In this film, shot in Malawi, you could say that Africa is showing us the way. We see once more how citizens’ assemblies can address tricky political issues that appear to be beyond the capabilities of elected representatives. For all the exotic charm of this southern African country, and Malawians’ alluring friendliness and heartfelt welcome, the challenges of politics as usual are wearily familiar.

And yet this is a very hopeful film.

What’s clear is that 21st century politics and its problems pervade all parts of the planet – that is the scale of our challenge at this time. And yet also, happy to say, equally obvious are the glaring possibilities of some workable and inspiring solutions.

Teaching Power’s main character is Alina Lyson, a local headmistress chosen to facilitate one of five citizens’ assemblies in Salima District on the shores of Lake Malawi. Her life was already a celebration of female education and empowerment – her facilitation role merely added a new chapter to that inspiring story.

“Now I am very happy because I have realised and I have learnt. And I am ready to teach others,” Alina tells us. Her fellow citizens’ assembly participants eagerly echo her enthusiasm, as you’ll see in the film. That’s something we’ve always found when interviewing everyday people who are given a chance to speak and have their voices heard.

These are ordinary Malawians called to take part in a series of Citizens’ Assemblies to deliberate on local spending priorities in their area. They tackled the tricky issue of Constituency Development Funds, or CDFs, the means used in many African countries and elsewhere to give MPs money to spend on projects in their constituencies.

What lifts these Malawi citizens’ assemblies several levels above most others we know of is what happened next. Rather than a short-lived project, it’s an ongoing story. There’s local political momentum to keep things going after the formal project left town. That’s not often the case. Helping that momentum has been genuine enthusiasm from both the head of local planning in Salima and a local constituency MP, who’s also a deputy minister in government. Assembly participants have teamed up with Salima local community radio to share their new-found knowledge and political energies. And they’ve created lively WhatsApp groups to continue monitoring local public spending.

Teaching Power was funded by The United Nations Democracy Fund through newDemocracy.

For our director, Patrick Chalmers, the project was deeply inspiring in itself, and as a deep dive into his own, ongoing political education. Or make that re-education. That’s a process of unravelling prejudice in the rich, white, western, heterosexual, middle-aged male that he is. Although Patrick’s written about that before, this project uncovered another layer of unconscious prejudice, and pointed to yet more. For work on those layers, he reckons BIPOC women’s work advancing black feminism causes will likely prove his richest sources. That includes embedding elements of the Combahee River Collective Statement into his thinking, particularly sentences such as this one:

“We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else's oppression.”

So, All Hands On’s focus remains on radical political change for the better, how it’s happening already, and how we need much more. We see our job as directing our energies into helping project the voices of those in the world’s most impacted communities.

That means we’re not uncritical admirers of citizens’ assemblies. We do think they can work brilliantly – as did the one on women’s sexual and reproductive health that we filmed in Ireland. But they’re not perfect, nor without their significant flaws or weaknesses. Some are ill designed for the questions asked of them, or they’re tokenistic, or they have their participants’ deliberated recommendations ignored by power holders. We must be alive to that as citizens and in our film making.

But all that’s for the future. Today, we celebrate Malawians’ exemplary efforts in the face of significant odds, not the least of which was the Covid pandemic. The words of Salima community radio journalist, Louis Majamanda, are the ones that fire our imaginations going forward.