Kids With Cameras

A MEETING OF EYES: AFRICA – BRAZIL -– CARIBBEAN.
"A Meeting of Eyes" - is a project begun in July 2004 under the direction of Dirce Carrion, president of the non-profit Brazilian organization Imagem da Vida (Image of Life). "A Meeting of Eyes," establishes an exchange between children and communities that have similar cultural roots, but have been separated by the history of slavery. Filmmaker/photographer/writer Marcelo Fortaleza Flores who introduced the teaching of digital video to children in Dakar and Gorée Island in Senegal, and Senegalese filmmaker El-Hadji Samba Sarr, who taught the video workshops among the maroons of São Lourenço, in Northeastern Brazil, worked on the project. Marcelo is currently editing a film using photography and moving images produced by the children and their experiences of the project - in their own words. Marcelo described to me some of the challenges of working across cultural and digital divides. It is important, he points out, to "give the kids a strong sense of identity, because the world they live in is typically seen as a horrible world, by the media and the elite......one that they must get away from." Marcelo says of his work, "we try to give value and power to culture, to show the kids how powerful and valuable African and African American culture is, so they can have something they can identify with, and they are not torn between school and the West, and their mother's or family, and dejection, and they do not see themselves as the excluded "rest" as opposed to a longed for "West", a goal that is unattainable for them."




A commitment to go beyond simply putting cameras in the hands of disenfranchised kids is shown in a number of projects around the world. The Born Into Brothels team through their KWC organization is pioneering outreach that goes well beyond their film and workshop projects. This Sunday, February 11th, there will be a special event for The KWC School For Leadership Arts and Hope House (Asha Niwas), "a nurturing home where up to 150 children from Calcutta's red light district can come to live, learn, and grow. .............The model for Hope House will be unveiled at a special benefit dinner hosted by the restaurant Tabla in New York City on Sunday, February 11, 2007. The dinner will feature five of this country's most lauded Indian Chefs. The goal of the evening is to raise a portion of the money needed to purchase land, build the home, create a college fund, and provide programs that will develop the children's skills and enrich their lives. We are looking to raise $1 million dollars for the project; $200,000 has already been raised."

Recently, also here in NYC, the renowned film making family, pioneers of Direct Cinema, The Maysles - "Salesman," "Gimme Shelter," and "Grey Gardens" - began working with young filmmakers in Harlem, NY. In the Village Voice, Jan 9th, Ed Alter wrote a great feature on the project. He writes, "Albert moved his operations into a renovated Harlem brownstone last year, a close-knit Maysles team, spearheaded by his son Philip, created a program designed to teach documentary film making to disadvantaged youth—Maysles-style. The group partnered with the Incarcerated Mothers Program, part of Edwin Gould Services for Children and Families, an East Harlem–based organization that creates activity programs for children with parents in prison. Launched under the name "On Our Side," a pilot course with half a dozen youngsters aged eight to 12 ran successfully on a shoestring budget this past summer, and the organizations are now gearing up to continue and expand the program early this year." Downtown Community Television in Lower Manhattan has offered Pro-TV, a documentary production program for older teenagers, since 1978. But, Alter notes, "whereas DCTV focuses on community reportage and political engagement on the youth-media model (a recent production, for example, documents the impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans)," "On Our Side," gears itself toward the younger set, "showing kids the possibilities of using nonfiction filmmaking for more personal expression—how to suss out the "human element" of a moment."


There is so much more to say on this topic. I am putting together posts on projects all over the world, so please send me your updates. There is some fantastic work going on in Australia - see CAAMA, Us Mob, and Deadly Mob for a taste! Also, coming soon a post on the innovative work of Lotus Outreach.

Mobile phones in Africa

On his Social Edge blog, GlobalX gives the hyperbole: "Where telephones lead, development follows," a good hard look and some astute sideways glances. There is, he notes, Apple’s iPhone (for the wealthy part of the world) and the Motophone (for the rest of the world). GlobalX looks at more than the special features Motorola has designed into the MotoPhone to make it more affordable and suited to the conditions in emerging markets. He notes, "Motorola estimates that more than 80% of the world's population lives in an area covered by wireless networks." But, he points out, "fewer than 15% of Africans currently have mobile phones." GlobalX asks, "If we were to send millions of mobile devices to Africa, would that mean that the continent would catch up overnight with the rest of the world? Is it that simple?" As he wrote from the Skoll World Forum last year, “while many human beings in Africa live with $1 a day, the average European cow gets about $2 a day in farm subsidies and various other subventions, and the Japanese cow receives $7.” GlobalX suggests that trade agreements and agricultural incentives have a bigger impact on the developing world than any cool electronic gadget. Nevertheless, in yesterday's post, he did find something that impressed him: "that mobile phones were finally creating what several generations of African politicians have been avoiding: a free market." He reports, TradeNet, a mobile-phone service based in Ghana sends market information via SMS, including prices and relevant news, “to put more information into the hands of the producers and traders, making the market more transparent and efficient, and assisting stakeholders to make decisions about when to plant, what to grow, who to trade with, when to sell, and for how much.”
I agree with GlobalX that it will take a lot more than a cool electronic gadget to reduce the global digital and economic divides. GlobalX hopes that "African farmers in the developing world will use their shiny new MotoFone to remind the rest of the world that wealthy countries spend $300 billion in protective measures and only $50 billion in aid to the developing world." I hope so too. But, I know that these Motophones will be used in myriad innovative ways that we cannot imagine yet!

GlobalX keeps a wireless mobile photo blog . Also, thank you, Camilla for sending this photo of cell phones made by children in a Darfur camp after they saw aid workers' phones. There will be more soon on Camilla's video on everyday life in a Darfur camp - to be distributed by Witness.