The launch ceremony of the 2021 China-Africa Video and Photo Competition was held in Beijing on May 21. With the theme Friendship in Focus, Together for Future, the competition, co-sponsored by the Secretariat of the Chinese Follow-up Committee of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and China International Publishing Group (CIPG), aims to provide a platform for Chinese and African people to communicate with videos and photos.

Important platform

Attendees of the competition agreed that people-to-people exchanges, such as this competition, are important in promoting China-Africa friendship.

"It is not easy to organize such an event while the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging around the world," said Wu Peng, Secretary General of the Chinese Follow-up Committee of FOCAC and Director General of the Department of African Affairs of the Foreign Ministry, at the launch ceremony.

The China-Africa relations have withstood the test of the pandemic, with China and Africa supporting each other at their respective difficult times. Wu said that China will always remember the strong support of African countries and shall reserve no effort in supporting Africa. China has extended a helping hand to 53 African countries and the African Union, and COVID-19 vaccines have been donated or exported to more than 20 African countries, which, according to him, is the largest humanitarian assistance since the founding of the People's Republic of China.

To Wu's delight, China-Africa cooperation and exchanges in other aspects have also progressed despite the pandemic. State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit to five African countries continued the 30-year-long tradition of choosing Africa as the first destination for the foreign minister's overseas visit every year. Many Chinese staff have stayed or returned to Africa to keep over 1,100 China-Africa cooperation projects continue to operate during the tough time.

"There are too many touching stories and wonderful moments to be recorded with cameras," he said, adding that the competition will enhance understanding on the friendship and win-win cooperation between China and Africa, as well as on the vision of a China-Africa community with a shared future, by allowing individuals in China and Africa to share their own stories.

In his speech, Martin Mpana, Dean of the African Diplomatic Corps and Ambassador of Cameroon to China, recognized the inestimable value of photos and videos as a powerful means of communication.

"No other communication tool is better suited than photos and videos to illustrate reality in the most perfect way and thus allow the public to receive sound and verifiable information," he said.

He expressed his support for the competition, saying that it helps present and preserve the images that reflect the joint efforts of China and Africa to enlighten present and future generations.

He also encouraged the launch of similar initiatives in Africa to create the conditions for an environment conducive to the development of the image industry and promotion of artistic creation.

"This is one of the ways in which we will be able to show the true face of China-Africa relations, which bears the encouraging mark of an ambitious, fruitful and win-win partnership," he said.

Role of media

Lu Cairong, Vice President of CIPG, said in his speech at the ceremony that the group has long been doing its part as media to promote China-Africa relations. He applauded the competition as an effective way to record China-Africa friendship.

"In the history of traditional friendship between China and Africa, stories of mutual understanding can always touch people's hearts regardless of time and distance," he said.

Li Yafang, President of BEIJING REVIEW, a media outlet under CIPG and one of the organizers of the competition, said in her speech that the media agency's intensive participation in promoting China-Africa ties has led to the understanding that media-led exchange activities are crucial for enhancing people-to-people bonds between China and Africa.

The organization is the publisher of the ChinAfrica monthly magazine dedicated to African readers, and it held the first and second editions of the competition in the past two years.

Li said that holding the current competition has allowed the agency to be connected to more individuals interested in promoting China-Africa friendship. She pledged that the agency will continue to help strengthen people-to-people and cultural exchanges between China and Africa, deepen media cooperation and consolidate the traditional China-Africa friendship.

Piet Rampedi, Editor of Pretoria News of Independent Media Group in South Africa, said in his speech that the competition is important in that it helps counter Western media propaganda that doesn't reflect the truth about China and China-Africa relations.

He said when he first came to China in 2021, he had a rude awakening about the truth of the country that was very contrary to the negative stories he had been fed by Western media.

"The competition empowers the next generation and establishes long-lasting ties between China and other African countries to counter that kind of Western media propaganda," he said.

Power of people

According to Li Jianguo, Associate Editor in Chief of BEIJING REVIEW, the competition is an expanded version of the China-Africa Short Video Competition the agency had held before.

Li said among the numerous interesting stories received in the last two competitions, he was especially touched by how individuals do their part in promoting China-Africa ties.

The work of the first-prize winner in last year's competition, for example, tells the story of a student from Cameroon who became a football coach and made important contribution to training young football players in China.

"Exciting stories like this have made us realize that we as media and government agencies are not alone in promoting friendship between China and Africa," he said.

Daniel Oloo, a Kenyan student at Communication University of China, is one example. Speaking at the ceremony on behalf of potential contestants of the competition, he shared his story how he turned from a layman of video production to an active participant of the previous short video competitions held by BEIJING REVIEW.

To him, the value of such competitions lies in that they allow Chinese and African people to tell their stories directly and that they give ordinary people an opportunity to refine their skills with the new forms of media.

In 2019, he and two other schoolmates joined the ChinAfrica magazine crew in a visit to the mountains of inland Yunnan Province, where they experienced in person how people there stepped out of poverty. Their reports about the trip brought African readers fresh and credible information about China.

"I urge interested people to take this opportunity and join the competition, not only to give a narrative about China and Africa, but also to exploit their skills in producing such pieces," he said. 

(Print Edition Title: Recording Friendship) 

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