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Submitted by Web Master on 11 April 2014

 

Policy Forum recently took part in the Kanumba Day, to commemorate the late Steven Kanumba, a film Director and actor who had worked with the network to dramatise the Social Accountability Monitoring concept.

The screenplay concept that Policy Forum, its scriptwriters and Kanumba jointly developed, resulted in the production of the movie “Kijiji cha Tambua Haki”, a tale that depicts the everyday struggles of rural community members in the fight for accountable local governance.

Policy Forum decided to use film as a vehicle to deliver the message that communities have a role to play in the improvement of service delivery and holding their leaders to account for the use of public funds.

“In a country where many men and women prefer watching movies to reading, the potential to educate through entertainment is enormous,” said Samwel Stanley, from the Youth Partnership Countrywide (YPC), a member of Policy Forum who represented the Policy Forum Board during the event which took place at Dar Live, Mbagala.

With an estimated ten new low budget movies being produced each week and six being released into the market, this vehicle is indeed seen as an effective means to reach a huge number of people at relatively reasonable costs.     

“Social Accountability Monitoring (SAM) may be a difficult concept as taught in a seminar room, but the essence of citizens demanding for justifications and explanations from leaders for their actions and making them accountable for their decisions is a universal one and that is what this movie tries to portray,” Stanley said.

“Policy Forum partly sponsored the commemoration event as a way of showing appreciation for the collaboration they had with the late actor and as an effort to continue reaching out to Tanzanians and educating them on their rights and duties in promoting accountability in the country,” he said, adding that Policy Forum will continue to take comfort in the knowledge that the network considers Steven Kanumba, who was a very professional young man, an inspiration to many Tanzanians.