By Eddie Nsabimana The narration of Rwanda’s story by foreign media has often drawn criticism among Rwandans over the years, especially because it misleads the global community about Rwanda’s image since the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. To change that narrative, a tourism campaign that will feature a cross-country journey to explore, discover little and rarely shown sceneries of the country, showcase the country, and visually tell the story the Rwandan way, will soon be launched. Dubbed ‘Rwanda Nziza’, the campaign is an initiative of Image Rwanda, a local content agency, co-founded by young photographers Innocent Ishimwe and Jean Luc Habimana. The initiative is established by a storytelling passionate team of Image Rwanda, whose members understand the need of this adventure experience and booming tourism industry in Rwanda. Innocent Ishimwe, the cofounder of Image Rwanda, told The New Times that the campaign’s main objective is to showcase and share the true image of Rwanda through photos, videos and storytelling. “Some international media tend to tell stories about Rwanda the way they want for their own interests. We want to change that narrative by using our creative minds to portray the true narrative of Rwanda’s story and showcase its image the way it is,” he said. “If I am a photographer, I can’t do this alone. That’s why we called videographers, Sound operators, researchers, conservationists, tour guides to join the cause,” he added. In partnership with Rwanda Development Board (RDB) and their campaign, Visit Rwanda, the project will involve a team of more than 100 narrative storytellers, photographers, videographers, digital content curator, researchers, historians, tour guides and conservationists. Rwanda Nziza will provide an ideal platform for local photographers and visual content creators to show unseen Rwanda to the world. It will also be a strategic recovery plan for Tourism to bounce back better from the Covid-19 Pandemic. The campaign will be the first expedition of its kind in Rwanda, with destinations in all 30 districts of the country to be covered. The project will be conducted in two main phases, including a scouting and content-gathering phase that will run from December 2020 till May 2021 and a post-production phase running till the end of 2021 that will include publishing, exhibitions and commercializing the gathered content. The content gathered during the trip will be featured in exhibitions and virtual reality technology experiences, both local and international, and later on, an anthology book titled “Rwanda Nziza” will be produced and published, alongside magazines. Ishimwe revealed that the campaign is ‘here to stay’ as it targets, in future projects, to tackle different sectors of development including agriculture, Education, and ICT among others. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
