Demystifying Africa's Rich Cultural Heritage

Explaining Africa is Nafuna's flagship educational animation series that transforms Africa's vast historical, cultural, and spiritual legacy into compelling visual narratives. By combining rigorous historical research with dynamic 2D animation and motion graphics, we create accessible content that educates global audiences about African civilizations, traditions, and achievements often overlooked or misrepresented in mainstream media. More than documentary content, Explaining Africa reclaims African narratives from colonial interpretations and centers African perspectives on African history.

The Great Zimbabwe Birds – Part 1

Our inaugural Explaining Africa episode explores the origin, symbolism, and cultural significance of the Zimbabwe bird—the sacred icon that graces Zimbabwe's national flag and represents the nation's pre-colonial glory. Dating back over 300 years to the ancient medieval city of Great Zimbabwe, the bird sculptures are unique to this UNESCO World Heritage Site and hold profound spiritual and historical relevance to Zimbabwean people.

The episode investigates multiple perspectives on the birds' origins and symbolic meaning: some scholars believe each bird represents a great king, with new birds carved at each monarch's ascension to the throne. Others debate whether the statues depict fish eagles, doves, or another species entirely. Through animated sequences and historical visualization, we trace the birds' journey—discovered by colonizers in 1891, dispersed across European museums, and gradually repatriated to Zimbabwe following independence, with South Africa returning four birds in 1981 and a German museum returning additional portions in 2003.

By centering Zimbabwean cultural interpretation rather than colonial analysis, the episode demonstrates how animation can challenge historical narratives and restore indigenous meaning to African artifacts. The Great Zimbabwe birds emerge not as archaeological curiosities but as living symbols of spiritual connection, royal lineage, and national identity—a narrative that transforms how viewers understand pre-colonial African civilization and contemporary Zimbabwe's relationship with its heritage.

Series Mission

Explaining Africa addresses a critical gap in global media: the scarcity of high-quality, culturally authentic educational content about Africa created by Africans for African and global audiences. Most Western educational media either omits African history or presents it through colonial frameworks that minimize African agency and achievement. By producing our own content, we reclaim the authority to explain Africa on our own terms—emphasizing African accomplishment, spiritual sophistication, and historical continuity rather than Western interpretations layered with bias and erasure.

Production Approach

Each Explaining Africa episode begins with extensive research consultation with cultural historians, community elders, and subject matter experts, ensuring historical accuracy and cultural appropriateness. We combine archival imagery, animated recreations of historical events, motion graphics that visualize complex concepts, and original music that reflects African musical traditions. Our animation style privileges African aesthetic sensibilities—drawing inspiration from traditional African art, textile patterns, and spiritual symbolism—rather than defaulting to Western animation conventions.

Episodes are produced in English with subtitle options in Shona, Ndebele, and other African languages, recognizing that content about African heritage should be accessible to African audiences across the continent. We design for multiple distribution channels—from YouTube for global reach to mobile platforms optimized for low-bandwidth African networks—ensuring accessibility regardless of viewer location or connectivity.

Episodes & Topics

The Great Zimbabwe Birds Part 1 represents our initial exploration, with subsequent episodes planned to investigate:

• African kingdoms and pre-colonial political systems

• Traditional African spirituality and cosmology

• African scientific and mathematical achievements

• African art movements and aesthetic traditions

• African trade networks and economic systems

• African languages and oral storytelling traditions

Each episode builds a comprehensive library of African knowledge that counters Eurocentric narratives while celebrating the sophistication, complexity, and enduring relevance of African civilizations.

Impact & Legacy

Explaining Africa serves multiple audiences: students seeking culturally grounded history education, educators needing classroom resources that center African perspectives, diaspora communities reconnecting with African heritage, and global audiences developing more nuanced understanding of African history and culture. The series contributes to broader decolonization efforts within education and media, demonstrating that African stories, explained authentically through professional production, can engage audiences at global scale while maintaining cultural integrity.

By positioning animation as a tool for historical education and cultural reclamation, Explaining Africa establishes Nafuna as a leader in culturally-centered educational content production while building a comprehensive visual archive of African knowledge for future generations.