Registration deadline: 08 November 2021.

Register as an organization or individual and get the opportunity to:

1. Gain first hand practical training and experience on using animation for packaging and producing critical content.
2. Be informed on best animation and archiving tools and platforms suitable and reliable in the region.
3. Gain an appreciation of archiving and its importance in preserving knowledge, content and record keeping, and set up platforms and/ or accounts.

What we offer:

1. Subscription to animation platforms for further future animated content creation for you and/ or your organization.
2. Access to reliable archiving tools and platforms including opening of individual or organizational accounts for continued archiving and data management.
3. Paid promotions on animation video clips produced during the training on our regional Hivos Southern Africa social media platforms, including profiling of the content creators.
4. Workshop and Training onboarding support as per the workshop and training requirements and participants’ needs.

Eligibility criteria:

To reserve a seat in the training kindly send to snengomasha@hivos.org or simply register through this link.

1. A brief bio about you and the work that you do. (The bio will be used to profile the creatives who successful produce animated videos). 100 words max
2. A topic you would like to address in your animation clip. The topic must address or challenge social norms in your community or globally.
3. A list of any priorities for archiving that you would like the workshop to address.
4. Links to any of your social media platforms.

Feedback on participation will be shared with all applicants by 16 November 2021.

NB: Selection is on a first come first serve basis. Female creatives and makers from marginalized and/or low income communities are encouraged to apply.

General Information and Goals:

Hivos is an international organization that seeks new solutions to persistent global issues. With smart projects in the right places, we oppose discrimination, inequality, abuse of power and the unsustainable use of our planet’s resources. Counterbalance alone, however, is not enough. Our primary focus is achieving structural change. This is why we cooperate with innovative businesses, citizens and their organizations. We share a dream with them of sustainable economies and inclusive societies.

1. Background and project Description.

The ROOM project works with creative critical online content creators in Southern Africa. The goal of the project is to enable these critical content makers to become more independent, sustainable and reach wider audiences with their online content while challenging repressive norms of the societies in which they operate.

1.1. Scope

The covid-19 pandemic has brought new realities into the creative sector. It was a general perception that the pandemic would soon pass and business would resume to “normalcy”. However, 2 years into the outbreak, the world has fashioned a new norm, in the ways of working and engagement. Most enterprises have adopted remote working, exploring feasible ways of production despite the regulatory measures and enforcements restricting mobility and physical contact. For creatives the impact of these restrictive regulatory measures has been no less disruptive, some entities struggling with financial sustainability due to closed income generation pathways, overall stopping production. More effects of Covid-19 on the sector are documented in the New Ways of Working for Creatives Research commissioned by Hivos under the ROOM SA project.

The heavy dependency on co-working spaces and resources, as well as the anatomy of the industry mostly structured around physical meet-ups, is a good reason for creatives to start exploring alternative ways of content creation and production. Animation is one cost efficient, easy to use, diverse, captivating and engaging means of content production. Its advantages include that it:

1. Is useful for remote working
2. Is user friendly and applicable by anyone with access to digital tools,
3. Conceals the characters for identity protection in cases of sensitive programming, at the same time allowing personalization of characters,
4. Captures the attention of all age groups, and most importantly
5. Reduces cost of and maximizes on production.

Whilst creatives can easily access animation tools online, it is important to build their capacity and raise familiarity with applying them in content production. An expert point of view will give direction on which multi-purpose tools/ platforms are useful in the region, recommend cost-efficient user-friendly cartoon dimensions, while giving a comparison between HD and “lite” animation. An expert will also share from experience on packaging critical content through animation to appeal to a wide range of viewers as well as create synergies on remote collaborative work.

On the other hand, the limitations to the sector have not only been physical but also digital. Increased censorship of content on social media platforms has been experienced globally i.e. through platform community guidelines. Algorithms that identify misconduct in the content shared are non-human, risking any content that appears to be a “threat” from being permanently removed and related accounts being blocked. Most creatives are heavily reliant on “Silicon Valley” platforms further increasing the risk of losing their content at the discretion of the platform owners. Many a time have we encountered shocks through the temporary shutdown of social media platforms without control over future shutdowns which may impose even larger risks of content loss. Seeing these emerging trends, it is also vital that creatives become familiar with archiving in order to preserve their productions in a systematic, reliable and dependable manner.