A group of people with physical and visual disabilities in the Est Region in Burkina Faso (West Africa) come together in a participatory video process to produce a film where they make their voices heard on their lived experiences, what development is for them and how they wish international NGOs and other development institutions to work with them.
The film was designed, filmed and partly edited by the participants themselves, after they were trained to use the film equipment. They chose the topics to focus on and how (and who) they will be shown in the film. Thus, this is not a documentary but a participatory process where disabled people decided what to say and how they will be portrayed. The aim is to challenge the oppression of disabled people and show that disabled people are not an economic burden, contrary to what the society at large in Burkina Faso thinks. The film is also targeted at international NGOs and asks them to know the reality on the ground before intervening, so that development can better benefit disabled people.
This is the long version of the film, which includes a theatre piece in the most widely spoken local language in Burkina Faso, portraying a discriminatory situation often encountered by disabled people in the country. The shorter version of the film (which is the first part of the video) is targeted more at NGOs, development institutions, and state authorities, while the long version is also targeted at other disabled people and society at large.