Salone Culture Alive

Background

Salone Culture Alive Reality Television Show was launched on the 9^th of October 2021 at the Makeni City Council Hall. The event attracted a wide variety of classes of people from the entertainment industry, media, and MDAs.

The idealist behind this event is Iscandri A. Sankoh who happens to be the Chief Executive Officer. He had had the idea for over half a decade before finally registering it as a sub-company to Summit Empire in 2020. 

Salone Culture Alive TV Show is meant to bring back the reminiscence of the almost lost culture of the people of Sierra Leone. The aim of this show is to bring back to life the lost customary and traditional practices of the various tribes across the country of Sierra Leone.

Launch of the Event

The event was commenced by Elijah Musa Deen who happens to be one of the members of the show. He called the event to order, welcomed all the attendees and followed all the due processes. Fayia Foray was given the honour to introduce the chairperson. The chairperson, Brima Abdulai Sheriff took the podium. In his introductory statement, he talked about the aim of the show and its essence to the country at large. He called on Alfred Harun Thullah who made a short presentation on the concept of the show, the target audience who happen to be young people, and the goal of showering light on the almost-lost culture of Sierra Leone.

His statement was followed by a short drama that told the story of the Temne warrior – Bai Bureh who fought against the British because they asked his people to pay taxes for their houses. His strike was known today as the Hut Tax War. The drama was decorated with songs, a narrative and the fanfare of ballads that sung the praise of Bai Bureh’s heroism.

The founder and CEO – Iscandri A. Sankoh was given the podium. He first thanked all those that attended the event and those that supported it in one way or the other. He spoke on the event briefly and went on to highlight the sponsors, partners and members of the event. One of the policy statements was, “the winner will take home Le 50,000,000”, and he can be recounted for that.

Representatives from the media – Women in the media, Star TV and the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Cooperation all made their clearly that they would support the venture. The most particular one was Hassan Foreh Kamara, the SLBC representative who said clearly that even the media practitioners have been looking forward to such an opportunity because it will make them learn and be able to present articles and news related to a culture very well. Because seemed as if Sierra Leone never had its own culture.

The podium was given to Daramy Kabba, the chairperson of the Sierra Leone Labour and Marketing Guild. He spoke about the essence of the event especially for young people and the Sierra Leone Filmmakers who are most often writing stories that need research around culture and time. He also made a policy statement that the show should be a source to educate a lot of Sierra Leonean filmmakers as it would be an eye-opener to most especially writers and directors that mostly need such avenues for their research.

The chairperson of the event – Brima A. Sheriff commended all the media representatives and said they would be held by their words for promising to partner with the reality TV Show, Salone Culture Alive. He then went on to introduce the director of cultural affairs under the Ministry of Tourism – Foday Jalloh.

The director expressed his gratitude for the smartness of the founder and CEO -Iscandri A. Sankoh. In his statement, he made it clear that he was there to represent the minister of tourism and the ministry is fully in support of the idea. He re-iterated that such ideas are one the ministry is looking forward to supporting as the Sierra Leone Government has a plan underway to put money and other resources on cultural affairs. He went ahead to lead in unveiling the logo of the entity, the partners and launched the event officially.