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The animated short tells the story of Habeeb and his older sister, Funke. Habeeb gets bored of staying home and tries to run away from home to play soccer. Her sister warns her that she tells him about the coronavirus and its dangers.
Some of Nigeria’s states, including Lagos, its commercial center, and Abuja, the capital, have been locked up since March 30.
“You want to tell your child not to go outside, but you need to explain why you need to stay inside. Beyond that, you must explain why you constantly have to wash your hands with soap and water … It was really hard until it occurred to me the idea of the coronavirus monster, “he told CNN.
“I explained to him that the monster would take mom and dad and that there would be no more ice cream or good food,” he added. “And that’s when it occurred to me that many parents were probably facing the same challenge.”
Creating the coronavirus monster
Akinmolayan made the short through his Lagos-based production company Anthill Studios. His team worked on it from home and opted for animation so that everyone could practice social distancing, he said.
“I discovered that one of the best ways to explain it (the coronavirus) was with graphics and animations so that we didn’t have real people gathered in one place to film,” he said.
The cartoon is distributed free of charge. Done in English and the Nigerian languages of Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo, it has been translated into French, Swahili and Portuguese and has been widely shared on some television stations, Akinmolayan said.
“I created a Google Drive and put all the videos there, including the soundtrack, and I made it public,” he said. “I said that anyone could record a language on it or just make a subtitle. Some guys in the Ivory Coast did a French version, the guys in East Africa did a version in Swahili. I ran into the Brazilian. It was on national television from Turkey and on TV in China too. “
Countering disinformation
“There was so much misinformation out there, lots of fake news. I realized it was because people did not understand what the virus was about. I found that one of the best ways to explain it was with graphics and animations,” he said.
The video is based on credible sources like the World Health Organization, Akinmolayan said, and has been recreated in French, Portuguese, and Swahili and widely shared in countries like Brazil, Kenya, and China.
“I also noticed that all the messages spread were in English and so it was easy to flood WhatsApp with incorrect information,” he explained. “It was shared by parents and grandparents who probably didn’t care about Big English.”
Nollywood and animations
As with his coronavirus monster animation, Akinmolayan wants to be able to make complicated themes easy for kids to understand, he said.
“What we need to think about is the power of children and the production of family content,” he said. “We need to pass a lot of messages that reach the level of children.”
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