incef

This week INCEF launched the second HIV/AIDS education mission in our continuing collaboration with UNICEF/Congo.  Three teams of educators will spend the next three weeks using films and discussion sessions to teach schoolchildren and villagers about HIV/AIDS.  Specifically, INCEF educators will show five films focusing on the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, social stigmatization and alienation.

Each team will educate in and around four UNICEF-rehabilitated primary schools.  Ella Bamona and Eric Kalla will work in Pointe Noire, the Republic of Congo's second largest city and the site of its oil industry.  Armel Kinzonzi and Saturnin Olambo will work near Ouesso in northern Congo.  And Eric Kinzonzi and our two new trainees will work in Pool District.

In November, INCEF Program Officer Seamus Gallagher spent two weeks with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Juba, Southern Sudan, helping give the animals that survived Sudan's long civil war a chance to survive the peace.

Seamus trained WCS staff in preparation for an outreach campaign to educate villagers, law enforcement personnel and authorities on the importance of wildlife to Southern Sudan and the government's ban on hunting.

Southern Sudan is home to elephant, giraffe, lion, several types of antelope, and other important wildlife species.  Most significantly, Southern Sudan boasts one of the largest migrations of large mammals on earth: the annual movement of around 1.3 million kob, tiang and other antelope across the landscape in search of water.

A polio outbreak is occuring in the Republic of Congo with 120 cases and 58 deaths as of November 4th, 2010. UNICEF, WHO, and the US CDC are responding to provide education and vaccination for the entire country. INCEF is pitching in to assist with education on transmission and prevention. Follow updates on Twitter and Facebook.

On day four of their journmey Ella and Eric are not only getting responses from villagers on what they have seen, but demonstrate the portable technology they use to screen videos in remote villages.  INCEF's creation is due to the revolutionary change in communications technology and the fact that the barriers to production and dissemination--technical, physical, financial--have either disappeared or have been greatly reduced.

Today we're posting Day Three of  Ella and Eric's journey in Northern Congo.   While the team in Congo work, Seamus Gallagher, INCEF's Program Officer is prepping to travel to Salonga National Park with one of our production crews to work on films about Public Health, Cynthia Moses (INCEF's Director) is in Juba, Sudan consulting with WCS and their South Sudanese Colleagues to create a series of films that will educate people there about Conservation and Law Enforcement of protected areas.

Watch Day Three to see Ella and Eric begin screening INCEF films and conduct discussion groups in Liouesso.

Day Two - Five Days on the Road from INCEF on Vimeo.

Day One - Five Days on the Road from INCEF on Vimeo.

INCEF is now blogging on wildlife direct, here our website, twitter and facebook, and please follow along.  Our first series of online entries will be “Five Days on the Road”, a five part look at our educators in the field. Come back Monday to see our first entry. We will post a new video every 3 days.

The right information can save a life --  and you can help by donating to INCEF.

In just one week, over 1,400 children in the Democratic Republic of Congo were given a better chance to avoid a disfiguring, and sometimes fatal, disease known as monkeypox.  And now their parents are clamoring to receive the same information.

Victims of monkeypox, which belongs to the same group of viruses as smallpox, develop a rash that turns into raised bumps filled with fluid. These often start on the face before spreading to other parts of the body. In Africa, according to the Centers for Disease Control, up to 10% of Monkeypox victims die.

The AHEAD (Animal & Human Health for the Environment And Development) program of the Wildlife Conservation Society recently hosted a working group meeting for people working on transfrontier conservation in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa. INCEF was asked to present about our unique model to the 80 particpants assembled in Namaacha, Mozambique for the three day event.  For an interactive version of our multimedia presentation, see: http://www.incef.org/ahead-2009-presentation

Thanks to support from the Arcus Foundation, the International Conservation and Education Fund’s (INCEF) effort to measure the impact of video-centered outreach is a step closer to reality. 

The Arcus Foundation’s work is driven by two goals: to achieve social justice that is inclusive of sexual orientation, gender identity and race; and to ensure conservation and respect of the great apes. The Arcus Great Apes Program supports conservation and policy advocacy efforts that promote the survival of the gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, bonobos and gibbons in the wild and in sanctuaries that offer safety and freedom from invasive research and other forms of exploitation.

