illuminAid × UNICEF Equatorial Guinea Discuss a Pilot

Adolescents made the videos. Their communities changed the behavior.

Youth-made videos, screened community by community across Equatorial Guinea, are shifting real HIV prevention knowledge and behavior among adolescents. From urban Malabo to off-grid rural schools, survey data shows how video can transform a community's health outcomes.

Adolescent filmmakers shooting a peer-education video on the seafront in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea
600+
Adolescents & youth reached through screenings
85%
Know condom use prevents HIV transmission — up from 78%
14%
Of sexually active youth never use condoms — down from 33%
9/10
Participants asked for the screenings to keep coming
How it works

Train, equip, empower — then hand over the cameras

illuminAid doesn't produce HIV prevention videos for Equatorial Guinea's youth. It teaches them to produce their own, then leaves the skills and equipment behind.

01  TRAIN

Video Education Workshops

46 young people were trained in 2025 to script, shoot, and edit their own HIV prevention videos, alongside illuminAid's Local Video Trainers already based in-country. New rural cohorts followed in 2026 — more than 70 youth trained in total. Topics were chosen by the youth themselves and developed with UNICEF teams and local ministries of health, tailored separately for rural and urban communities.

02  EQUIP

Solar-powered screening kits

Local Video Trainers were equipped with solar, battery-powered projectors so the videos could be screened even in low-resource, off-grid schools with no reliable electricity — reaching rural communities urban-only programs never see.

03  EMPOWER

Community screenings measured impact

Local Video Trainers ran community screenings across the island and continental regions, pairing every screening with anonymous pre- and post-tests — so the project could see, not assume, what changed. In partnership with UNICEF and local ministries of health, these video messages reached 600+ youth.

A Local Video Trainer reviews a shot with young filmmakers in the field
A Local Video Trainer reviews footage with young filmmakers between takes.
Youth and adults seated for a community video screening, projector running
A community screening in session — pre- and post-tests bookend every showing.
Youth trainees holding certificates after completing a Video Education Workshop
Trainees celebrate their certificates at the end of a Video Education Workshop.
What the surveys found

The videos moved real HIV prevention behavior

In the first phase of community screenings alone, 402 adolescents and youth (ages 14–24) across 9 screenings completed matched pre- and post-test surveys.

Know regular HIV testing helps prevent spread

Before
43%
After
56%
↑ +13 points — the largest knowledge gain measured

Sexually active youth who never use condoms

Before
33%
After
14%
↓ −19 points, the right direction
+8 pts
Knew HIV testing is the only reliable way to confirm status
87%
Found the youth-made videos easy to understand
91%
Were interested in the video content shown
84%
Believe the videos can shift attitudes in their community
Why it lasts

The equipment and the skills stay in the country

illuminAid's team has stepped back, empowering Local Video Trainers and trained youth teams to continue producing videos and reaching more of their peers independently.

1 yr+
Of screenings led entirely by local Video Trainers since the first training
2025 → 2026
New rural cohorts trained the following year, led by the same in-country trainers
0
illuminAid staff required on the ground to keep screenings running today
A model built to travel

Proven well beyond HIV prevention, and beyond Equatorial Guinea

This partnership sits inside UNICEF's own Social and Behavior Change and ADAP programming. illuminAid's Train, Equip, and Empower model is sector-agnostic — the same approach has carried messages on health, WASH, nutrition, education, agriculture, and climate resilience elsewhere, adapted to what each community and programme needs.

Agriculture Climate Education Nutrition WASH Health Women's & Youth Programs
50+
Video Education Workshops led since 2008
34
Countries where illuminAid has trained local video makers
700+
Trainees worldwide
3500+
Solar-powered projectors deployed to educate communities
Delivered in partnership with
See it & hear it

Hear about the project directly from youth trainees

Trainees describe the workshop and what changed, in their own words.

Watch the videos youth created

The peer-education videos screened across Bioko and the mainland — YouTube playlist

Hear from UNICEF Equatorial Guinea

Our partners on what the partnership looked like from their side
Interested in piloting this?

Let's talk about what this could look like in your country office

We are excited to scale this approach to other critical communities. We'd welcome the chance to walk another UNICEF office through what it would take — and what it could measure.

Email our team

In partnership with UNICEF Equatorial Guinea, under the Adolescent Development and Participation Programme (ADAP). Figures reflect illuminAid’s 2025–2026 UNICEF Equatorial Guinea results one-pager and the First Phase Community Screenings Report (October–November 2025, n=402 across 9 screenings).