FOCUS on using film to improve lives of refugees

For the 49,000 Burundians at the Mtendeli Refugee Camp, in Kibondo, western Tanzania, the prospect of a night at the movies is a sure crowd puller; but for aid officials it is a chance to pass on important development messages to the needy. So, as dusk fell on Mtendeli on 30 September, part of the camp's dusty football field disappeared under a sea of bodies as children, men and women gathered at one end. At first there was just music, then the children began to dance to the rhythms of Congolese tunes. However, once the crowd had gathered, the screen - an enormous sheet draped down the side of two containers - flickered into life and the real show began. "We play the music to attract the crowds," Roisin Gallagher, the project manager for FilmAid, told IRIN. "People hear the music and come towards it and, because the children are often there first, we film them while they are dancing and then project it on the big screen later." To the excitement of the crowd, images of dancing children filled the enormous screen and the more provocative moves were greeted with cheers. Soon, an episode of Tom and Jerry followed. This may have been new to many refugees, but it had them hollering support for Jerry, the inevitable underdog. Another cartoon, "Watoto wa Karate" (Swahili for the Karate Kid), dealing with the challenges street children face, and a short health education video shot by refugee women on how to look after oneself during pregnancy, were next. The feature presentation was "Majuto" (Swahili for suffering), a tale of a girl becoming pregnant while still at school. Turnout that evening was lower than most - a mere 20,000. Other evening shows have attracted up to 33,000 people, Dr Geoffrey Okumu, the health coordinator for International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Kibondo, said. Film professionals who were trying to help Kosovar refugees after the conflict in the Balkans conceived the idea of FilmAid, which is a project of the IRC, in 1999. "It was found to be a positive thing. People who were bored and idle with nothing to do did come together and wanted the opportunity to see films," Gallagher said. "And film had a great potential for reaching wide groups that were not easily reached in a classroom situation or individually. So the idea of film was to inform, educate and entertain people." It has since come to East Africa to help refugees from the conflicts in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Sudan. And, over the last year, FilmAid has been working in refugee camps in Tanzania with day and night time screenings, as well as giving video training to help the IRC deliver messages on health, reconciliation and peace-building. Some of the films are silent. Others are in Swahili, with a fellow refugee providing simultaneous interpretation for the audience. In addition, the interpreter sometimes provides additional explanation to what is being said or done on screen, to make it easier for the crowd to understand. "For me, I found that quite hard to understand because I have been brought up watching films and TV, but if you have never seen films and TV, you mightn't always understand what is happening," Gallagher said. The night's films tackled HIV/AIDS, teenage pregnancies and child abuse, issues that the Refugee Advisory Committee, a body of religious and opinion leaders from the camps that pre-screen the films, decided were pertinent and suitable for showing "They are the ones in the best position to decide what is suitable and they also make recommendations on what topics they would like," she said. "We have also gone around and spoken to the health departments to decide the most important topics to tackle." And Okumu said that the efforts were paying off. He said one of the areas where progress had been made was with HIV/AIDS. "Through screening the films that contain messages on HIV/AIDS, it has recently enabled us to triple the number of people willing to know their [HIV] status." He said similar progress had been made in getting refugees to participate in malaria prevention activities. Okumu said one big advantage was that films attracted large crowds and was, therefore, a more effective way in passing on messages than relying on small groups to do so. Films shown to refugees are not limited to health issues. With a view to provoking discussions and new ideas for resolving the decade-long war in Burundi, FilmAid has broached the subject of peace and reconciliation. "When we showed [Mahatma] Gandhi in the area of peace and conflict resolution, there was a huge debate afterwards as the Burundians were trying to work out if there was a peaceful resolution to the Burundian situation," Gallagher said. But just as important, Okumu said, was the entertainment factor the films brought in relieving the refugees' emotional pressures. "You'll find many of the refugees in the camps have been traumatised and just having an opportunity to get their minds off their problems goes a long way to making them more comfortable here in the camps," he said. But, while the spectators clearly found the films entertaining, openly expressing amusement, shock, approval or otherwise as the plots unfolded, the messages of the various films were not lost on the crowd. "The films are appreciated by the refugees because they are educating us, amongst other things, about pregnancy, HIV/AIDS and how to use a condom," Gervais Athuman, a Burundian refugee who worked as an interpreter for the crowd, said. "They are useful because they show the things that we are seeing in the camps - things like prostitution and teenage pregnancies. It advises them on these issues," he said.