Cynthia Moses, Executive Director of INCEF
Your Excellency,
The first time we met was in 1998 in Mboko in Odzala National Park. I was shooting the first film documentary about Odzala.   I remember what you told me that day: "Madame, I see that you have a lot of passion for what you do. " In fact, I loved my work as a filmmaker. But today, I am delighted to be back in Congo, where my  work has taken a different turn – now it is the Congolese I work with who show that same passion.

Production Update from Salonga-Lukenie-Sankuru Project by Augustine Kasambule

Field Report from the Salonga-Lukenie-Sankuru Landscape by Saturnin Régis Ibata

I am Emily Kennedy, a graduate student at American University and an intern for INCEF. My work presently is to analyze the responses we’ve received on questionnaires that accompanied the dissemination of the films in the Great Ape and Ebola module throughout Northern Congo.

The responses I’m reviewing currently are from men 36 years of age and older. We’re still in the data entry stage so a final statistical analysis won’t be ready for several weeks. There is sufficient information, however, to give an indication already of how successful the INCEF education program has been. People definitely seem to be gaining knowledge from viewing the videos; they are more aware of the importance of Great Ape conservation and they understand the risks and causes of Ebola.

Emerging out of the clouds at about 10,000 feet over Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo is to find oneself in a George Bush the Elder nightmare – broccoli florets without end as far as the eye can see. Even he, however, is likely to acknowledge the breathtaking glory of such pristine views of nature.

During the month of May, the INCEF DRC team traveled to two regions on the periphery of the park. This was the critical element in our research and community assessment effort to determine the issues and conditions to be addressed and the personalities and solution thinking to be featured in a series of films that will now be produced for dissemination in the same regions we visited. We were graciously hosted by the local centers in Monkoto and Mimya (Lokolama) of our partner organizations, WWF and Pact-Congo, respectively.

Augustine Kasambule’s extensive resume features her experience in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as a biologist, educator, administrator, producer and television journalist.

Jean-Paul Baziyaka is a young videographer/producer whose coverage across the DRC for national television and for the United Nations’ Congolese mission has included stories on war, refugees and elections.

Have you ever heard of the legend of Mokele Mbembe. Mokele Mbembe is thought to be a dinosaur living in a lake, Lac Tele, in the Likouala region in the northern part of the Republic of Congo. Lac Tele is the region of Congo where I have worked for over six years as a deputy manager and communications expert for the Wildlife Conservation Society – Congo.

Videos produced as part of INCEF's Forest Elephant Public Awareness Project (FEPAP) are made for rural people in the Republic of Congo, but we are thrilled to be honored at the 29th Annual IWFF in Missoula, Montana. Our short film Le Prix d'Ivoire ("The Price of Ivory") was nominated as a finalist in the non-broadcast category, and also received the Merit Award for Effective Message. INCEF Executive Director Cynthia Moses participated in the festival, and accepted the Merit Award on behalf of Congolese filmmakers Anatole Mafoula, Bonne Annee Matoumona and Jéhu Olivier Bikoumou.

While there, Cynthia gave presentations about INCEF's use of video to raise awareness and build capacity in Africa. We are overwhelmed by the favorable response received from our filmmaking and conservation colleagues! Cynthia was also on a panel to discuss ethics and filmmaking, an issue we are very mindful of in our work with diverse cultures and threatened wildlife.

INCEF's April 8th, 2006 fundraiser for Influence Baboul was a great success, raising $3000 for the instruments and equipment they need to bring healing and awareness to the region through recordings, radio and live performance.

Guests enjoyed hors d’oeuvres, drinks, and live music from the 21 Gessford Court Jazz Ensemble. During band breaks, we screened Influence Baboul recorded performances, as well as a video about INCEF's work using video for conservation and health education in Central Africa.

Written by Cynthia Moses and David Weiner

War-ravaged eastern Democratic Republic of Congo may be an unlikely place for a filmmaking workshop, but that is exactly what took place one week in May 2005. Armed only with digital video cameras, compact editing equipment, and a firm belief in inspiring conservation behaviors through locally made, locally relevant film, filmmakers Cynthia Moses and David Weiner set out to prove the power of the INCEF model.

Phoebe was born to Trudy II at Dzanga in March of 2003.

On October 17, 2003 Scientist Andrea Turkalo who has been studying the elephants at Dzanga for more than 15 years wrote: