Lola Kenya Screen Introduces Media Literacy Programme

Lola Kenya Screen, the Nairobi-based audiovisual media festival, skill-development programme and marketing platform for children and youth in eastern Africa that presents cutting-edge workshops, seminars, exhibitions and screenings in her effort to promote creativity in Africa, has introduced a two-hour daily seminar on media literacy over the entire six days of the annual festival starting from 2010.

While the mass media are an important socialising agent in modern times, Lola Kenya Screen founder, Managing Trustee and Creative Director Ogova Ondego says, many people—especially children and youth—are passive consumers unaware that the same mass media can be harmful to society.

The introduction of the media literacy seminars in 2010 is in line with the broader objectives of the Lola Kenya Screen: equipping children and youth with the skills to understand, appreciate, and create quality audiovisual media productions in particular, and arts in general.

Lola Kenya Screen—that has since 2005 been presented by ComMattersKenya in collaboration with Goethe-Institut in Kenya —has in 2009 been incorporated as a fully-fledged audiovisual media CHARITY specialising in issues related to children, youth, family, media, culture and development.

Lola Kenya Screen was founded in October 2005 as a movement that prepares children and youth as practitioners and then places audiovisual media tools in their hands to promote causes such as literacy, gender equity, self expression, and independent thought.

“At the centre of Lola Kenya Screen are our practical, hands-on, learn-as-you-do mentorship programmes through which we explore, identify and nurture creative talent among children and youth in journalism, filmmaking, arts appreciation, and organisation and presentation of cultural and creative events,” says Ondego.

Details on this initiative are online at lolakenyascreen.org and related websites. Information is also available via d

irector@lolakenyascreen.org, cell 254 733 703 374 and 254 722 486531, P O Box 20775-00100 GPO, Nairobi, Kenya (EA).

A lolakenyascreen.org article.