The ‘Documentary Filmmaking in Kenya’ program is a three-week course (3.0 credits) open to all undergraduate and graduate UH students. Although there are no pre-requisites, it is highly recommended that students have some prior experience in journalism and/or media production. The program comprises three 5-hour-long workshops held on campus (between 16 and 19 December 2019), and a two-week component abroad in Kenya (between 28 December 2019 and 12 January 2020). The goal of the program is to teach students how to conceptualize, shoot and edit a full-length documentary film about the impact of new media and the so-called gig economy in Kenya.

The leader of this Study Abroad program is Dr. Dani Madrid-Morales, an Assistant Professor of Journalism at the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication, who worked for over a decade as a broadcast journalist in Spain. The pre-departure component of the program will be taught by Dr. Sahar Hamzah, also an Assistant Professor at the Valenti School. During our trip in Kenya, we will be joined by Dr. Brian Ekdale, an Associate Professor at The University of Iowa, who is also an award-winning filmmaker.

The documentary you will be helping conceptualize, shoot and edit will be about the impact of digital media and the gig economy in Kenya. In short, digital technologies and digital media have transformed many aspects of everyday life in Kenya, as well as many other African countries. There are great new opportunities for people to work, mobile phones have made banking very accessible, and new digital-only media outlets are helping uncover corruption cases.