All of Eh!woza’s work remains closely interlinked – outputs, outcomes and learnings from projects enrich and inform the growth of the other. A brief description of each project is provided below. Please get in touch for more detail on each project.
Eh!woza Doccies. Eh!woza’s oldest project engages youth in Khayelitsha with high impact TB research conducted at the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IDM) at the University of Cape Town. Each year, 12 – 15 high-school learners are recruited from the Makhaza branch of IkamvaYouth in Khayelitsha. The project is introduced through Saturday science workshops where learners are engaged with TB biomedical research conducted at the IDM. Sessions are interactive and hands-on, covering topics such as “What is TB”, “TB Drug Discovery”, “TB Clinical Trials”, and “Design a Research Question”. Learners then embark on an intensive film production workshop over a period of six months and are guided in producing short documentary films around the personal and social impact of TB. Approximately 4 – 5 learner documentaries are produced annually, focusing on TB and associated poverty, mental health, HIV, sexual violence, access, and social unease. The COVID pandemic required a temporary pause of the project. A scaled-down version will return late in 2021, with the view of fully restarting at the beginning of 2022.
MSF/Muso/DR-TB Collab. This collaboration with the global humanitarian organisation, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), facilitates story-telling between survivors of drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) and young Khayelitsha-based musicians. The aim is to produce music, music videos and other creative outputs reflecting the experience of having and surviving DR-TB. This project was also put on hold during the COVID pandemic. Planning to reconfigure this work is underway, intending to begin re-implementing in 2022.
Eh!woza Schools. Eh!woza’s inaugural schools' programme aims to use Eh!woza- generated media to widely disseminate knowledge through school attending youth and to stimulate robust discussion around disease and the social determinants of health. The kick-off of this work was also delayed due to COVID. Pilot workshopping is due to start mid-way through 2021, aiming to scale and expand in 2022.
Science Communication. Eh!woza began producing animations during the pandemic to provide vital public health and biomedical information in a simple and visually engaging way. This work, necessitated by the pandemic, has led to the development of a science communication arm for the organisation that is expanding into newspaper and radio campaigns and the currently growing WhatsApp newsletter for dissemination of information and short animations.
Documentary Film Production. As a result of capacity development within a group of previous participants, Eh!woza produces documentaries that interrogate the social determinants of health. The pandemic stimulated significant growth within this arm of Eh!woza, with the production of nine short documentaries throughout 2020 and continuing in 2021. The production team, led by Samuel Flans and Alfa Fipaza, will also lead tuition during the film making component of future Eh!woza doccies courses. Film making and capacity developed during the COVID pandemic will be applied to HIV, TB, and various other diseases where health and social justice issues intersect.
Scholarly Work. An important area for Eh!woza is to generate new knowledge and scholarly work around public engagement and science communication. To this end, Eh!woza facilitates a short lecture series and practical-based module within UCT’s BSc (Med) Honours techniques course. Two PhD students are currently conducting research on Eh!woza and its outcomes, and several papers have been published in peer-reviewed journals.