In order to disseminate the project, the team developed a short documentary entitled as “We hug Africa”, an 18 minute video that showcases the activities of the project, the personal view of the members and the obstacles they faced in order to achieve the goals set in the beginning of the project. The team conducted 7 screenings of the documentary in Greece, Cyprus and Italy in order to inform their audience about what has happened during their 7-month stay in Africa.
A milestone for WE AfriHug was the selection of the Co-founder Marilena Maragkou, among 1.700 applications, as a Young Expert in the cluster of Education & Skills at the AU-EU Youth Cooperation Hub. She is one of 42 young Africans, Europeans and Diaspora to work with the African Union & the European Union to help developing the scope of the Call for Proposals worth 10 Million € for projects in both continents. She is working on Education & Skills Cluster and her experience with WE AfriHug plays a big role. She has already visited the Headquarters of African Union in Addis Ababa where she worked on the development of new educational projects that will be launched in 2019. Moreover, she was selected to represent the cluster of Education in the first Ministerial Summit of EU and AU in Brussels on 21st– 22nd of January 2019.
The first screening of the documentary took place in Cyprus, the team visited the premises of their sponsor Trade.com – Lead Capital Markets Limited, in Nicosia. The team discussed with the representatives of the company about the project, the challenges and the future plans of the team. The second screening of the documentary took place in Greece at the premises of the NGO, Inter Alia in Athens together with the participants of the Erasmus+ project Grapes of Wrath. The event was attended by Senegalese participants of Dimbaya representatives also of their partner Sedarvp Ghana & Resource Hub for Development, Kenya.
The third screening of the documentary took place in Greece at the event WE AfriHug short documentary & Reggae night at Cosmos of Culture in collaboration with the African House in Athens. Supporters of the project attended the event and got informed about the 7-month stay of the team in Africa. The fourth screening of the documentary took place in Athens in which supporters of the project were invited to watch the documentary, discuss with the team and express their opinion about the project, Africa and education.
The fifth screening of the documentary took place in Kalamata, in Greece, during the Youth Exchange of the Erasmus+ project Generation Europe. Youth from Greece, Portugal and Germany attended the screening, discussed and gave feedback about the project and its activities. The sixth screening of the documentary took place in Cyprus where Demetris Christodoulou presented the project and shared his testimonial with CareAct in Larnaca. Educators and children attended the event and discussed all together about Africa and education. The seventh and last screening for 2018 took place in Ostia, in Italy where the Italian team presented outcomes of the project, the short documentary and interacted with the audience.
The team is planning to further disseminate WE AfriHug in 2019 and be engaged in more activities in Europe and Africa.