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Eitai - Community Togetherness

Eitai, an Iteso word for community togetherness, is a documentary exploring change in rural Uganda. The film delves into the challenges faced by a rural community in Northeastern Uganda. Eitai explores critical global issues including the interconnected challenges of climate change, poverty, and gender-based violence. It highlights how social enterprise projects not only provide economic opportunities but also create safe spaces for knowledge sharing, environmental action, and community sensitisation via music, dance, and drama.
Through vivid storytelling, Eitai underscores the importance of indigenous knowledge and communitarianism in addressing pressing global crises. It calls for stronger relationships among people, the land, and non-humans to mitigate further environmental degradation. The film also captures unique narratives on combating HIV and GBV, as told by participants through their lived experiences and cultural expressions. The film is not only a celebration of the resilience and resourcefulness of communities in Teso, but also a platform for international knowledge exchange to address global challenges.

  • sally bashford-squires
    Director
  • sally bashford-squires
    Writer
  • Sonyanga weblan
    Producer
    Warriors, The Eye That Leaves the Village,
  • Sally bashford-squires
    Producer
  • Andrew Bashford-squires
    Composer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    59 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    February 19, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    5,000 GBP
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    Uganda
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16.9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • Broadway Cinema
    Nottingham
    United Kingdom
    March 15, 2025
    Premiere
  • International Sociological Film Festival
    Rabat
    Morocco
    July 17, 2025
  • Mammoth Cinema
    Nottingham
    United Kingdom
    March 21, 2025
  • Makerere University
    Kampala
    Uganda
    April 18, 2025
Director Biography - sally bashford-squires

Sally holds a PhD in the Social Sciences from Nottingham Trent University. She is a lecturer in Global Public Health at The University of Greenwich, London as well as a director in Pear Works Productions alongside award winning BBC documentary maker Angela Robson. The company seeks to amplify marginalised voices in the pursuit of social justice.

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Director Statement

With a small grant of £5k from Nottingham Trent University I set out to make the film. Initially, I thought I could film it on my phone (!), but thankfully I was introduced to Sonyanga Ole Ngais a talented Masai documentary maker passionate about gender equity and climate justice, who generously offered to film for free.

Our Eitai documentary has become so much more than a dissemination project. Shared with over 1,000 people across conferences, symposiums, and cinema screenings, it has sparked vital conversations around climate change, gender, and the power of grassroots social enterprises — from tree planting to knowledge exchange through music, dance, and drama.
Eitai has been:

• Discussed in the UK Parliament
• Listed by Springer Nature as one of the most influential public health films
• Shortlisted for the prestigious ISA Film Festival in Morocco

But truly, the most moving part of this journey happened just recently: taking the documentary back to the communities in Teso who featured in it. Seeing their joy, hearing their voices amplified, and sharing laughter and songs together was incredibly humbling — and a reminder of who this work is really for.

Even more exciting: since the screenings, the NGOs featured in the film have decided to work together to tackle local issues — true eitai in action. Vital at a time when many of the NGOs have been impacted by aid cuts. We're now building a website to share the projects and invite wider support for community-led social justice. We have many more stories to tell.

What started as a small idea has grown beyond anything I could have imagined. None of this would have been possible without the spirit of Eitai — the togetherness of everyone who gave their time, energy, and heart to this project.

This journey has shown me how much the world can learn from Indigenous concepts like Eitai and Ubuntu — and why it's vital that Indigenous voices are centred in global policy and practice. We have much to learn from our Iteso neighbours.