STEPHANIE LINUS TAKES ‘DRY’ TO GAMBIA

Stephanie Linus’ award winning movie, DRY, recently made a debut in Gambia with a well-attended screening during the African Youth Summit Banjul Plus 10. The movie was not only well received and greeted with a standing ovation afterwards, but was lauded by all and further opened up the conversation around maternal health care and Fistula in Africa.

The audience was made up of distinguished personalities including the Vice President of Gambia, Dr Isatou Njie Saidy; UNFPA Regional Director for West & Central Africa, Mr Mabingue Ngom; Assistant Minister for Youth Liberia, Ms. Kula Fonfana and many others.

The summit was organised in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to capture the creative, innovative and pro-active voices of African youth and utilize these voices as a tool to encourage decision makers to address the myriad issues young people on the continent face. It focused on discussions around reinforcing implementation of the policy frameworks in Africa and their pivotal role in harnessing the youth potentials to attain the Demographic Dividend and Africa’s inclusive growth and sustainable development.

Inspired by the true story of a young girl living with Vesico Vaginal Fistula, DRY features Darwin Shaw as Dr. Alex, the legendary Liz Benson Ameye as the Matron and Bill McNamara as Dr. Brown. The movie also stars Zubaida Ibrahim as Halima, the teenager who had to endure a life not designed for a child: to be married to a man who was more than four times her age.

This screening comes just a few weeks after Stephanie Linus premiered DRY in Zambia at an event which was attended by the Zambian First Lady, Mrs Esther Lungu. DRY is currently on an African tour and will be showing in other countries in the coming weeks.