THIS IS US is a film project in Senegal, Africa that empowers students who live in villages without electricity to write, film, and narrate stories about their daily lives, hopes, and challenges. These are voices that have never been heard before, offering intimate glimpses into their daily lives, sharing their thoughts and their dreams for the future.

A film by Jeremy Teicher

Senegal / USA, Documentaire, 32 mins

This Is Us: Video Stories from Senegalese Youth (documentary) from Jeremy Teicher on Vimeo.

Filmmaker Jeremy Teicher uses his award from Dartmouth College's Lombard Public Service Fellowship, Dickey Center for International Understanding, to initiate a partnership with Kodak, Cybersmart Africa, and the United States Embassy in Dakar to give voice to new storytellers in the developing world.

"This Is Us" empowers Senegalese students who live in villages without electricity to write, film, and narrate stories about their daily lives, hopes, and challenges.

From cooking meals to studying by candlelight to working in the fields after school, the youths of "This Is Us" reveal a fascinatingly honest depiction of everyday life as a rural Senegalese student, a perspective that could only be shared by a local.

Jeremy Teicher: Director, Editor, Project manager.

Mounirous Cissé: School coordinator.

Sarah Nehrling : Project advisor.

Ben Gifford: Field support (2010).

Issa Sow: Field support (2008).


Sponsored by:
Cybersmart! Africa and the John Sloane Dickey Center for International Understanding. Cameras donated by Kodak. Additional support from the American embassy in Dakar.

The documentary inspired an internationally-acclaimed feature film, TALL AS THE BAOBAB TREE (2012).

THIS IS US received a nomination for the Student Academy Awards (2011, USA)

· November film premiere at American Ambassador's residence in Dakar, Senegal and the French Cultural Center in Dakar; featured on RTS 1, national Senegalese public television.

· USA premiere at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire.

· Clip of project played at Educator's Inaugural Ball in Washington, DC, 2008.