On October 24th 2014, Zambia will celebrate a momentous occasion - 50 years of independence. Around Africa we already saw countries celebrating their 50 years of freedom from colonial rule, in 2010, 17 countries clocked 50 years of independence, and some of us eagerly looked forward to our own day.  And now it’s upon us. Media 365 didn’t really think we’d do anything for independence, we were happy to be commissioned to do something but it never crossed our mind to pay our own tribute, until we were approached by Monica Musonda, CEO of Java Foods and a WEF Young Global Leader. Her idea was a simple gesture of patriotism, pride of our natural resources (both historical and tourist sites) and our love and appreciation for music.  It was simply something she wanted to see happen and hoped we’d want to get involved.

As we explored the idea more, we got excited about the opportunities this could entail, and as we did more research on what we could do, we decided that the idea needed to be bigger than the music, than a music video concept.  Why not truly engage in a discussion of what has happened over the 50 years and what needs to happen over the next 50 years to move the country forward? 64WD: Proud and Free was born. Sixty fourward, as its pronounced, is trying to create a movement, especially among young people to drive the country forward.  During our research determining what this documentary was going to be about, we identified areas that kept being mentioned or that seemed relevant to our situation today:  Innovation, Education, Information and Psychology.   These four areas play a key role in our development and these are the issues the documentary anchors around.  The documentary will look back at our journey to independence, and indeed independence to date, to see how these four areas have moved us forward, and what more we can be doing in these four areas to move us forward to the independent, proud, and free nation we want to achieve over the next 50 years. Putting this documentary together we have spoken to our forefathers, the founders of this nation, the politicians who came up in this country, and indeed the trailblazers making names for themselves today and over the next 50 years. One thing people keep telling us is that this is a mammoth task we’re undertaking.  We know!  But we believe the point is to start.  We might not finish the story, but let’s start talking about it and get a dialogue going to move us forward.