About WeOwnTV
WeOwnTV is a collaborative media project that promotes self-expression and balances intensive media production training with professional development.
Our programs center the role of community engagement and support filmmakers and artists through direct grants, professional mentorship, and media education. We also work with filmmakers on promotion and distribution of finished work enabling young talents to share their stories and ideas with the world. To date, our work has been regionally focused in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, and Ghana.
“WeOwnTV” in Sierra Leone’s native Krio language, means “Our Own TV.” Personal and community ownership are the core pillars for establishing this collaboration. We support young media makers, artists and journalists to take the lead in their own development and creative exploration. This spirit of self-reliance is paramount to building a culture of creativity and professionalism. It is on this foundation that WeOwnTV has built our core programs and mechanisms of support.
WeOwnTV is an initiate of the San Francisco based non-profit, Mirabel Pictures.
“The experience of sharing my story through the Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars film totally changed my life. I wanted to create ways to empower other Sierra Leoneans through storytelling.”
Our Backstory
In 2009 we ran our first workshop together with Sierra Leonean media makers Arthur Pratt and Lansana ‘Barmmy Boy’ Mansaray. In 2010 , we established a US based non-profit to continue support media makers in the region. That same year we helped launch the brick and mortar WeOwnTV Freetown Media Centre with Barmmy and Arthur. Today, more than a decade since we opened its doors the Media Center has grown into a vibrant professional collective that houses some of the most respected and sought after media-makers in the country. To date we have worked with and trained over 300 media makers via workshops, training and collaborative productions.
This collaboration also took on new meaning in the context of the Ebola outbreak, which struck in 2014. Since the earliest days of the outbreak, WeOwnTV supported the production of educational materials created by Freetown Media Centre that rapidly disseminated life-saving, culturally sensitive information at a critical time. These films were quickly identified by healthcare professionals in the region as being extremely effective in getting the messages out in a way local communities could relate to. Here are some reports about their efforts covered on BBC Newshour and the Daily Beast that praise our efforts.
Most recently, our team produced the feature-length documentary film Survivors which tells the story of Sierra Leonean healthcare workers heroically fighting the Ebola outbreak. The film was nominated for Peabody and Emmy awards and was broadcast on PBS's award-winning series POV (2018) and on Al Jazeera wordlwide (2019).