The Ladima Foundation has announced the 10 selected East African women including Kenya’s Meek Wanga and Doreen Mwirigi who will participate in the Let Your Voices Roar animation training. The training will be conducted by the Ladima Foundation in partnership with Culture and Development East Africa (CDEA) and the Kwetu International Animation Film Festival (KIAFF) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Let Your Voices Roar is a 10 day animation workshop developed for women that will explore the theme of home and belonging. The workshop will also explore ways of how animation can be used to help one’s voice be heard, within and beyond the borders of their communities.
The following 10 participants were selected from a pool of applications received from women across East Africa.
- Meek Alex Wanga (Kenya)
- Doreen Kirumba Mwirigi (Kenya)
- Nsile James Uiso (Tanzania)
- Angela Beily (Tanzania)
- Ruth Nazzinda (Uganda)
- Adelaide Barnabas Jachi (Tanzania)
- Lightness Joneal Walter (Tanzania)
- Gwantwa Lucas Mwakalinga (Tanzania)
- Marcia Tisa (Kenya)
- Hortance Umugwaneza Kamikazi (Rwanda)
The training will be led by award-winning Ghanaian animator, illustrator and visual artist, Comfort Arthur of African Animation Network. Comfort trained at the Royal College of Arts in London before moving to Ghana in 2012 to found The Comfy Studio. Her animated short film Black Barbie, is an international hit that has been screened at more than 50 film festivals around the world, earning multiple awards and high critical marks. Comfort is also Festival Director for FUPiTOONS, Africa’s first film festival dedicated to short-form animation for children.
The training will be co-facilitated by Lydiah Mugure Mwangi, a Kenyan animator, game developer and the founder of Naota Studios. She creates unique art that can cross borders from computer graphics to traditional art. Commenting on the upcoming workshop, Lydiah commented, “I build new worlds to share, enchant and inspire by drawing on the old world and relying on my skills in model creation, concept development and animation.”
This training is just one of the initiatives of the Ladima Film Academy, the training and professional development pillar of the Ladima Foundation. The Academy provides women across Africa with access to free online and limited in-person training across seven disciplines. These are editing, producing, scriptwriting, documentary filmmaking, animation, directing and cinematography.