Participatory Video on ‘Siella’ Mineral lick: Community film viewing and observedchanges in‘Siella’ lick development in Wapuli and Chagbani, Saboba –Chereponi District, Ghana

Bruce J1; Karbo N2; Nchor J3 and Malex A.3

1DORCAS Foundation,Tamale 2CSIR-Animal Research Institute Station, Tamale

3Association of Church Development Projects, Tamale

Introduction

Promoting local innovation (PROLINNOVA)is known to have been initiated by a coalition of international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in over ten countries. In Ghana, PROLINNOVA partnership activities started in 2003 with a committed group of local NGOs, the EcumenicalAssociation for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (ECASARD), the Ghana Organic Agriculture Network (GOAN) and the Association of Church Development Projects (ACDEP). Government departments and institutions, principally the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) were also involved in the partnership.

PROLINNOVA Ghana participated in an international training on participatory video(PV) held in Ghanain November 2004 (Bruce, 2006). PV is a participatory tool that seeks to ensure that people, in this case community members,control the tools of communication and not outsiders who mediate information and representation. PV was therefore used as a tool to empower innovative farmers to share their innovations with others. To this end, 2 farmer groups at Wapuli and Chegbani, both in the Saboba-Chereponi district, were trained in PV and subsequently shot their own films about their innovations with ‘Siella’, a salty soil enjoyed by animals.

‘Siella’ is a clay-like material commonly licked by domestic animals and wildlife on the range in lowland valley areas. This is often referred to in the literature as “geophagy” or earth-eating. Farmers in Wapuli and Chegbani innovatively made lick blocks from ‘siella’ and fed it to their livestock. The PV films made by these farmers was an attempt to share their experiences with ‘Siella’ with a larger group of farmers.

Some months after the shooting of the PV and editing, the edited films were taken back by a team of PROLINNOVA participants to be viewed by the film makers (the farmers) and their communities. With PV the audience and the producers are often the same people working in the same local context where the viewing is taking place (Braden, 1998).

The aim of this paper is to share the experiences of viewing the film by the film makersand their community members. During the visit we observed that the Wapuli farmers group had continued to improve upon their original innovation and the improvements are also captured in this paper.

Methodology

Setting up the Meetings

A date and time was agreed upon with the community for the PV film to be screened. The timing was important to allow for all gender groups to participate after the evening meal. Wapuli and Chegbani are villages located south of Saboba the district capital and about 160 km from the regional capital, Tamale from where the project team traveled out.

Equipment

Basic equipment was acquired for the film show. The main pieces of equipment included a generator, a 24- inch television set, a video deck, amplifier and speakers and other accessories. A video camera and digital camera were used to further document the process.

Community interaction

Wapuli and Chegbani are about 25 km apart. It was therefore agreed that the PV film from both communities be shown first in one and then in the other community the next night. This allowed enough time for each community to discuss both films in a participatory manner. Community members discussed what they found to be praise worthy and drew lessons learnt from the whole experience.Watching the film and the discussions that followed took about 3 hours on average, from 8.00pm to about 11.00pm on both nights.

During the day time about 2 hours was spent with the farmer groups to review their ‘siella’lick block development activities and to track any changes that had taken place since the shooting of the films.

Result Outputs and Outcomes

Community response

There was enthusiastic response to the films in both communities and the PV film shows proved to be the only source of entertainment in the communities that night. Community members of all ages, the aged, the able-bodied, youth and children gathered for the event. The air was rife with comments as the various farmers known in their community introduced themselves on the screen.

For most community people the follow up film viewing had elements of village entertainment at the same time providing a source of learning from other communities. During viewing of the film both children and adults laughed and cheered their film ‘stars’. After that however, the discussions on the content of the subject matter were dominated by the adults.

The sight of men pounding the inputs for the lick blocks in mortars was met with a lot of laughter. This is because pounding is perceived to be women’s work and the idea that men would pound was thought of as amusing. This died down to a relatively sober gathering as the community observed the preparation of the ‘siella’ lick blocks with rapt attention.

Odutola (2003) found that complexities in PV include the tendency of people to overreact or get intimidated by technology. We did not find this reaction at any point in our process.

Discussion and Comparative Analysis

After watching the film, the community members who participated in the PV filming activity were first to point out what they considered ‘bad’ or good with their skills in planning and shooting the film. Noticeable was that the pictures initially were not stable due to nervousness in handling the equipment for the very first time. Further on in the films the pictures were stable as the filmers gained confidence with handling the equipment. Farmers producing the film also observed that there was too much background interference as others kept talking while the film was being shot. Observations from the farmer groups about each other are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Comparative Analysis by Communities after Viewing PV Films in Wapuli and Chegbani

Community / About Chegbani / About Wapuli
Wapuli / Women and men participated / We have women members but did not include them
Presence of cattle / We should have shown our bullocks licking….
Cracks in their lick blocks which easily breaks / Happy that all their group members featured in the film
Few lick block components and no measurements before mixing to mold / Our lick block is nicer
We measured the ingredients before mixing to mold
Goats seen in film licking the block
Chegbani / Some picture were dark not clearly showing the faces of the actors / Seen to be well organized in their presentation
Their lick block appeared nicer than ours / Showed goats licking the block
Used cassava as a binder in lick block

Requests and Suggestions by Communities

Overall, both communities took pride in the film output and cheerfully suggested that this film be shown to other parts of the country to sell the idea to other farmers.

At Wapuli the farmer group reminded the PROLINNOVA team members that of the need for scientific analysis of their lick block. They were also interested in experiments that would compare the performance of their local lock with imported, more expensive salt licks. They also suggested the need for a dye to give the ‘siella’ lick block a better colour to compare with imported brands.

At the request of the members from the two communities a copy each of the PV film in cassettes were presented to them.

Farmer Innovation –A Continuous Process

During the day time meetings with the farmer groupsit was clear that the Wapuli group had continued to make changes to improve the texture and quality of the ‘siella’ lick blocks. Some of the changes included:

  • The discovery of a new ‘siella’ location providing a source of ‘siella’ producing a much smoother product than before.
  • Improved method of burning of the oyster shells white with reduced carbon particles in the finished product.
  • Replacement of corrosive metallic containers and plastic containers with wooden frames for molding of the lick blocks that dry faster and are easy to be removed.

Conclusion

PV is a means, not an end (Bery and Stuart, 1996). The viewing of the PV film offers yet another opportunity for joint learning by outsiders and community members with a view to perfecting ideas. Major ingredients for success in this kind of engagement were trust, transparency and a willingness to learn and share ideas.

Acknowledgement

We gratefully acknowledge the funds provided by ETC-Ecoculture which made this activity possible. The cooperation of the Wapuli Bullock farmers Group and the Chegbani West African Shorthorn Cattle Breeders Association is gratefully acknowledged. We thank the technicians from the Animal Research stations for their support in the field in setting up equipment.

References

Bery, R and Stuart, S. 1996. Powerful Grassroots Women Communicators:
Participatory Video in Bangladesh. In: Participatory Communication for Social Change. Ed. J. Servaies, R.L. Jacobson and S.A. White. Publishers, Sage.

Braden, S. 1998. Where’s participation without representation. The Rural Extension Bulletin. June 8-11.

Bruce, J. 2006. Building farmers capacities to document their own innovations and experiments: Participatory Video. Article submitted to PID Book, PROLINNOVA.

Okahashi, P. 2000. The Potential of Participatory Video. Rehabilitation Review.

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Odutola, K.A. 2003. Participatory Use of Video. A Case Study of Community Involvement in Story Construction. Global Media Journal Vol 2.

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