A look back on AIFO Liberia

illuminAid’s programming has experienced a solid uptick ever since international travel slowly resumed in early 2021. It was a wonderful sign for the organization, as we were craving opportunities to conduct video education workshops again. The first workshop we conducted early last year, kickstarting our current positive momentum, was with AIFO Liberia. We would like to take some time and revisit our work together and also track recent progress the organization has made since our workshops.

To recap, illuminAid executed a four-day workshop with AIFO in Monrovia, Liberia, in May 2021 to educate their staff on video production. The project's focus was to train and equip communities to protect the rights of people with disabilities more effectively. Our focus, centered on participatory video, culminated in the creation of short films ⁠— like this one ⁠— highlighting the stories of disabled persons in Liberia and illuminating their challenges in areas such as employment, government services, general poverty and much more.

However, the partnership hasn’t just included video training and the creation of videos. As part of our standard intervention, we work with NGOs after the workshop to build their capacity further to create many more videos for the direct support of beneficiaries. We remotely troubleshoot issues with video creation efforts for one year and collaborate on video dissemination strategies and data collection methods.

Our efforts working with AIFO Liberia this year on capacity development have been bearing fruit lately. We learned they’ve created eight videos for beneficiaries so far and are preparing to disseminate them for local community screenings soon. We applaud AIFO Liberia’s efforts during what has been a tumultuous year for the entire world.

Overall, our project with AIFO Liberia was just the beginning of what has been a successful resurgence of illuminAid in this phase of the pandemic. With many workshops executed in places like Mozambique, Togo and elsewhere, our programs are impacting countless underserved people across the globe ⁠— along with many NGOs stemming from video education. We’re stoked to continue collaborating with AIFO Liberia throughout the year, and with upcoming workshops soon to be announced, we’re ecstatic for what the rest of 2022 has in store for illuminAid.