Youth & Film Uganda is one of three components of the Uganda Youth Cultures Project being implemented under the Uganda – Denmark Culture and Development Programme.
This component aims to empower the young generation through film education, to develop a film culture for young people, and to use film as a tool in the development process in Uganda. The main target group for this component is young people, age 13-19 years.
Youth & Film Uganda was launched during the inaugural one week visit of the Maisha team to Denmark in March 2011. Youth & Film Uganda rolled out its first activity in May 2011 component one The Youth Film Club in Kampala and Gulu districts respectively. The Program has since rolled out all the activities component by component as planned. The year 2011 saw a total of 1200 youth attending the monthly film screenings in Kampala and Gulu.
The program which was originally developed and designed in June 2010 by the Danish Film Institute (DFI) and the Danish Centre for Culture and Development (DCCD) in partnership with Maisha Foundation Ltd is currently running under five subcomponents, namely The Film Clubs for Youth, The Film Festivals, The Film Labs, The Master Class and the Dox Lab.
To experience, to understand and to create film is a valuable and educational tool for young people all over the world. Youth in Uganda also has the right to access knowledge and artistic reflections about their own life, about other people’s lives, and about the local as well as global society – through the art of film. The development objective of Youth & Film Uganda as a subcomponent of the Uganda Youth Cultures Project is:
“To enhance youth in Uganda participate in innovative arts as way to achieve social cohesion and economic empowerment.”
Film and film education has the potential to positively influence key development issues for youth, such as Democracy, Reunification among youth groups, Human rights awareness, Education / literacy / analytical and artistic skills, Self-esteem and realization of own potential among youth, Storytelling from the perspective of the youth, Conflict reduction among youth, Sustainable positive-valued youth cultures, Employment and equal opportunities (social, economic, religious and gender) and Poverty reduction amongst the youth.
The main target group for the project is youth from 13-20 years. The audience and participants we aim to target is a compound group of disadvantaged as well as advantaged youth from both rural and urban areas, male as well as female genders and of different religious observations.
We are currently operating in five towns/regions: Kampala, Gulu, Karamoja, Mbale and Mbarara.
Browse our list of Alumni that have participated in our film labs. You can search per name or category.
Browse through our movies and short film database and watch them online directly from this website.
The Maisha mentors form the backbone of the Maisha film labs. Browse our mentor database here .