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Nonprofit video production in Africa

Film your work in Africa the way it actually happens. Start with 3 free videos.

Book a free Field Storytelling Session. We record someone on your team in Africa, a beneficiary or a local partner over Zoom, in English, French or Swahili, and our editors turn it into 3 finished, subtitled videos. No cost. No crew. Yours to keep.

Free for nonprofits, foundations & NGOs
Book in 2 minutes
3 videos, yours to keep

▶ How the free session worksEnglish, French, Swahili100% free

Sound familiar?

Your impact happens in Africa. Your footage usually doesn't.

Every development director and comms lead we talk to has a version of the same problem. The work is in Kisumu, Kampala or Kano, the person who has to turn it into a year-end appeal is in Boston, and the footage is somewhere in between.

×

The footage lives on a phone in Kampala

Your country team filmed the borehole opening on three handsets. Nobody has cut it, and year-end is eight weeks away.

×

One site visit a year

The comms director flies in once and shoots three programs in four days. That b-roll has to carry everything until the next trip.

×

A crew from home, on a compressed schedule

Flights, visas, per diems, a fixer, gear through customs. The budget goes to logistics and the story gets what is left.

ME

“The global network of content people you all have. When that was first proposed, I was like, I don't believe that really exists. Like, could you really get someone for us in Uganda and all these places?”

Mackinnon Engen, Executive Director, Watsi

SM

“When I found out that you guys could go like, into the countries where our borrowers actually are and collect some content that way as well. That was really what sealed the deal for us.”

Starlyn Matheny, Kiva

Start this week. Your first session is free.Book my free field session →

In their words

Teams with programs across Africa, in their own words.

Watsi needed patient stories from a rural health centre in northern Uganda. Worldreader needed real families reading in Kenya and South Africa. Baitulmaal needed content creators where its relief work happens. Here is what they told us.

200+videos delivered for Baitulmaal

Read the Watsi case study

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Field Storytelling Session. Free.

One person, one Zoom call, three finished videos, in the language they speak.

FREE

Your cost

$0

What you get

1
A 45-minute Zoom recordingSomeone on your team in Africa, a beneficiary or a partner. A Happy producer guides every answer, in English, French or Swahili.
2
3 finished, subtitled videosCaptioned and subtitled, ready for your year-end appeal, sustainer emails or impact report.
3
Safe, and yours to keepRelease forms in the speaker's language. You keep the videos and the raw recording.

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Love the videos? We'll plan your next production on the ground. Don't? Keep them anyway.

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

Three ways to start

Three ways to get footage out of Africa

Start free. Add crews on the ground when you're ready, quoted up front.

Start here, free

Field Storytelling Session

We record one person in Africa over Zoom and our editors turn it into 3 finished, subtitled videos.

45-minute producer-guided Zoom recording
3 finished, subtitled videos
Anyone on your team, a beneficiary or a partner
Yours to keep, files and raw footage

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Community dialogue in the shade in Mombasa, Kenya

Most requested

Local crew production

A vetted local videographer films your program, convening or distribution, with our producer on WhatsApp from call time to wrap.

Portfolio, reel and a live video call before booking
Release forms in the subject's language
Local-language interviews
Footage in a shared folder you own within days

Start with the free session →

Emergency water trucking in northern Kenya

For appeals

Year-end and appeal package

One production day becomes a library: the hero film for the gala, the 45-second cut for the appeal email and twelve verticals for the feed.

Shot list built backwards from your appeal date
Vertical cuts for Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
Sustainer and donor thank-yous
Subtitled in English, French, Swahili and more

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Where we work

Where we work in Africa

Ghana

Nigeria

Sudan

Mogadishu

Gulu

Nairobi

Johannesburg

Cape Town

In the past year we have produced in Nairobi, Kilifi, Mombasa and Wajir in Kenya, at a rural health centre in northern Uganda, in Johannesburg and Cape Town, in Nigeria, in Mogadishu and in Sudan, each time with a local videographer we vetted ourselves. Our network covers the continent, so if your programs run somewhere below, we can staff a shoot there.

KenyaUgandaTanzaniaRwandaEthiopiaSomaliaSouth SudanNigeriaGhanaSenegalCôte d'IvoireCameroonDR CongoZambiaMalawiMozambiqueZimbabweSouth AfricaSudanEgyptMorocco

Headquartered in Nairobi, Lagos, Accra, Kampala or Johannesburg? We work with organizations based in Africa the same way: a local crew we have vetted, our producer on the brief, our editors on the cut, and distribution through the Are You Happy? audience when the story fits. Time zones are our normal.

Built for Africa

What every production in Africa includes

Vetted local crews

Portfolio, reel and a live video call before anyone is booked. We keep the ones who deliver.

