MultiChoice, Earthshot in sustainability partnership
Youth Interactive Correspondent
MultiChoice Africa has formed a media broadcast partnership with The Earthshot Prize to help keep the people of Africa informed of the Earthshot initiative and its core mission to help repair our environmentally-damaged planet.
A feature of this partnership is the involvement of students at the MultiChoice Talent Factory academies in Lusaka, Nairobi and Lagos, where filmmaking skills are being imparted to aspiring filmmakers.
These students are now assisting by making films that show what can be done to protect and revive Earth in this time of environmental crisis.
Charity Njanji, head of corporate affairs and public relations of MultiChoice Zimbabwe, said the students’ works would help create essential awareness of the crisis itself and point to ways and means of taking action to halt and reverse environmental decline.
“The Earthshot Prize was launched in 2020 and has five main earthshot actions to reach for by 2030: protect and restore nature, clean our air, revive our oceans, build a waste-free world and fix our climate,” she said.
“The involvement of the MTF students will be a small but significant part of this vital programme.”
Since the 2020 launch, the Earthshot programme has awarded more than US$20 million in prize money and helped generate a further US$60 million of funding for 45 winners and finalists, all of whom have brought ideas and action to the forefront.
A significant part of the Earthshot initiative is to spread the word, to inspire, to connect, so the partnership between MultiChoice Africa and Earthshot seeks to spotlight innovative ideas helping to drive environmental change, and to accelerate the development of sustainable solutions.
MultiChoice reaches almost 22 millions households across Africa through its DStv platform and is therefore well placed to platform this initiative and the ideas and activities flowing from it.
A good example of what is already being done is the reforestation initiative undertaken by the MultiChoice Talent Factory East Africa Academy in Kenya.
Recognising the urgent need for environmental action, academy students partnered with the community and a primary school in the Nderi area on a reforestation initiative.
In addition, through the dozens of filmmakers who graduate from the MTF programme across Africa each year, MultiChoice Africa is amplifying the call for environmental action and celebrating the change agents of Africa who are tackling some of the world’s most pressing challenges.
Each year the MTF programme trains a total of 60 young graduate filmmakers at its three academies — in Lagos, Nairobi and Lusaka — through comprehensive, fully-funded cinematography courses.
Now MTF students have produced a series of Earthshot documentaries, spreading the message of environmentalism and climate-conscious living that will be critical to keeping the planet safe for human habitation.
Director Marilyn Arko-Baisie and producer Winner Achimugu teamed up on the documentary short film Revive The Ocean, which shows how NGOs and community organisations are working to make a difference.
They feature Doyinsola Ogunye, founder of Sea Turtle Sanctuary, and Oyewole Talabi of plastics collection initiative Recycle9ja.
Achenye Idachabasbaro of MitiMeth describes the process of upcycling waste to extend product lifespans, while Agharese Lucia Onaghise explains how the key to minimising waste is in designing products for recyclability.
The documentary RAT — Race Against Time focuses on two seaside communities in Nigeria, where there is extreme plastic pollution.
The filmmakers — director Anjola Aluko, producer Prince Isaac Effiong, assistant producer Thecla Uzozi and co-director Ayodeji M Lawson —uncover the complexities of these communities, one of which is built on a foundation of plastic waste, which is now a flood barrier.
The film concludes with a sobering quotation by Robert Swan: “The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save us.”
The short film titled “2070”, by director Adejo Emmanuel, producers Morenikeji Uka, Oluwayanmife Arogundade and assistant director Omotola Oke — takes a dramatised approach to climate change.
It tells the story of a schoolgirl assigned to imagine what the world might look like in 2070.
While her classmates imagine a world of flying cars, her lived experience of waste pollution and constant flooding leads her to deliver a bleak assessment.
“The MultiChoice partnership with the Earthshot prize is teaching young people the value of sustainability, while also helping to showcase game-changing initiatives and inspiring more of Africa’s youth to fight to save the continent’s future,” said Njanji.
“By placing environmental awareness front and centre and by showcasing the leaders of the fight for sustainability, the MTF filmmakers are helping the next generation of climate-conscious young African leaders to take note and to act.”
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