the African continent resulting in an increasing amount of productions in Asia and Latin-America.

Many of our clients (NGOs, multinationals and governments) are working in developing countries all across the world, not just in Africa. Therefore in the past years we have made video and photo productions in countries like Colombia, Brazil, Paraguay, India, Bangladesh and Vietnam.

As always we believe in local capacity and therefore work with local video-producers, photographers and journalists. As you are reading this post, we are quickly building our network outside the African continent. So if you are looking for content from Africa, Latin America or Asia let us know!

Below you can find two examples of recent productions in India and Colombia:

Showing impact of Sida’s projects through the eyes of beneficiaries in South Sudan

For Sida (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) we recently made portraits of beneficiaries of the projects they support in South Sudan, Africa’s youngest nation.

The two topics we focused on are a women voting program (above)  in the build-up towards the referendum about the independence of South Sudan from 9 to 15 January 2011. The other video (below) is focused on a program to increasing transparency and fight corruption in government institutions.

Our crew in Juba has followed a beneficiary of each program and the end-result shows the impact it has on them.

Let’s talk about it! Africa Interactive creates series on sexuality issues for Rutgers WPF

In Nyanza, a small village close to the Rwandan capital Kigali, around fifteen boys and girls sit opposite of each other in a classroom. Girls giggle as the boys share their thoughts on how to treat a woman in bed. “I think you should talk with a girl so you know what she likes and dislikes, it should be the boy that has to relax the girl before they have sex.”

This is one of the scenes from the video-series ‘Let’s talk about it’, produced by Africa Interactive on behalf of Rutgers WPF. Research for the project began end of 2010 and this month we delivered a DVD containing six inspiring episodes. These videos are produced in cooperation with our local crews filming in Rwanda, Mali, Malawi and Bangladesh and local partners of Rutgers WPF.

Six episodes to kick-start discussion

During six episodes of 5 minutes each, young people from all around the world discuss issues like sexual pleasure, respect in relationships, sexual diversity, condoms, HIV-tests and abortion. These videos are combined on a DVD which is distributed to all the partners in the participating countries so peer-educators (working with Rutgers WPF) can use the material to kick-start their sessions with young people. The goal of this project is that young people start talking about it!

Safe abortions in Mali

Another episode shot in Koulikoro, Mali. A youth group debates whether safe abortion is OK or not? “In our society and religion we cannot abort a child because it is seen as murder… when the girls tell about it, they’ll have huge problems at home”, one female participant explains. What comes out of the discussions is the big difference between an unsafe and safe abortion. “An unsafe abortion is done with sharp objects, it can cause wounds or transfer HIV or other diseases”.  The girls speak out: “The advice I want to give to my sisters… if you are going to have an abortion, you should have a safe one”.

Being gay in Bangladesh

During a workshop in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, about 30 peer educators working with Rutgers WPF, come together to talk about sexual diversity.  You would think since they are trained to talk it comes easy, but that wasn’t the case. In the beginning of their careers at Rutgers WPF the peer educators had to face their own prejudices. “We had a hard time to deal with gays, we avoided them and thought they were abnormal”, a girl explains. After learning and talking about sexual diversity, the group realizes more that ‘it is not a choice to be gay, it is in your nature”. But still: “…most gays are hiding.”

Working with local crews on ‘touchy’ subjects

For us at Africa Interactive it was very important that we work with people who have an open mind regarding the sensitivity of the subjects. We focused on some of our young and experienced reporters: for instance in Rwanda the crew already made a docu-soap about sexuality and love.

Villant, one of our best local producers in Malawi, filmed the episode in Malawi. She is a real ‘power woman’ and while coordinating the job with her (subject: respect in relationships) she let us know how she feels about men and violence. “Girls like me will never take that!” Villant was in charge of the shoot and arranged a whole village to play a role in the video as a young bride and groom walk down the isle. “I just stood in the middle of the village and said: who wants to be in a film?” Everybody came out and joined in!”

We are very curious to hear the feedback from the young women and men who participated in the videos and will watch all the six episodes at home or during work sessions. I’m sure they’ll have a lot to discuss!

View all videos on the website of Rutgers WFP!

