Malawi: Initiation ceremonies

'Our Africa'

‘Our Africa’ is an ambitious project which sets out to let children across Africa film their lives the way they see them. Our teams have been travelling throughout Africa to capture children’s thoughts, opinions and ideas to present a new perspective on Africa through their own eyes.

In ‘Our Africa’, you can see children talk about what matters most to them – from games they play; to aspirations they have for jobs; to how they would like things changed fundamentally in their societies.Here, we’ve captured some of the behind-the-scenes moments and experiences that contributed to the ‘Making of Our Africa’.

Malawi: Initiation ceremonies

"Some of the best films we’ve returned with happened by chance. We were driving back to the SOS Children’s Village, where we staying, from a community a few miles out when we came across an initiation ceremony. The ceremony itself – where boys and girls are ‘initiated’ when they reach a certain age – hadn’t quite started. But in the lead-up to the event, as tradition dictates, young men from the community dressed in ferocious lion outfits and rattled their way around the hills, coming up close to our car and peering in.

Our professional cameraman (an ex BBC man) never missed an opportunity. Once, elsewhere, when we were crossing a bridge across a gorge he jumped out, long lens at the ready, to snap a canoeist in the chasm below – despite warning signs that vehicles must not stop, and despite security men running towards us.

So here, at the initiation ceremony, there was no argument – we would film it and our young filmmaker, a teenage girl from the SOS Village, would be our frontline camera person. What an honour. However, she wasn’t so keen to get out of the car, as you can imagine. Eventually, with the professional within reach, she gave it a go.

When you get back from a trip, exhausted, you’ve become accustomed to the rigours of Africa and almost nonchalant about some of the sights and sounds you’ve captured on video. It takes a colleague, seeing the film for the first time, to bring home the significance of some of the footage. Like the young man who missed school sometime because he couldn’t afford soap to wash before he went. So he was working in his spare time to buy soap.

Then there’s the young lady in Malawi who talks passionately about the value of education to young women – so they can escape from just being an appendage to men.

You can’t help thinking that certain less privileged young people in the western world might learn from the passion, desire and discipline among young people in Africa as they try to get an education. Then there’s the teenager who knows about the US music charts, who has seen a different world through the internet, who wants to marry a European – and maybe ‘escape’ from her less privileged environment.

At times, ‘Our Africa’ is a good measure of what we take for granted."