We are very proud to be working with Siphokazi Mmbo, owner of Enchor Cinema, who bought her first pop-up cinema set-up in 2019, to ‘transform entertainment media into educational media by designing educational resources for teachers to accompany carefully chosen feature films and documentaries.’
We asked visionary leader, Siphokhazi to tell us her story.
It all started when I went back to my mother’s house during university holidays. I realise most of the people I passed Matric with did not go to university as I did. I got similar answers from all of them when I asked. “I did not know how to apply to a university” or, “I did not have money to go to university.”
I was bothered by their responses, and I decided to collect as much information as I could about universities around Cape Town, collected application forms and enquired about bursaries.
HIV and Aids were causing havoc in my rural town, teenage pregnancy was increasing in numbers. I became a peer educator for all residencies and that helped me have a better understanding of HIV and Aids. I went for numerous training on various topics such as: dealing with homesickness for first years, anxiety, coping with university life…as peer educators we were the gap between students and professional workers like campus nurses and therapists. I took all that information and used it to help my peers back at home during university holidays.
After graduating university I travelled to the UK and I worked at Castel Froma as a carer.
I came back to South Africa after 5 years and worked for a corporate company for the next 5 years.
In 2016 I decided to leave corporate and focus on my vision for youth in remote rural areas. We focused on Personal Development and Personal Governance for students in rural high schools and rural colleges. I figure you can not succeed teaching a child who is confused about who they are, and why they think the way they think. We developed material for rural high schools that focused on self-understanding and self-governance.
We worked with all colleges under KSD College and some high schools in Ingquza Hill.
In 2018 Teaching with film was born, a cutting edge and innovative way to use the storytelling power of film to teach our kids and use film as a springboard for subjects like maths and science as well as critical topics that learners can benefit from.
Our aim is to transform entertainment media into educational media by designing educational resources for teachers to accompany carefully chosen feature films and documentaries.
Enchor Cinema engages students in the meaningful examination of human rights, poverty and hunger, environmental issues, global health, gender roles, personal governance etc.
We had the vision, now we needed the set-up and the know-how… I began searching around and eventually found Pop-Up Cinema on Facebook. I was amazed at how compact our medium inflatable pop-up cinema package was. Everything, including the frame, screen, speakers, projector, could fit into the back of our SUV! Pop-Up Cinema’s knowledge and training went over and beyond my expectations and they continue to give support.
We also develop discussion guides for films that do not necessarily lend themselves to academic standards but cover topics and themes that are valuable for classroom discussions.