Annamara Hamersma
Content Manager Africa Interactive

Africa Interactive creates videos about Plan’s Girls Making Media project in four West African countries

On behalf of Plan West Africa we have documented the progress of Plan’s Girls Making Media Project in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Togo and Ghana. Our professional local filmcrews visited the different projects and spoke with participants and trainers.

The goal of the Girls Making Media Project is to contribute to the elimination of gender discrimination and low quality media reporting on adolescent girls’ issues in West Africa. The three year project directly benefits at least 140 adolescent girls and 30 adult journalists in each country.

About Africa Interactive

Africa Interactive is a fast growing multimedia press- and content agency in Africa, with over 2000 local reporters in 50 African countries. Our reporters tell the story in text, photo or video.

Our database contains filmmakers, journalists, photographers, stringers and marketing experts. We produce tailor made ‘High-end’ videos and ‘Simple Video Reports’ to showcase activities of multinationals, NGO’s and governments in Africa. More information: http://www.africa-interactive.com

Our series ‘Aid or Trade?’ shown on Dutch TV-station RTLZ

This month the Dutch business channel RTLZ is showing our series ‘Aid or Trade?’. This programme taps into the current discussion between aid-skeptics who reject aid and strongly promote trade, and the aid-proponents that distrust commercial initiatives and call for even more aid.

‘Aid or Trade?’ shows that aid is no longer about transferring money or shipping goods. It’s rather about setting up sustainable companies, while taking into account local constraints and the environment. The programme highlights high-potential or successful initiatives often collaboration between NGO’s private, and public sector organizations.

View the first 4 (out of 5) episodes online.

This series shows an optimistic and nuanced perspective and portrays successful combinations and collaborations. Commercial initiatives can be more social and aid can be more sustainable with a business approach.

All items of ‘Aid or Trade?’ are produced by African media professionals (research, presenters, camera men/women). They produced this series in cooperation and on behalf of Africa Interactive. It is Africa Interactive’s vision to work with local reporters.

Until Friday 26 August ‘Aid or Trade?’ is shown at these times at RTLZ: Monday: 11.20, Tuesday: 13.20, Wednesday: 15.40, Thursday: 09.20, Friday: 10.20

Examples: Recent work of Africa Interactive

Recently our great team at Africa Interactive has finished several video-productions for many different clients. We are working with local journalists, photographers and camera-crews all over the African continent (and beyond). An overview of our recent work:

Nuffic

Nuffic asked Africa Interactive to visit four alumni in Uganda, Colombia and India to see how they’ve benefited from their studies in the Netherlands.

Nuffic is the Netherlands organization for international cooperation in higher education. As an independent, non-profit organization based in The Hague, the Netherlands, Nuffic supports internationalization in higher education, research and professional education in the Netherlands and abroad, and helps improve access to higher education worldwide.

Philips Healthcare

For Philips we created a website and videos about their second Cape Town to Cairo Roadshow. Philips is once again traveling across Africa to raise awareness about how healthcare and lighting solutions can improve the quality of life across the continent. The Cape Town to Cairo road show 2011 takes place from 12th May to 11th July, 2011 and covers 12,000 kilometers in 62 days, visiting a total of twelve countries.

TNO

For Dutch innovators TNO we created a video about their development cooperation programme in India, Ghana and Uganda.

Stichting DOEN/African Parks

For Stichting DOEN we made a short documentary about the ‘newconomy’ approach of African Parks in Malawi. In this video two craftsman are portrayed, who explain about the changes in their lives and in the communities.

Novartis Foundation

For the Swiss Novartis Foundation for Sustainable Development we made several videos in the Ségou region in Mali about their efforts to improve access to primary healthcare.

Series: Aid or Trade?

Our new series ‘Aid or Trade?‘ taps into the discussion between aid-sceptics that reject aid and strongly promote trade, and the aid-proponents that distrust commercial initiatives and call for more aid. This series chooses an optimistic and nuanced perspective and shows successful combinations and collaborations. Commercial initiatives can be more social and aid can be more sustainable with a business approach.

In each of the 20 episodes, a high-potential or successful initiative is shown, often a collaboration between public and private sector organisations. In the summer of 2011 we will create English versions of all the episodes.

Are you interested in working with us? Please contact Emile Schmitz: emile [at] africa-interactive.com or Tchitula Teuns: tchitula [at] africa-interactive.com

Social capital: the silver bullet for Africa?

