Maasai community video for advocacy

Maasai community members in Loliondo, Tanzania, have been trained to make their own videos to help them resist land-grabs by foreign investors. In 1992, a luxury hunting company from the United Arab Emirates occupied 1500 km2 of village land in Loliondo to set up a private game reserve beside the Serengeti National Park. Since then, Maasai have been denied access to vital grazing land and waterpoints for their herds. A mass eviction of Maasai villages within the disputed land took place in 2009. Participatory video training has strengthened the community’s self-advocacy. Six community members made a video on the land grabbing. At a community screening in 2014, local elders said that outsiders had been speaking on their behalf but now it was time for the Maasai to speak for themselves. The community has two video production kits, a laptop for editing and a mobile screening kit to show videos in remote villages. Participants in the media training have authored short videos on subjects such as women’s rights, drought, Maasai culture and the video Olosho on the land-rights struggle. Click here to watch videos from the Maasai in Loliondo on YouTube. (Source: InsightShare Biennial Review 2013-2015).

Posted on 15 October 2016 in Pastoralism & Extractives, Pastoralism, Policy & Power