LiVArts and Accountability Lab Re-launch Accountability Arts School for Youth

Liberia Visual Arts Academy and Accountability Lab Re-launch Accountability Arts School for Youth Press Release by Francis Lansana of Accountability Lab and Leon Wilson of LiVArts. The Liberia Visual Arts Academy (LIVArts) and the Accountability Lab are pleased to announce the re-launch on Saturday, June 6, of a collaborative Accountability Arts School following a long period of postponement induced by the Ebola crisis. The School will consist of three monthly sessions followed by a public exhibition of the artwork produced by participating students. The Accountability Lab will offer technical and financial assistance for the initiative while LIVArts will oversee logistics and all [...]

2015-06-03T00:00:00+00:003rd June 2015|

Shaking Up the Status Quo in Nepal

Shaking Up the Status Quo in Nepal By BLAIR GLENCORSE and SUJEEV SHAKYA. Originally Published in the New York Times.   “Ke garne?” an old lady said to us, tears pouring down her cheeks, as we visited her earthquake-battered village in the Dhading district of Nepal last month: “What to do?” With a history of repeated crises — political, economic and natural — it has become the Nepali way to shrug one’s shoulders and hope for the best. Sadly, people have been hoping for a long time: even before the earthquakes, Nepal was one of the poorest, most corrupt and least [...]

2015-06-01T00:00:00+00:001st June 2015|

The Faces of Liberia Film Institute

The Faces of Liberia Film Institute Divine Key Anderson (left) teaches a class about the use of a green screen in film making at the Liberia Film Institute on May 6, 2015. (Photo by Jim Tuttle / Accountability Lab) By: Jim Tuttle, Accountability Lab Liberia Multi-media Fellow Liberia Film Institute’s latest class of filmmakers recently completed a series of short documentaries and dramas dealing with their country’s unprecedented Ebola outbreak. They have been screening their films in communities around the country, and a large film festival in Monrovia is being planned for late June. Here’s a look at some of the student [...]

2015-05-20T00:00:00+00:0020th May 2015|

Can filmmaking help achieve development goals?

Blair Glencorse of the Accountability Lab discusses the importance of community-driven development and how filmmaking can engage people in accountability goals. Many organizations and development professionals have found that reaching initial benchmarks is sometimes easier than sustaining them. However, with clear goals, development progress can be sustained in the long-run. According to Blair Glencorse of the Accountability Lab, setting goals that are context-specific is critical. The Accountability Lab, he says, meets “people where they are, not where we want them to be,” and takes into consideration the varying levels of literacy, numeracy, and other practical skills of their clients when designing a program. [...]

2015-04-15T00:00:00+00:0015th April 2015|

Ebola and the power of film: How my students and I saved lives by making movies

By: Divine Anderson, as told to Julia Belluz. This article was originally published by Vox. Divine Anderson runs Liberia's first and only film school, the Liberia Film Institute. The 37-year-old started making movies in 1996 and has stuck to the medium because he thinks it's the best way to reach his fellow Liberians, many of whom can't read. When the Ebola outbreak was peaking last fall, he turned his attention to creating public-health awareness films that he spread through a mobile cinema — essentially a motorcycle retrofitted with a cart that carried him, his students, and a TV. We talked [...]

2015-03-10T00:00:00+00:0010th March 2015|

Nepal bureaucrat clinches ‘Integrity Idol’ crown

By: AFP. This article was originally published by The Nation newspaper. Nepalese civil servant Gyan Mani Nepal doesn’t sing, dance or perform magic tricks - but all eyes were on the bespectacled bureaucrat on Sunday when he became the country’s first Integrity Idol. The online contest, which eschewed the glitz of popular television talent shows, saw nearly 10,000 people cast their votes via text message and Facebook in a bid to encourage honesty in the corruption-ridden Himalayan nation. An education official in eastern Panchthar district, Nepal won praise for his efforts to increase teacher attendance and boost student pass rates [...]

2015-01-12T00:00:00+00:0012th January 2015|

Nepal’s Integrity Idol seeks civil servants with the X factor

By: Pete Pattisson. This article was originally published by The Guardian. A reality TV contest is aiming to change the corruption and incompetence that pervade Nepal’s civil service – but it has a long way to go While millions of Britons settle down on their sofas to choose the winner of The X Factor this weekend, Nepalese will be busy voting in their own television competition. But unlike other versions of perennially popular talent contests, the winner will not be the best singer or dancer, but the most honest civil servant in the country, in a competition called Integrity Idol. [...]

2014-12-11T00:00:00+00:0011th December 2014|

Battle hymns

By: G.P. | ABUJA. This article was originally published by The Economist.Protest music in Liberia GIRLS in tight skirts and bright tops hold bottles of beer as they weave their way down the sandy lane towards Bernard’s Beach in Monrovia, Liberia's capital. A throng of young Liberians have gathered at one of the year’s biggest parties and most revellers are celebrating the growing popularity of Hip Co, a musical movement in the long-troubled West African country. The beach stage is propped up against a skeletal building, a memory of more than a decade of civil war. The performers face out to [...]

2014-01-14T00:00:00+00:0014th January 2014|

Accountability in Liberia: How the music industry is creating change

By: Blair Glencorse, Executive Director of the Accountability Lab and Nora Rahimian, an organiser who uses the power of music to effect change. This blog post was originally published by the ONE Campaign. “If we don’t speak up against the ills in society, who will?” asks Takun J, Liberia’s Hip Co King, in front of thousands of screaming fans at a concert in Monrovia. He then launches into “Police Man” a song about police corruption, which several years ago had the artist arrested and beaten by the authorities. Hip Co – which emerged in the 1980s – blends hip hop with Liberian English.  Born in the [...]

2014-01-07T00:00:00+00:007th January 2014|
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