Sandar Kiwo or the Blessings of Facebook

Oh, the blessings of the world wide web and applications such as Facebook! – I just found Ado Ahmad of Gidan Dabina online! I met him last year in Kano and we had a rather long and lively discussion about the illustrations on the covers of Hausa novels. We met later again when he was planning to go to Germany. But since an email convesation some time in February we haven’t really been talking, so that was a really pleasant surprise.

Anyway, he told me about his latest project: A collaboration with the British Council that led to the production of a feature film that he is currently internationally promoting and so I thought I just post it here – just in case anybody who might be interested in screening the film might be reading this. In that case you can contact him via his blog Taskar Gidan Dabino or get in touch with me via the email on my profile and I'll forward anything.

SANDAR KIWO’S BACKGROUND

Sandar Kiwo film is one of the six carefully selected film scripts which was a product of Women in Shari’ah Video Project which emanated from a research carried out by Centre of Islamic and Legal Studies (CILS), Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria on improving the condition of Muslim women in Northern Nigeria. The research report identified practices relating to abuse of women’s rights under the pretext of Shari’ah through miscarriage of justice or in the name of tradition and culture. The identified areas of these practices covered in the film are:

• Girl child education

• Marriage and marital relations

• Divorce

• Custody of children [hadhana]

• Economic rights

• Inheritance

• Property ownership

• Access to health and reproductive services

• Access to justice

• Criminal justice

Sandar Kiwo film was produced by Gidan Dabino International (GDI), Kano- Nigeria to address the aforementioned women rights abuses; and to successfully achieve the said goal, an action plan was developed to address the major challenges facing the rights of women in Northern Nigeria by applying the principles of Shari’ah to promote and protect those rights.

The film project which Security, Justice & Growth (SJG), Kano initiated and supported financially in collaboration with British Council and DFID aims to support the production and distribution of Home video to address themes which promote the rights of women through Shari’ah. Hausa Home video films are very popular and watched by millions of viewers within and beyond Nigeria, which make them (films) potentially important medium of dissemination of ideas in addition to being an established source of entertainment.

Under the terms of reference of this project, SJG will support the development, production, and distribution of six Home video films by professional Home video producers based on themes from CILS Shari’ah booklet. Through competitive process 8 scripts developed by script writers who have been familiarized with content of the CILS Shari’ah booklet will be selected. SJG will then subsidize the elected Home video producers to develop the scripts into home video films of good quality. In addition to assisting the producers to distribute the films, SJG will organize weekly public shows of the films at two selected locations in Kano and Jigawa states. Each show will be followed by a focus group discussion with the viewers over the women right issues raised. At the conclusion of the organized public shows, an evaluation will be conducted at each of the locations to assess the films impact on awareness and attitudes of the viewers.

And as part of Gidan Dabino International’s effort to give Sandar Kiwo the desired wider international attention, we advertise the firm on the Internet, local media and reach out to International students studying Hausa in Universities in Africa and across the world especially in USA, Germany and United Kingdom.