EAC dangles $25,000 prize money for youth short video

In a bid to creatively engage youthful East Africans on issues of integration, the East African Community (EAC), on Wednesday marked the opening of the submission portal for its maiden EAC Short Film Competition in Arusha, Tanzania.
The EAC Short Film Competition is part of a year-long citizens’ engagement campaign dubbed ‘The EAC i Deserve campaign’
The campaign seeks to reach more than 10 million citizens using new innovative tools to create a platform where East Africans can share their aspirations, ambitions and desires about the livelihood they wish to experience in the integration. It also seeks to encourage stakeholders to work together to build an economically secure and prosperous future.
Speaking during the launch, Mr Libérat Mfumukeko, the EAC secretary general, said: “The EAC Short Film Competition will involve young people from all our six partner states. A total prize of $25,000 (Shs595m) awaits the innovative 33 youthful winners, short films in French that have English subtitles will be accepted. The submission deadline has been extended to April 30 to allow for more young people to collaborate using online tools.”
The short films, Mr Mfumukeko said, will be judged based on creativity, originality, popularity, entertainment value and advancement of the integration agenda, “...a new opportunity for us to hear stories directly from the citizens on what they think we have so far achieved”.
Requirements for submission
Interested youth can upload their submissions on their personal or friend’s Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram or TikTok accounts and include the campaign hashtag #TheEACiDeserve in their postings on digital channels. Later, these should be uploaded on the film’s channel through www.theeacideserve.com.
Entrants should be aged between 18 to 35 years, East Africans, and are at liberty to use any genre to produce the video or animation, and the length should be between 30 and 59 seconds.
“The extension of time is as a result of disruptions caused by restrictions of movement of people in the region due to safety measures implemented by Partner States as a result of the spread of coronavirus in some part of East Africa,” Mr Mfumukeko noted.

The maiden EAC Short Film Competition was launched in January at Daystar University, Nairobi, Kenya as the latest attempt to inspire and capture views, and desires of the young citizens in East Africa and the year-long campaign, to which it is part is supported by the German Government through German Development Cooperation (GIZ)
National sensitisation activities to publicise the campaign have been carried out in Nairobi, Kampala, Uganda Kigali,Rwanda and Bujumbura, Burundi as part of the mobilisation efforts to encourage citizens to take the chance to inspire the change they want to see in the region.