Communities in Madagascar and Nepal take on the Mannequin Challenge

2 min read
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Image: WaterAid/Ernest Randriarimalala

Alison Gentleman has the pleasure of working with our Voices from the Field network, a team of extraordinarily talented photographers, film-makers and storytellers who help bring you closer to WaterAid's work in some of the countries we work in. Here she writes about one of the more fun jobs she's worked on with the crew.

While 2014 was all about the Ice Bucket Challenge and 2015 brought us 'The Dress' (was it blue/black or white/gold?), this year’s social media craze has certainly been the #MannequinChallenge – with everyone from the England football team to Beyoncé taking part.

The idea is that people film themselves staying perfectly still in a challenging or funny situation, and post the videos online.

Never missing a trick, Ernest Randriarimalala, our Voices from the Field officer in Madagascar, visited the community of Bevato and encouraged them to take part, with some impressive results:

“At the start we tried to do the film with all the villagers, but it was unmanageable... so we decided to work only with few people,” said Ernest.

“Malagasy kids are used to playing a similar game so it was so easy for them, but it was tricky with adults as they always found something to laugh about. It took a while to get a good take, but it was very funny.”

“It was quite difficult doing the Mannequin Challenge in a village with more goats than people,” says Mani Karmacharya, our Voices from the Field officer in Nepal.

“They are all over the place – it was hard to keep them out of shot and impossible to make them stay still!”

Discover more about our Voices from the Field team and meet the people behind the camera >