Cinéma Numérique Ambulant

CNA uses entertainment as a means to educate - and provide access to vaccination and birth registration for - Benin's, Mali's, and Niger's most remote populations. The vision is that culture in general, and movies in particular, open up people's minds and are a great conscientisation instrument, especially African movies which are made by African directors within the tradition of (so-called) Third World cinema and African cinema. The educational component takes advantage of the fact that people come first and foremost to watch the fiction film; they are also then informed and educated about a variety of topics like health, HIV/AIDS, schooling, human rights, children's rights, and so on. The project maximises the number of people it reaches by focusing its activities on nomadic festivals.

A CNA screening has 4 parts: the introduction, including music and video clips; a movie about issues important to the villagers; a dialogue in which villagers discuss such topics as nutrition, access to health care services, payment for health care services, HIV/AIDS prevention, education for girls, child marriage, immunisation (especially for polio), malaria and birth registration; and, after the discussion, the featured fiction film. Often the organisers hand out prizes, such as insecticide-treated bed nets to keep away malaria-carrying mosquitoes, for the most active participants in the discussions.

The mobile cinema projection vans are accompanied by a team of 3 people: a woman facilitator, who is usually responsible for the team, a technician, and a driver. Each person has received training and can back up the others.

Health, Rights, Education, Children.

The European Union helped set up the initial CNA units (4 structures) in Benin in 2001. Now, the structures work autonomously and each looks for fundings nationally and internationally, with major partners like Africalia, the French Ambassy, the Swiss Cooperation, national ministries, Plan International, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), The United Nations Children's Fund - UNICEF, and so on.

Ideally, each CNA project includes 100 screenings over a 5-month period (20 per month). Experience shows that when the CNA visits a village repeatedly over the 5-month period, people look forward to the screenings and the events are well-attended by people from the local village and also from surrounding villages.

One of the project organisers believes that CNA is an effective way of sharing information with large numbers of people. "The Cinéma Numérique Ambulant’s arrival in villages is always a festive event, where everyone, young and old, shows up. By bringing the world to these remote villages along with vital health messages, the Cinéma Numérique Ambulant is hoping to participate in the fight against poverty."