Audiovisual and Awareness back to Projects
"Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed."
Djemberém The project involves the use of new communication strategies based on the music and on the audiovisual as a means to educate people and provide opportunities for discussion, ideas, and thoughts to establish a shared peace process and initiate a cross-cultural dialogue. In collaboration with the band Fifito & Bumbulum, composed of musicians from Guinea Bissau, Zoe Association has developed an outreach tool based on the organization of talk-show events.
The talk-show events are inspired by the traditional “around-the-fire-meetings”, typical of western Africa cultural background, which were organized under specific huts (Djemberem) at the center of the village. In there, the community attempted to resolve the internal fights and disputes among the villagers. By finding a stronghold in the local tradition, the speakers promote a common exchange, stimulating the participants and making them open to dialogue.
The real stars are therefore not artists, who act as animators of dialogue with the help of music, but the population gathered in these events. The artists-musicians are also lecturers who participate in the talk show with the population. It is people who need to understand conflict situations and to find the means to avoid them, and at the same time, give peace and reconciliation responses to problems..
The real stars are therefore not artists, who act as animators of dialogue with the help of music, but the population gathered in these events. The artists-musicians are also lecturers who participate in the talk show with the population. It is people who need to understand conflict situations and to find the means to avoid them, and at the same time, give peace and reconciliation responses to problems..
Engaged for years at the highest social and political levels in the work of social reconciliation in Guinea Bissau, the band Fifito & Bumbulum has launched numerous campaigns, going from village to village and from town to town to meet the people, in order to create spaces and opportunities for meetings and discussions and establish a shared peace process. The band, made up of Guinean professional musicians, has developed a structured performance model based not only on musical performance, but also on the public debate, which precedes and concludes the concert of the musicians.
Zoe association contributes with its audio-visual products and documentaries to the campaign described above. During the collaboration with the group of artists from Guinea Bissau, the association has produced several videos with different communicative purposes and target audience:
- a documentary on Leadership in Africa, in particular on the figure of Amilcar Cabral as the leader of the country's independence process from Portuguese colonialism;
- a docu-drama that illustrates the awareness project through the music carried out by the band Fifito & Bumbulum;
- 5 video clips that animate many original music of the Guinean band, as products targeted to an international audience. Video clips are continuously transmitted in the channel RTP Africa, present in the Portuguese speaking countries;
- A documentary on the hidden discrimination in the language of the media and the press, entitled "I Have a name and a surname";
- A DVD containing videoclips and the docu-fiction Es I Tempo de Djemberem, published by Harmattan in Portuguese and French version.
