Showcasing Cordaid’s health care projects in Ghana

Cordaid, the Dutch Catholic Organisation for Relief and Development Aid, and Africa Interactive have recently finished 11 videos that show the stories of numerous Ghanaian women whilst pregnant or just after they became a mother.

A Ghanaian crew, consisting of a cameraman, reporter and video-editor produced the videos in close collaboration with our Amsterdam office. Our local Accra-based crew traveled many miles, flying from North to South, in order to film women in rural areas and capture their experience with healthcare.

The focus lies on pregnant women and the challenges they face during their pregnancy and delivery. Having a baby in Ghana can be very risky, especially when you are living in rural or under-served communities.

In the different videos women speak about hospitals being under-equipped in staff and not being able to provide them the services they need. And that’s where Cordaid comes in with different healthcare focused projects.

In total Africa Interactive filmed 6 health care projects to show the progress that is made and the needs for the future. We made different edits of this material summing up to 11 videos in total.

Bracelets

One very colorful video about bracelets stood out. The video tells about Ghanaian women from rural communities that came up with the idea to wear different colored bracelets during their pregnancy.

With each pregnancy check they get a different color bracelet; red, yellow and green. The latter meaning they’re nearly ready for delivery. “Red means stop, yellow means get ready, green means; go, go, go!”

The bracelets are easy to see, women like wearing them and they are encouraged to go for regular check ups at the hospital. Director from the Diocesan Health Service of Goaso, Peter Yeboah, explains: ”The bracelet idea is intended to reduce avoidable maternal deaths in the system and improve antenatal care attendance at the hospital… we recorded almost 13 percent reductions of maternal deaths from 2008 until now. I think that’s a huge success.”

Watch the video about bracelets for pregnant women below:

Or visit Cordaid’s website to watch other videos from this series.

Africa Interactive

Africa Interactive works with a vast network of local media professionals across the African continent (and Asia and Latin America). In this case we compiled a team of a cameraman, journalist and video-editor in Ghana who have produced these videos in cooperation with our Amsterdam office. From start to finish we have been working on these 11 videos from October to February.

If you are interested in receiving more information about how we work, please contact us via +31 20 423 166 or visit our website www.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.

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