Written by Kimberly M Kokernot
Images of Africa are not new to Western culture. From the swollen bellies of children to the dusty remnants of war, these pictures have affected the American mindset of development.
During a two-month trip throughMozambiquethis past summer, seniors Nick Michael, Tyler Jones and junior Kelsey Sherrod, along with Samford junior Maribeth Browning, followed the question “What is development?” with video cameras in hand.Through the art of film, they worked together to create theKujilana Project,a documentary that addresses this question. Kujilana means reconciliation. They interviewed development leaders in both the United States and Mozambique, and filmed life in a local tribe. According to Michael, what they found is that development happens on the ground, through relationships with people. They put this mentality into action through an experimental film class in Nomba, Mozambique.The group spent the last month of their trip teaching four Yao, the name for Nomba locals, how to use cameras to tell their own stories.”We envisioned using technology to empower people by allowing them to have a stage to […] share their stories with other people,” Sherrod said. “I think that fundamentally that’s empowering because that’s the way human beings relate to each other–through story. It’s how we come to understand each other.”As the the Yao learned to preserve history with cameras, the team built relationships by listening to their stories.
