SAWBO is proud to present the eighth in a series of spotlight portraits highlighting the work of some of our collaborators around the world.  They all have unique experiences and innovative uses of our animations, and we are happy to have the opportunity to show the positive work that they all have been doing in different corners of the globe.

As always, please feel free to share your suggestions with us at animations@illinois.edu. 

WASEEM MAHMOOD

GENERAL DIRECTOR OF AREWA 24

My name is Waseem Mahmood and I am the Director General of AREWA 24. This is a free to air satellite TV channel broadcasting in Hausa, a local language spoken in Northern Nigeria and neighboring countries. The lifestyle channel is fully focused on the life, culture, events, and personalities of the region. We try to cover many diverse topics of importance to the Hausa speaking community in Nigeria.

Near the end of 2014, a PhD student from the University of Illinois introduced us to Scientific Animations Without Borders’ (SAWBO) co-directors, Dr. Barry Pittendrigh and Dr. Julia Bello-Bravo. After analyzing SAWBO’s content, we realized the vast impact the animations could have in the Nigerian community if they were shown on our network. In order to accomplish this, we contacted the SAWBO team and they provided us with a hard drive containing all of the animations that they had available in Hausa. 

By broadcasting the animations we are giving out relevant information on topics such as health, agriculture, and women’s empowerment to our entire viewing audience. The best part of it is that we are providing this content in their local language. Since we broadcast on Eutelsat we cover all of Nigeria and some of the neighboring countries as well. Our main audience is located in northern Nigeria and audience research shows that over 50% of the population in that area are watching our TV channel. 

Although we show different animations, including ones on agriculture, the most frequently shown are the ones related to health as we believe that these are the most important to share with the community. We are glad to have the tools to give out this important knowledge and we will continue showing a larger number of the animations as more of them are translated into Hausa.