Ethiopia and South Africa updates
The latest in a series of vignettes by students documenting the work of BvLF partners as part of the Hine Fellowships project, a collaboration between BvLF and the Lewis Hine Documentary Initiative. Maital Guttman is working with the 10 million memory project in South Africa and Elena Rue is working with Hope For Children in Ethiopia.
Please note that reports from Hine Fellows published on this website constitute their own personal impressions and in no way represent the official positions of their host organisation, the Bernard van Leer Foundation or the Lewis Hine Documentary Initiative.
Facing up to the scale of the HIV/AIDS crisis
Elena Rue is working with Hope For Children in Addis Ababa.
Babile, located in the Eastern Region of Ethiopia, is Hope For Children's second office in the country. The office was opened last year and is in the first stages of developing programs. A visit in June revealed the severity and scale of the task.
On our arrival we were told about a woman had been found in the town's administrative compound, homeless, unemployed and very ill. She had been infected with HIV while working as a cook or maid for one of the military men in the area surrounding the town - an increasingly common story.
We cleaned her, gave her new clothes, and transported her 30km to a hospital. By the end of our trip, she had passed away.
The woman died from AIDS. But how many other deaths in Babile are due to AIDS is unknown, because very few community members have been tested. Some HFC employees estimate that 50-60% of the population may be HIV positive.
HFC's biggest program is sponsorship of children: when a child is sponsored their family receives monthly support to cover food, shelter, and educational expenses for the child. HFC currently sponsors close to 30 children in Babile.
In the few days we were there, many more families applied for sponsorship. After collecting a further 60 profiles we had to start turning people away, as we could not possibly find sponsors for more.
In Addis Ababa, HFC has made progress in tackling stigma and helping children to deal with being shunned by their neighbours and relatives. In Babile, HFC is turning its attention to stigmatisation after initially needing to focus on getting children off the streets, and providing them with food, clothing, and education.
An indication of the extent of the stigmatisation problem is that a committee of community members who meet to discuss HIV/AIDS-related issues had decided that the best solution would be to take HIV positive children away from Babile because they are at risk of being killed.
My presence as a foreigner - together with Jacqui Gilmour, the founder of Hope for Children Australia, one of HFC Ethiopia's largest support networks - led to rumours that we were planning to take the children overseas with us. We had to explain that this was not the case.
Jacqui and Yewoinshet Masresha, the founder of HFC Ethiopia, have seen the effects their work can have in communities and on individuals: a six-year-old boy in Addis Ababa recently insisted that he was only four years old, because he knew he'd come to HFC at the age of two and maintained that this was when his life began.
It was clear from their distress that witnessing circumstances like those in Babile does not get easier with more exposure. But they have also seen and created many changes, and are able to see potential that I am just beginning to understand.
The challenges of filmmaking on HIV/AIDS
Maital Guttman is working with the 10 million memory project in South Africa.
10 Million Memory Project, my host organization, is hosting a panel discussion at the International HIV/AIDS Conference in Toronto in August, and I am creating a 10-15 minute film for the panel. This month, after filming more than thirty hours, I must actually create the film.
This month, after filming more than thirty hours, I must actually create the film for the Toronto conference. This, for me, is an even more daunting and challenging task than the intense moments in the township. This means I must re-watch and transcribe all my footage, capture it on my computer, organize it into sections, and then start editing. The challenge is to pay attention to every detail while also keeping the larger story in mind.
This challenge is greater because I have no option but to edit alone, which filmmakers rarely do as they are “too emotionally invested” in the footage. This is especially true for me, as filmmaking has been a daunting and emotional experience.
Filmmaking on HIV/AIDS in South Africa is also constantly surprising. This week I helped another documentary filmmaker to interview HIV positive women about their lives, and was taken aback when one woman said she had not disclosed her status to her boyfriend of two years. I was even more surprised to hear that she and others she interviewed said they usually use condoms, but not always.
I did most of the filming for my own film in Knysna, a township about 8 hours east of Cape Town which is home to MadAboutArt, an HIV/AIDS education center that uses art to inspire and empower the community children.
Though I first came to Knysna to film the children with their hero books, the narrative therapy tool designed by 10MMP, what made me come back again and again were the people I met - particularly the leader of MadAboutArt, Beatty.
As a filmmaker, I found it challenging but also stimulating to wear several hats at once, that of a friend and sometimes social worker during intense and personal moments but also the hat of a filmmaker who wants to capture these moments on camera.
For example, I drove Beatty to the hospital where she visited her sister, who was barely alive as her body struggled against AIDS and cancer. At the beginning of our relationship, I was unable to press the record button as she helped her weak and frail sister to get dressed. But as our friendship developed, and Beatty let me know in subtle ways that it was OK, I felt more and more comfortable to turn on the camera during these moments.
Three weeks later, when Beatty's sister died, I filmed the funeral; one month later, when her mother died, I filmed Beatty as she mourned and admitted to me that she herself had contemplated suicide.
It was only after we developed a relationship that I became more comfortable to wear my several hats at once.
I am now entering my fifth month in South Africa. I have made friends, found my comfort zone and learned so much. But it seems the more I learn the more questions I have, and with only a month before the premiere, editing the film will be another daunting challenge.