Local-language interviews

Swahili, French, Hausa, Amharic or English, with subtitles checked for meaning.

Consent and safeguarding

Release forms in the subject's language, signed on a phone before the interview.

Drone where permitted

Aerials over forests, coastlines and distribution sites, within local rules.

Distribution built in

When the story fits, we feature it to the Are You Happy? audience of 200 million people a year.

You own the footage

You keep every finished file and all the raw footage.

Beyond video

What we film for nonprofits working in Africa

One production day becomes a library: the hero film for the gala, the 45-second cut for the appeal email, twelve verticals for the feed, and the quiet two-minute piece your program officer sends to the funder.

A path through the Gulu region of northern Uganda

Impact stories and beneficiary films

A year-end and appeal calendar

Site visits, distributions and field recaps

Clips for impact and grant reports

A reach summary for every appeal

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How it works

How a shoot in Africa works with us

01

Tell us where you work

Your programs, your countries and your next appeal date.

02

FREE

Start with the free session

We record one person over Zoom and deliver 3 subtitled videos, free.

03

A local crew films

One production day where the work happens, with our producer on WhatsApp from call time to wrap.

04

We edit and distribute

A hero film plus vertical cuts, subtitled, and featured to the Are You Happy? audience when the story fits.

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Compare

Three ways to get footage out of Africa

	Fly a crew from home	Country team films on phones	Happy Productions
What it takes	5 to 7 days door to door for one shoot day	Staff time, until someone has to cut it	1 day on the ground, briefed the week before
What it really costs	Flights, visas, jet lag, per diems, gear through customs	Staff time, and an edit nobody can finish	One local day rate, plus our producer and our editors
Who is behind the camera	A crew seeing the place for the first time	Program staff, brilliant at their job, doing a second one	A vetted local videographer who knows the roads and the language, drone where permitted
Releases and permissions	Handled, at crew rates	Usually missing	Handled before we shoot
Language on set	Through an interpreter	Native, with wind in the mic	Local-language interviews
What you end up with	One shoot's b-roll, stretched all year	Clips nobody can cut	A library your team can post from, and you own every frame

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Field notes

Nonprofit video production, country by country in Africa

Africa is not a location. A shoot in Kilifi and a shoot in Kampala share almost nothing except our process. Here is what we have actually filmed, where, and what it took.

Field note

Video production in Kenya: Nairobi, Kilifi and the Kerio Valley

Several Kenyan productions in 2026, all with crews we vetted ourselves. On Earth Day we filmed in Kessup Forest, Elgeyo Marakwet County, for EARTHDAY.ORG: seven interviews including the county governor and the chair of the Kenya Wildlife Service board, more than fifty 4K clips, and drone aerials over the forest and the dry riverbeds, delivered as a mini-documentary plus vertical cuts, one with Swahili voiceover and English captions. In June a Nairobi crew filmed a leadership convening at the Ngong Hills Hotel across two cameras, in English and French, for Search for Common Ground, whose community dialogues we have also filmed in Mombasa. And in Kilifi County we filmed families reading for Worldreader, plus a deputy minister interview in Swahili and drone coverage of the coast.

Field note

Video production in northern Kenya: Wajir

February 2026 for Baitulmaal's Kenya drought response: emergency water trucking to villages in the arid north, a cataract eye camp in Wajir and food package distribution, filmed on the ground and from a drone by a Kenyan videographer we vetted.

Field note

Video production in Uganda: Gulu and the north

For Watsi we filmed a rural health centre in the Gulu region over one production day: the new birthing centre in the morning, patient home visits from midday, along a route that runs roughly 400 km. A local videographer shot video, a local photographer shot stills, and the interviews were asked off camera by people the patients already knew, which is why nobody in the footage looks like they are being interviewed. Shot RAW and graded by our editors so the whole batch matches.

Field note

Video production in South Africa: Johannesburg and Cape Town

Two 2026 productions for Worldreader with two different South African production companies: Johannesburg in April, filming real families in the townships using a reading app at home, and Cape Town in May with a two-body Canon set-up, starting at the partner office for b-roll and an interview before moving to families clustered close together to keep travel out of the shoot day. Families are sourced by the in-country partner, never cast.

Field note

Video production in Nigeria

We travelled with Heifer International for a content trip in November 2025, working alongside their team on program coverage, including the Are You Happy? campaign with Uzo Aduba filmed inside real field scenes. For Nigerian productions since, the model is the standard one: a vetted local videographer, our producer on the brief, our editors on the cut.

Field note

Video production in Somalia: Mogadishu

September 2026 for Baitulmaal, filmed by a Mogadishu production company: a primary school, its classrooms and an interview with a teacher.

