£1.3m for ‘jail gang peace’
IN A country of 250million people, it wasn’t the most popular TV show.
A mere 100,000 tuned in to watch the Indonesian prison drama Tim Bui about a fictional jail on the island of Java, where rival gangs make peace through a shared loved of football.
Astonishingly, this littleseen series is funded by British taxpayers, as part of a £9million aid package to US-based charity Search For Common Ground (SFCG).
The UK has been contributing since 2008 to SFCG, which funds projects in 12 countries for ‘conflict prevention, peace building and media activities’.
The US charity describes its ‘forte’ as making TV shows to promote wellbeing in hotspots around the globe.
It spent £1.3million on TV shows aimed at ‘promoting global harmony’, including a 13-part prison drama. Mike Jobbins, the charity’s director of global affairs, said: ‘Football is a universal language that promotes peace and is a metaphor to show that if you work together you can score goals.
‘TV can play a powerful role in cultures torn apart by violence to get a positive message across.’
UK aid was also used to fund another television show, The Team – Tanzania, about a girl’s football team in the African nation which promotes ‘women’s issues’ and to make Vrai Djo (A Real Man), a ‘positive behaviour’ television campaign in Congo showing a man being sexually rebuffed by his date and agreeing to play a board game instead.
A DFID spokesman said: ‘Violence and conflict make the world less safe for all of us, which is why we deliver aid and support stability and peacebuilding.’