One of the main programs I support is a youth arts, technology and media program called ‘YETAM‘. The program supports youth to identify and raise issues that they consider important, and then helps them engage their communities to resolve the issues they’ve raised. The youth have talked a lot about water in most of the places where I’ve been working in the past couple years, probably because children and youth tend to be the ones responsible for carrying water.
As part of the project in Okola District in Cameroon last year, youth mapped their community and prioritized their issues. One of their top issues was water. They made this film together about the water problem and shared it with the community adults and local authorities.
Probleme d’eau Potable – The Potable Water Problem (for subtitles, click on the arrow on the bottom right hand side of the video player and then click on the red ‘cc’ button)
Spurred on by the project and the organized youth, a few months later the community got to work fixing one of their water sources. They put in some resources and so did our local office.
La quete d’eau potable – Lack of Potable Water part 2.
Here are a couple other videos about water filmed by youth….
The Community Water Tank from El Salvador about what happens when water sources are not kept up (click on link as it’s not available on YouTube yet)
Djiko: l’eau potable a song youth wrote to remind communities about water scarcity in Mali
Water – Amazi where youth interview a rural family about water scarcity in Rwanda
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