The peace and quiet of 200 villages in Northern Ghana was shattered in May and June this year with the arrival of CABI-sponsored village-based video screenings. CABI (Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International) is an international not-for-profit organization that improves people’s lives worldwide by providing information and applying scientific expertise to solve problems in agriculture and the environment.
“We wanted to explore new and innovative ways of getting information to isolated communities in Northern Ghana to warn them about fall armyworm. We realized that colleagues in CABI were planning 200 screenings on how to grow more soybeans and we decided to include three films on fall armyworm in the bundle,” said Tamsin Davis, Development Communications Manager at CABI.
CABI commissioned Countrywise Communications Ghana to translate existing films on prevention, identification and management of the Fall armyworm into 9 local languages. Countrywise travels to each village on a customized motorized tricycle. They set up the screen and the generator and start to play music videos at high volume to drum up a crowd.
CABI had experimented with village-based film screenings in Northern Ghana the previous year. They had found that it was a great way to instill family-based learning.
Attendances at this year’s screenings broke down into
- 13,230 men
- 14,395 women
- 13,638 school-aged children
“Women are able to attend because the timing of the screenings is in the evening, after all chores have been completed and religious observances followed. The screenings are also close to the homes of the families attending,” said Duncan Sones, who has been working on the Africa Soil Health Consortium on the video campaign.
Attendances at individual screenings vary from 50 to 700 people. The average attendance was around 200.
CABI is currently carrying out research into the impact of village screenings as a way of sharing information.
You can find out more here https://blog.cabi.org/2018/08/30/switching-onto-ict-approaches-to-gender-in-extension-services/
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