Programme highlights
Holby City
Dr Ric Griffin (Hugh Quarshie) leaves behind his colleagues
at Holby City and travels to Ghana.
Staying with his brother's family and working in a charity hospital
makes him question his return to Holby.
Diane (Patricia Potter) travels to Ghana to bring
him back but she can see what a difference his work is making to the
local community.
Hugh Quarshie: "Ric was born in Ghana and trained there as a doctor
and was always meant to return at some point, so I think there will
be interesting issues involving his family and on a domestic level.
"Although in Ghana there is still much emphasis on hierarchy and
status, there is also a focus on hospitality, food and warmth."
DS
Worlds Apart
A British family pack their bags and head for a new life in Northern
Namibia.
Staying with a family of the Himba tribe they find that their new lifestyle
means more than simply giving up the comforts of their UK home.
The family find everything is now about sheer survival, from keeping
warm and getting enough food to coping with the challenges of the natural
environment.
GM
Strictly African
Dancing
Five celebrities of African origin are each paired with an African
dance troupe for intensive training before performing a traditional
African dance.
They will dance to live music while a panel of African dance experts
judge their skills and viewers at home vote for their favourites.
As the novice dancers rebuild links with their heritage, viewers learn
about the culture in which they are immersed.
The celebrities learn about the significance of their dances' traditional
values, as each tribe teaches them steps that have been passed down
from generation to generation.
Μύ
JM
CΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ ONE
CΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ reflects the rich culture and complex diversity of Africa across
its programmes.
Xchange takes a group of children
from a British school to meet peers in Africa, and the programme's After
School Club will come from an African school.
Newsround's award-winning team
of reporters and press packers will file special reports from and about
Africa and CΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's Smart has a one-off
creative African art special.
CΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ presenters Rani and Abs also
travel to South Africa, testing children's friendships with some terrible
tasks in a special episode of reality game show Best
Of Friends.
Children's publicity
Trauma In Africa
Johannesburg, South Africa, is one of the most violent cities on earth;
gang warfare is rife and gunshot wounds and amputations are everyday
occurrences.
Trauma reveals the extreme conditions local staff battle with in South
Africa's busiest hospital, government-run Johannesburg General Hospital.
Joining the local medical practitioners are paramedic Martin Bomford,
emergency medical technician Tim Burnett and Consultant Alastair Wilson
of the Royal London Hospital.
Filming in A&E, on the air-ambulance and out on the road with the paramedics,
the series shows the problems faced by a two-tier healthcare system
that favours the rich when everyday is a battle.
GM
Ground Force Special
Ground Force teams up with The Eden Project to tackle one of its biggest
challenges yet: building a Garden for Africa in the UK's entirely different
climate.
The garden will celebrate the continent's heritage in the horticultural
and visual arts and will be designed and planted with African trees
and shrubs.
It will offer a fantastic setting in which to display traditional and
modern sculptures.
Celebrity helpers will be on hand as Charlie Dimmock
and Tommy Walsh set to work.
GM
Geldof In Africa
Leaving Live Aid and politics to one side, Bob Geldof
makes a personal journey through Africa to learn more about the culture
and, through people's experiences, understand the forces that make the
continent what it is.
Travelling through West Africa (Ghana, Benin and Mali); Central Africa
(Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda); and East Africa (Ethiopia,
Tanzania and Somalia), Geldof explores the continent that the rest of
the world seems to be leaving behind.
Bob Geldof: "In Europe we live in effect east to west across one vast
temperate climate zone.
"Africa on the other hand lying north to south has the lot, desert
with its vast seas of sand, tropical with its jungles, equatorial with
its rainforest, savannah and coastal with its animal and fish. In fact
practically everything except Arctic.
"And within this immense continent more peoples, more language,
more cultures, more animals than anywhere else on our world.
"It is quite simply the most extraordinary, beautiful and luminous
place on our planet."
GM
The Girl In The CafΓ©
In a funny and poignant love story, award-winning screenwriter Richard
Curtis combines his unique comedic touch with a powerful humanitarian
message about the willingness of the richest nations to combat poverty
in the Third World.
Curtis's first feature for the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ stars Bill Nighy
(Love Actually, State Of Play) and Kelly Macdonald
(Gosford Park, Trainspotting, State Of Play) and tells the story of
hard-working and painfully shy civil servant Lawrence, whose life changes
when he meets a mysterious girl in a cafΓ© in Whitehall.
He takes her on a romantic mini-break to the G8 Summit with potentially
global consequences.
Richard Curtis: "The Girl In The CafΓ© is a romantic film set at the
G8 Summit of world leaders. Not an obvious match with the Africa season.
"But actually this year, the G8 in Scotland in July could radically
improve the future for millions of people in Africa - and this film
is about that - eight men, in one room, for two days, holding the fate
of millions in their hands."
Drama publicity
Songs Of Praise
Kwame Kwei-Armah travels to South Africa for Songs
Of Praise to reflect on the pivotal role that music and songs play in
people's lives.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu talks about the importance
of music to South Africans and how they express their spirituality through
music.
Performances come from the Soweto Gospel Choir, the Imilonji KaNtu
Choral Society and Ladysmith Black Mambazo perform in Kwa-Zulu Natal.
CR
Elephant Diaries
In Elephant Diaries, the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ gains unprecedented access to Kenya's
elephant rehabilitation centres to capture on film, for the first time,
the dramatic rescue of orphaned elephants and their reintroduction to
the wild.
Michaela Strachan visits a unique orphanage in Nairobi,
where keepers provide round-the-clock care to infant elephant calves
who have been separated from their herd in the wild.
Since 1977, the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust has successfully saved
and hand-reared 62 infant African elephant calves, two from the day
they were born.
Meanwhile Jonathan Scott visits a rehabilitation centre
in Tsavo to witness the gradual process of re-integration into the wild.
DC
Rolf On African Art
Over many millennia, African art has evolved into many forms, from
rock art and sculpture to textiles, beadwork and pottery.
Rolf Harris discovers the diversity of African art,
learning how the Shamans produced rock art, creating his own piece of
sculpture with a group of Makonde wood carvers and finally, producing
a painting that reflects the African people and landscapes that have
inspired him.
Rolf Harris: "I've always been fascinated by the
small bronze weights used to measure gold. They are shaped into little
figures and I used to collect them.
"I'm also in awe of the bronze sculptures from
Benin. These life-size sculptures are truly amazing. Created a couple
of hundred years ago, they are some of the first bronze sculptures in
the world.
"They were being produced long before Rodin became
famous for his bronzes or Donatello produced David.
"The sculptures are phenomenal and I've always
wondered how on earth they created them."
DC
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