One of the advantages of a big city is that, although there often isn't too much to visit in terms of tourist attractions, there are certain cultural or artistic activities to enjoy. Chance had it that we were in Abidjan for the Festival Cine Droit Libre, a cinema using short movies and documentaries as a tool for expression and to promote human rights. This year's festival centered on the children's rights and debuted yesterday, coinciding with the International Day for the Rights of Children. We attended the opening ceremony, with some youth singing and performing.
Afterwards, we watched two short movies, one regarding the Mali situation with Tiken Jah Fakoly (see below), from droitlibre.tv. The final movie was regarding female circumcision, entitled "L'appel de Diégoune".
It was followed by a brief debate with a woman who formerly performed female circumcision, an immam prohibiting circumcision and the representative of UNICEF.
During the festival, two Master classes are also organized, and after explaining a bit regarding our projects in Morocco, I was invited to attend. A welcome treat, especially as today I just learned I wasn't shortlisted for a peace building job as I applied for (Asia Regional Director in Cambodia), which I was feeling really excited about and had put a lot of time drafting the application for. Not always easy to combine job hunting with travelling...
L'appel de Diégoune from Tostan on Vimeo.
The master classes turned out to be an interesting place to chat and hear about other initiatives in the region. The facilitator, a Dutch guy Gideon Vinck, is based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and they are promoting these Human Rights festival in several countries now. However, on a technical level, it was more for beginners and I don't really think to have learned something new., But, as I said, always nice to see and hear what is happening and how others work with multimedia and development.
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