Filmmaker turns childhood passion into empowerment tool for children

Next month, One in a million, a TV show will begin to air across Africa on MNet. This thirty-minute comedy show is a co-production between Zindua Ltd and Cheese Pictures. It is Zindua’s first production of this kind since it was started three years ago to empower poor children.

Zindua is an offshoot of Filamujuani Foundation. The eight year-old foundation’s idea is to work with youth from vulnerable communities to tell their own stories.

Ken Oloo, the director of Zindua and founder of Filamujuani, points out that when one creates their own TV show or content, then there is power to choose what people see and say about them.

“It also gives them skills to earn a living and to put themselves through high school. During the weekend, they can go shoot a wedding and earn Sh30,000 and for some schools in Kibera that is school fees for a whole year,” he says.

Every five months, they approach secondary schools in Kibera, Mukuru and Kangemi and ask them to propose the most vulnerable Form One students who have shown interest in film.

The selected 12 students are then taken through a film making syllabus; developed in-house with the aim of passing on practical skills. And on the first day of school, they owe the Zindua Sh30,000.

“We help them get jobs. It is really a door-opening opportunity for them which enables them to pay us back. Sometimes we fail to realise that these skills can earn you money. Unless my camera can put food on the table, then there is something missing. That is the mentality we are trying to entrench,” he says.

Some of the students have interned at the XYZ TV show, hired as directors of photography for TV shows, worked as production managers and others have started their own production companies and are now creating jobs.

Oloo worked for 2100 Productions in Wisconsin, US for a year (2008-2009) where he learnt the value of excellence in production and the value of investing in good equipment. For the training, they use the latest equipment; Canon and Sony cameras and edit on Apple computers.

“That is one of the reasons why production houses have no problem with our interns as they are familiar with the equipment they use,” he says.

Filamujuani has been built on personal loans and grants from Mavuno Church and its partners. Oloo says when one believes in something, then working to make it a reality means doing whatever it takes, even incurring debts.

His passion for film started when he was 10 years old. His father bought a camera which he used to ‘steal’ and take pictures. Later when a video camera was bought, he would use it to shoot music videos for artists on roof tops in a California neighbourhood.

Oloo says he was amazed at what he could do in terms of editing his footages and make something new. In high school, he discovered that he loved communication and therefore joined a school magazine which he later became the editor.

“Right after high school, a friend introduced me to his brother who was shooting weddings. I realised one can make money from filming. The music videos I was shooting were for free,” says filmmaker.

Later on as he worked as a communications manager in Kampala, Uganda, he would take photos during his spare time.

It was during this time that he took a photo of a naked street boy smoking and his life changed. He showed the image to a friend and later in the evening went looking for the boy only to find him clothed.

“I later found out that my friend had gone home, picked clothes and dressed him. I thought if my picture can make someone do that, then I ought to do it for life.

So I went and told my boss I was resigning and that I wanted to empower the poor to tell their stories. He laughed and instead told me to go on leave,” he recalls.

Back on Kenyan soil, a friend hired him to shoot a video of her father’s feeding programme at a school in Kibera. The school girls kept coming in front of the camera to dance, in the process distracting him.

Frustrated with them for ruining his shoots, he invited them to come and see what he was doing and for rest of the time they were silent.

“They asked me after that if I could train them. Filamujuani thus began with one laptop and a camera with me going to that school to teach the girls film making,” says Ken.

He later opened an office in Kibera but after four years his wife told him his model was not working. Because of the location, he realised that he was losing a lot of potential clients.

In 2012, he moved his office to Ngong Road and then started the production house Zindua under which they were able to pitch competitively for infomercials, adverts, internal company communication materials like training videos and so on.

At Zindua the students get to put their learnt skills to practical practice.