If you’ve followed this blog, you might remember Rez Flicks, the documentary filmmaking project I initiated last November on the Nez Perce Indian reservation. Because of that project (still underway–entering an editing phase) my ears–no, my heart–perks up each time I learn of others trying to make a difference with a camera.
FilmAid goes into communities in crisis—people suffering the effects of war, poverty, displacement, and disaster—and through the medium of film, both educational movies and entertainment pieces, brings critical information and relief. Whether it is teaching about cholera or gender-based violence in a refugee camp, or projecting a Hollywood classic on a portable screen for hundreds in a village, the power of film to bring news, perspective, hope, and laughter, cannot be minimized. They do workshops with locals to create community-based film content (they make movies in the places they visit) and also screen projects designed to provide psychological relief and healing.
The organization was started in the Balkan crisis at the end of the last century, and has since brought inspiration and training to over two million people. Currently, projects are active in Kenyan refugee camps as well as settlements in Nairobi and Mombassa; with Burmese refugees in Thailand; and in Haiti.
Volunteers with FilmAid work on fundraising, communications, video editing, film production and programming, curriculum development, administration, and more.
Change by Doing 