Emile Schmitz of Africa Interactive visited SOCAP Europe in Amsterdam on May 30, 31 and June 1st 2011. He wrote this article:

For the first time SOCAP took place in Europe to connect leading global innovators – investors, foundations, institutions, startups and experienced social entrepreneurs – and to build a market for impact investing and social capital. To what extent was Africa on the radar?

Socap Amsterdam

SOCAP is a multi-platform organization dedicated to accelerating the flow of capital to good. The first event was held in the United States in 2008 and the organizers felt it was time to bring the concept to Europe, Amsterdam to be precise.

Social Capital

What is social capital or impact investment? In short these are investments that are not only expected to yield a financial return, but moreover an impact in social and environmental terms. An example can be the investment in solar-lighting solutions in Africa, which can be both financially attractive, but also reduce CO2 emissions and health hazards, compared with the current kerosene lights.

Various large investment institutions and banks were present at the conference and a positive, enthusiastic vibe was spreading the ‘social or impact investing’ ideas. So to what extent was Africa on the radar?

The kick-off was promising, both HRH Princess Maxima of the Netherlands as well as the Director of ‘Stichting Doen’ (main sponsor) used African examples of impactful investments in Rwanda and Mali. In the opening panel, Marilou van Golstein Brouwers, Director of Triodos Investment Management, also stressed the importance of transparency in banking. The presentation of around 50 social entrepreneurs who received a scholarship inspired many of the attendees.

Diving deeper into to numerous panels, a variety of investment funds appeared. Some, like ‘Root Capital’, invest in smaller, early-stage entrepreneurs with great impact but lower financial returns. Others, like ‘E+Co’ focus on clean energy projects and promises higher financial returns. Overall, it seems investors and highly affluent individuals and families seem to be highly interested in these new types of investments.

Social entrepreneurs

These social entrepreneurs were also represented. One of the inventive BoP cases presented in the exhibition area is Movirtu. They are enabling people in developing countries to access their mobile identity without owning a phone or SIM card (80% of people living below the poverty line in rural sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia). The UK-based company makes use of software that enables ‘cloud phone services’ aimed at those living in rural areas on less than $2 a day.

Risks and challenges

Great ideas, but some of the participants warned for a overheating of this emerging field. Even though many investment funds talk about similar commercial returns and social or environmental impact, some questioned how realistic this is. Literature on setting up new business and investments in Africa show the explicit need for ‘whitespace’ and early stage financial or grant support to launch new, social enterprises. Requiring a high commercial return (around 20%) from these enterprises will not always be realistic and can even ‘kill’ a project in its early stages.

Investors like ‘InReturn’ and the investment fund of ‘Cordaid’ raised other challenges. They warned for the lack of strong, competent investment fund managers in Africa and the constraining regulatory environments.

All together, the big trend towards impact investing can be promising and will surely lead to even more investment in Africa. However, HRH Princess Maxima stated, and many agreed: Impact Investing is not the ‘silver bullet to solving poverty’. According to HRH Princess Maxima it should be part of a holistic approach.

SOCAP Africa?

During the three days many people from all over the world entered the podium for inspiring talks about their activities. James Kimisoi, from ‘Justice & Peace for the Catholic Diocese of Eldoret’, urged to organize the next SOCAP in his home country Kenya. “To connect you to the entrepreneurs we are talking about today.”

Entering the African TV market: ’Taste Africa’ and ’Films & Stars Africa’

We have developed different ideas for the African television market. Together with our partner FCCE we are now talking to 35 African channels that have shown interest.

Films & Stars Africa: A weekly series which will deliver a true blend of films and lifestyle relevant to African audiences, showcasing the vibrant film industry of Hollywood, Nollywood and Africa.

Taste Africa: An infotainment videoseries on African cooking. The abundance of ingredients and the multitude of cultures form the main point for a spectacular show of tastes and dishes. With this program we want to broaden the culinary horizon of our viewers and boost creativity in the kitchens all over Africa.

These series are focused on the African market and specifically targeting the growing African middle class. More than 35 channels (six of which are Pan- African) in 17 counties either bought the series or showed interest. This will mean an estimated reach of around 50 million Africans in six months.

For both series we are still looking for sponsors. Should you be interested, please do not hesitate to contact us.