1. Brief overview of the chapter

"This is one big adventure for me!"

Dr. GeorgesTiéndrébéogo, Burkina Faso, member of the Scenarios from the Sahel Advisory Committee, member of the Senegalese national jury and the final, regional jury.

"Have we been on the wrong path all along? It might well be that the really young kids could show us the way."

Mama Sabé, educational advisor at IPM/Mali, member of the Malian national jury.

_If only we could grow up to be children. If only._

Dr. Georges Tiéndrébéogo

The Scenarios from the Sahel selection process was a tremendous experience. It was a voyage of discovery into the hearts and minds of the region's youth and an opportunity for specialists in the realms of HIV and of audio-visual production across the Sahel to forge partnerships, create synergies and develop close friendships with one another. Filmmakers of international renown, friends living with HIV, educators and trainers, youth workers, rural prevention workers and heads of international agencies all reflected and debated with one another, shared their concerns and formulated strategies for the future. They laughed and cried together as their discussions brought the contest participants' emotionally charged works to life. The process left us all better informed about young people's needs, better integrated with one another, and _ without exception _ powerfully motivated to stop the epidemic in its tracks and to ensure that everyone among us who lives with HIV benefits from the full support and compassion of our communities.

In the course of our initial project planning we fell far short of envisaging the breadth and magnitude of what could be accomplished in the selection process, just as we had with regard to the contest. We didn't underestimate what the individuals involved were capable of; we underestimated the potential of the process itself. The overriding objective of this chapter is to provide you with ideas that will help you get the most out of an incredibly rich process. You have every reason to set the bar very high as you plan the selection phase of your project.
The ideas presented here reflect lessons learned from the staggered, five-act selection process carried out in the course of Scenarios from the Sahel. After the contest ended, the organizing committee in Burkina Faso was the first to convene its national jury, followed the next week by Mali and then by the two-stage process in Senegal (pre-selection and final national jury). The juries in each country put forward 50 national winners to be considered by the international, final selection jury which met a few weeks later in Dakar. We observed each stage of the process and were able to share a growing body of lessons learned with each jury along the way. The recommendations included in this chapter are the crystallization of many clever, tested methodological approaches created by project partners in Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal. We would like to draw particular attention to the one person who, through his experience and wisdom, contributed most to this organic process of methodological improvement, namely Wéléba Bagayoko of the EVF/EMP project in Bamako, Mali.