ZIMBABWE – HARARE (The Herald) - REALITY television show - Imagine Afrika - in which Studio 263 actress Yvonne Mangunda is participating - last week treated its fans to a special World Aids Day 48-minute episode of the continental show.
Imagine Afrika is broadcast on ZBC Television at 7pm on Monday and, as a repeat, at 10.30am on Thursdays.
The 13-week reality show enters its 10th week this week.
Although the show, organised by the African Broadcast Media Partnership Against HIV and Aids, is designed to test leadership skills and creativity, it also deals with Aids issues.
Through its three teams in Mozambique, South Africa and Rwanda, the show saw the teams challenged to organise a soccer match and investigate how soccer could be used as a tool to challenge the stigma associated with HIV and Aids.
The team in Mozambique, which includes Mangunda, decided to include in the soccer teams players who are HIV positive, thus illustrating that there is no need to avoid contact with those infected with the deadly virus.
The team faced additional challenges, as not only do none of its members speak Portuguese, but they were also trying to organise the soccer match during the month of Ramadan on an island where Islam is the dominant religion.
The following week the young contestants were challenged to face their fears.
The Mozambican team, which has been named Tumaini Afrika, had to cope with the elements and various creatures at sea.
Their Rwandan counterparts, the Strikers, came face to face with Rwanda's genocidal past, when they ventured into one of the tiny country's tropical forests. The three teams came into contact with children orphaned as a result of Aids and were challenged in more ways than one as they had to deal emotionally with the plight of the children and the communities in which they live.
Mangunda and her teammates -- Kenyan Mutembei Kariuki, Rwandan Faysal Ngeruka Birikunzira and Ghanaian Nathalie Anang -- faced a language barrier and had to travel long distances.
This week the tone changes as the teams are challenged to come up with a vibrant and catchy song, the lyrics of which are expected to promote values that encourage a healthy lifestyle and reflect the ABMP's campaign against HIV and Aids slogan, which is "It Begins With You".
The teams will be expected not only to compose the song but also sing it in public.
They have a limited period within which to compose the song, find a studio, a producer and perform it.
Next week, with only three more episodes to go, the three teams will come together for the first time since they went their separate ways.
However, when they come together next week the technology they have relied on throughout their tasks will be taken away from them, leaving them to use their own natural abilities to solve problems, something they are far from happy about and not all of them find easy.
The organisers believe that Imagine Afrika is the first genuinely African reality show to be broadcast in Africa. It is unique in its approach.
The contestants have, apart from the challenges of the tasks they are faced with, had to learn to work together as teams, something not always easy when one considers they have all been short-listed and chosen for the show on the basis of their strong personalities and leadership qualities.