Helping others to help themselves
Elspeth Waldie describes the power of film to educate and inform in Malawi
From the earliest days of Quakerism, Friends have sought to respond to leadings and to put their faith into action. The opportunities open to us vary widely, but it is in the combination of these very different contributions that our Society can convey real strength.
I have been lucky in discovering that film can be of use in disseminating information in the developing world. However, the fact that I have been able to put this finding into practice, and to set-up and run the organisation Purple Field Productions (PFP), is due to the interweaving of many different kinds of support – not just financial, but also practical and spiritual. The feeling of being upheld – first by my Local Meeting, then by Area Meeting and now by as many as thirteen other Meetings across the UK, has been of enormous importance. It has carried the work forward.
PFP is now concentrating much of its resource in Malawi. We started in the remote north of the country, where we worked with a small organisation called Temwa. They needed an HIV and AIDS awareness film that would encourage people to go for testing. The Malawi government was providing drugs and counselling free for those found positive, and the drugs could be very beneficial, but so terrible was the stigma attached to the disease that very few people were benefitting.
We based ourselves in Usisya, where a small HIV and AIDS support group had only very recently ‘come out’ – its members now admitting openly, and in the face of considerable stigma, that they were HIV positive. From their ranks, we were able to recruit three incredibly brave people who were prepared to go on film and state that they had the disease. With a reassuring confidence, they dismissed fears about the test procedure, and reported how the drugs and support they had subsequently received were enabling them to live comparatively normal lives.
I do not think that any amount of government instruction, or western NGO intervention, could have achieved for this community the benefit brought about in this way by its own members. Ever since it was finished, Temwa has been taking the film round the villages by boat and truck, and they report that it is having a dramatic effect. Hundreds of people have asked for HIV testing after seeing the film, and many lives must have been saved.
Two years later, Temwa asked PFP to make another film – this time for children. In Malawi, at that time, the overall prevalence of HIV among adults was 14.2 per cent, but among children aged five to twelve the rate was only one per cent, and consequently this age group was seen as constituting a ‘window of hope’. If these children could be taught how to protect themselves against HIV in future, the result could be a dramatic reduction in the prevalence of the disease.
Together with Malawian teachers, we evolved the idea of a participatory drama that would stop at various points to involve the audience. Success stories elsewhere have shown that open discussion really does combat stigma. By talking about HIV and AIDS people can be helped to overcome their fears and learn how to protect themselves and support each other. Unfortunately, however, in Malawi, where both sex and death may be considered taboo subjects, this type of dialogue can be all too rare.
For this project we had an additional partner called YouthNet and Counselling (YONECO). The result of our combined efforts is Mawa Langa or ‘My Tomorrow’. It is the story of a young girl of about thirteen and her boyfriend who is a little older.
Effie, who has already lost her father, soon loses her mother to AIDS. Effie is left to care for her little siblings, and has to drop out of school. With no money to support her family, she is very vulnerable to the ‘Sugar Daddy’. Meanwhile, too, her friend Tobias has his own problems, being constantly taunted by the ‘bad gang’ and goaded into smoking, drinking and thinking of sex.
We based this film at a primary school in Malawi where the headmaster told us that our story was all too common – so many of his pupils face, in reality, the situation we had created for Effie. And, when we tried to get permissions for our two young stars, we discovered that neither of them had parents. Like so many other children in that area, they were, themselves, AIDS orphans.
We worried, then, whether we should be asking these children to be involved in a drama enacting the grief of AIDS. However, they made the decision for us. They wanted to do it, and they gave themselves to the project whole-heartedly. Later, a government minister was to comment that he found it touching that the two children starring in the film deliver real-life experience with such passion.
In taking part in Mawa Langa, those two children, and the many others involved, made a very real contribution of their own to the fight against AIDS. As with our first film, it is this local involvement that makes it so successful – a fact made very clear when Mawa Langa was taken into the field. We are told that it really speaks to local people – that ‘they are entranced and start entering into the spirit’, laughing and groaning as the story proceeds and finally entering with enthusiasm into a debate on the issues.
With Mawa Langa out and doing its work, PFP is about to start on a third film for Malawi. The need this time is to address food security.
Farmers in Malawi have long had to struggle against declining soil fertility, lack of capital, and acute shortages of energy and water – but now they also face the growing threat of climate change. In the last two decades, droughts and floods have increased in frequency and intensity.
PFP will work with local farmers who have had the opportunity to try out new methods, and who are able to demonstrate techniques they have used to combat the drought. Once again, film will be used to enable rural people to share knowledge and experience amongst themselves. Purple Field Productions only provides the means. It will be the people of Malawi who do the rest.
For more information about the work of Purple Field Productions go to: www.purplefieldproductions.org
You need to login to read subscriber-only content and/or comment on articles.