Precious Africa is a South African docu-reality travel series in which host Precious Kofi travels to seven African countries discovering and exploring sights, sounds, people and places that cannot be found in a travel book or magazine.
The series premiered on SABC1 on Tuesday 25 August 2009, at 21h00. New episodes air weekly. There are 13 hour-long episodes in the series.
Hosted by Precious Kofi, the series is in English and Xhosa, with subtitles.
Synopsis
SABC1 introduces an African television reality/documentary series, which covers seven African countries, showing their struggles and triumphs through adversity.
By teaching the current generations of their ancestral greatness the hope is to inspire them to go out there and learn about their continent and learn to love their heritage as Africans.
The 13-part reality travel series aims to connect and showcase youth around Africa. The show seeks to uncover Africa one day at a time, discovering and exploring sights, sounds, people and places that cannot be found in a travel book or magazine.
Precious Kofi embarks on a journey which is always surprising, refreshing and exciting. Myths are exploded and stereotypes shattered as the series shows the real vibrancy of a modern Africa.
Precious meets an individual from one of the African countries and spends a few days living in their place – experiencing their lives, meeting their friends and families and becoming exposed to the challenges they face in their daily lives.
She lives in their homes, works with them in their jobs and immerses herself in their cultures.
The show takes the form of a three-act expose into the life of one African through the eyes of Precious Kofi.
The episodic arc of the show is supported by three acts, the first being the background story of our host. This act will introduce the viewer to the host and contextualise them. Who are they? Where do they live? Why do we want to meet them?
They could be a Masai girl from Kenya about to endure female circumcision; a youth enjoying the club culture at the DRC; tasking Tuo Zanfi in Ghana; sharing life experiences with a child soldier from Uganda, or dancing to mbalax (Western pop music) in Senegal.
The second act is the exploration of their environment; their relationship with their family; and their friends and work relations.
Through all these, Precious experiences the world they live in, allowing her to understand their fears and desires and putting a personality to statistics.
The third act reveals the growth of our knowledge of Precious and her host, revealing perspectives gained by both parties. The people that Precious encounters come from a variety of different lives, some urbanized and others rural.
They come from all walks of life and the only thing that they share in common is a similar age.