Field note

Video production in Sudan

Field footage for Baitulmaal, briefed at the end of March 2026 and coordinated over a WhatsApp group with the crew. Footage was confirmed received and in the client's own editor's hands within three days of the shoot. Where an organization has in-house post, we are happy to be the field half only.

Field note

Also across the continent

Ghana: an interview series filmed around an international sea-turtle symposium for SEE Turtles, including researchers from Togo, the DRC and Congo-Brazzaville, and field footage for Kiva where its borrowers live. In South Sudan we filmed community dialogues for Search for Common Ground, and in Morocco our creators filmed for Lions Clubs International. Elsewhere our videographer network covers Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Senegal, Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe. Tell us the country and we will tell you honestly whether we have someone there or need two weeks to source and vet one.

Ask about your country, free →

Community dialogue in Mombasa — Mombasa, Kenya

Public proof

Filmed on the ground for organizations you know

Worldreader: families filmed in Kenya and South Africa, and a renewal for a second year. EARTHDAY.ORG: 7 interviews in Kessup Forest. Heifer International: 3 countries on one visual language. Watsi: Uganda, Cambodia and Colombia. Search for Common Ground: 500K+ organic reach. Baitulmaal: 200+ videos delivered. Reach figures are organic, reported by clients or measured on the Are You Happy? channels.

KenyaUgandaSouth AfricaNigeriaSomaliaSudan

Read the Watsi case study · Read the Worldreader case study

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Real client videos

Stories we told with partners in Africa

Real client videos from organizations working across Africa and beyond.

200+Videos deliveredBaitulmaal

500,000+Organic reachSearch for Common Ground

163,000Views in the first weekHeifer International

5.6M+Views on one videoLions Clubs International

Who we work with

Built for organizations working across Africa

International NGOsWith country programs across Africa

FoundationsFunding programs on the continent

African NGOsBased in Nairobi, Lagos, Accra or Kampala

Relief and zakat charitiesRaising for water, food and emergencies

US and European nonprofitsWith partners on the ground

Questions

Questions we get about filming in Africa

Tap a question. Each answer comes with a 20-second video.

Is the free session really free?+

Yes. The Zoom session and the three videos our editors cut from it cost nothing. No contract, no card, and you keep every file with no obligation to buy anything afterwards. Book your free session and see your story on screen.

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What happens on the free session?+

You pick one person close to your work, and our producer interviews them live over Zoom for forty-five minutes while we record. Our editors then turn that conversation into three finished, captioned videos for your website, your social channels and your next appeal. All you have to do is show up, so book your free session.

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Do you fly a crew in, or hire locally?+

Usually not. We hire vetted local crews from our network of more than 20,000 creators in over 130 countries, and our producer directs them live on the day. Your story is filmed by people who know the language and the place, and your free session is where we plan it.

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Who can we put on camera (staff, a beneficiary, a grantee overseas)?+

Anyone whose story moves people: your director, a program lead, a volunteer, someone your program served, or a grantee overseas joining from a phone. Our producer guides every answer, so nobody needs camera experience or a script. Bring your people to a free session and we'll handle the rest.

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What about languages and subtitles?+

Yes. Interviews run in whatever language the speaker is most comfortable in, and every video ships with subtitles plus any second language you need, from Spanish and French to Swahili, Arabic and Haitian Creole. Tell us your audiences on your free session and we'll plan every version.

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How do you handle consent and safeguarding?+

Every shoot is planned around consent and dignity. People sign releases in their own language, we never show minors' names or identifying details, and anyone sharing something sensitive reviews it before it goes live. Your safeguarding policy always overrides ours, starting with your free session.

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How long until we get the videos?+

Your three free videos land in your inbox within two weeks of your session, with a simple review link if you want a change. For bigger shoots, we plan backwards from your gala, board meeting or appeal date. Tell us the date on your free session.

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We're headquartered in Africa. Can you work with us?+

Yes. NGOs and foundations from Nairobi to Manila to Bogotá work with us the same way: a local crew, our producer and our editors, with review calls set in your working hours. Your free session runs on Zoom, wherever you are.

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Can you use footage our field teams already shot?+

Yes. Send us the link, whether it's a hard drive from the field, a shared folder or years of workshop recordings, and we'll cut it into new videos. Pair it with fresh interviews from your free session and your archive finally works for you.

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Who owns the videos?+

You do. Your organization owns the finished videos and all of the raw footage, including everything we record on your free session. Use them on any channel, in any report, for as long as you like.

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Your work in Africa deserves to be seen the way it actually happens.

Tell us who to put on camera. We'll record them over Zoom, in their language, and send you 3 finished videos. Free.

Free for nonprofits, foundations & NGOs
Book in 2 minutes
3 videos, yours to keep

FREE: 3 videos from one Zoom sessionStart free →