Background

The HIV infection rate among South African young people is alarming, and many of them engage in sexual relationships early on. In view of HIV prevalence, this sexual behaviour has brought about concerns over young people’s health and well-being. This video-making project was conceived to seek ways to provide a non-formal education space for young people and to allow them to voice themselves on the issues of HIV and Aids. The project was held in 2013 in a primary school in an underserved farming community in which the vast majority of residents were Black South Africans. Twenty- three learners (12 girls and 11 boys) in grade 9 joined the project. Their ages were between 14 and 20, and many of them were between 16 and 17. The project took place over four consecutive days for approximately two hours per day after regular school hours. On the first day, the participants formed three groups of girls and two groups of boys. Each group received one cellular phone and practiced cellphilming, making videos with the camera function of a cellular phone. I chose cellphilming to make video production culturally appropriate, as cellular phones are prevalent in many parts of South Africa. On the second day, I encouraged each group to brainstorm a video topic and to create a storyboard on their own. On the third day, each group shot their videos. Two groups of girls decided to work together, saying that their topics were the same. After the videos were created, the participants viewed them together. Based on the critique for each other, on the fourth day, each group revised and reshot their videos to enhance their videos. After viewing the second set of videos together, the participants were prompted to create a list of messages that they would like to share with their peers as their potential audience. A few days later, there was a screening event in the participants’ school. Students in Grade 8 were invited to watch the videos with the participants. The following videos are the second videos that the participating youth created in the project.

Video

One of the four videos, Unsafe Sex is shared here.

Related literature

Yang, K. (2015). Voice, authenticity and ethical challenges: the participatory dissemination of youth-generated visual data over social media. Visual Studies, 30(3), 309-318.

Yang, K., & MacEntee, K. (2015). “Use Condoms for Safe Sex!” Youth-led Video Making and Sex Education. Sex Education: Sexuality, Society and Learning, 15(6), 613-625.