Kids Making a Difference: Damienne
Damienne is a 17-year-old high school student living in Tsevie, Togo. She has been a peer educator for five years, teaching her classmates about HIV prevention. Her goal is to get to people to speak out. Only one in ten youths has a thorough understanding of HIV and AIDS and the ways of transmission. Damienne is taking part in a national youth campaign against HIV/AIDS in Togo supported by UNICEF, the Togolese Government and UNAIDS. Damienne met with a group of high school students and had an open discussion about HIV/AIDS. The students asked Damienne questions and had a debate with her about the three recommended ways of preventing HIV: abstinence, fidelity and the use of condoms. Damienne was able to answer and explain the questions that the students had asked. In Togo, there is a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation regarding HIV/AIDS but Damienne, a peer educator has been working hard to replace the myths about HIV/AIDS with facts. The results of her discussion with the group were immediate, one student said "I've learned about HIV/AIDS and one thing is for sure: I won't let it infect me."
Damienne is making a difference because she is spreading the word about AIDS. To me she is very memorable; the fact that she is using education and bringing awareness about a disease in countries that are most affected by it. In order to change a society or a community as such, the person to do it has to be someone from within the society or the community as they know the customs and expectations of the society/community and Damienne is doing just that. Damienne was also someone I could identify with by age because I am also 17 and it makes me wonder what I would do in her position. Would I do what she is doing by spreading the word about AIDS and how to prevent from getting it? Or would I be someone who was in and amongst the crowd receiving the myths about HIV and AIDS? I think she is very brave. She is trying to get people to speak up and break taboos. It is really hard to change a culture and perspective of a country. Taking the first step is the hardest because this is exactly when the country's citizens will react the most violently and aggressively against you. However, with taking the first step, the next steps become easier and easier as people begin to get used to the fact that change is about to happen or is happening. By spreading the word and making sure that people receive the correct information, she is really a role model. She is also really inspirational in the way that she started with younger people. She did not try to bring the correct information to adults. With her age, she is able to identify with adolescents and using this, she is able to talk with them more comfortably. Moreover, she uses this to her advantage. By changing the views of the children, she is changing the views of the future generations because the children grow up with a new perspective on life or on a certain aspect of life, and with this new perspective, they pass it onto their kids and them onto their kids.
Damienne has inspired me to think about what I can do with my life to make a difference. To start questioning the world around me, whether there are perspectives that need changing. She also brought back a topic I covered in my exhibition about the role of a doctor in the digital age. During my exhibition, I talked about the importance of education, bringing awareness and changing perspectives. To me Damienne is living proof that you don't need to be a doctor to make such a difference.
I have always believed in the amount of difference an individual can make. No matter whether they are a famous celebrity or just the ordinary man, whether they do something as little as helping out another everyday, whether they sacrifice themselves for others, whether they are able to bring justice back into a corrupted system. When you take away this individual, as if they had never been born, the effects of their actions are clear at once (It's a Wonderful Life reference...It was inevitable!). I have always believed in this notion of making a difference however, I have never really applied it to my life. Writing this blog entry and thinking about Damienne and my favourite fictional movie heroes George Bailey and Senator Jefferson Smith, I feel it's time for me to try and make a difference in the world. Whether I can achieve something as phenomenal as bringing the world's awareness about an issue I am unsure, but I will begin with the little things in life! I believe I can make a difference! I end with a quote from It's a Wonderful Life, "Strange, isn't it? Each man's lives touches so many other lives. When he isn't around, he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"
Find out more about Unite for Children Unite Against AIDS and read about Damienne's story:
http://www.uniteforchildren.org/
http://www.uniteforchildren.org/press/press_44124.htm
Labels: humanities
Peace
What is peace to me?
Peace to me is an ideal.
The world in a state of harmony and an end of all wars, all hate and all conflicts. Peace is the world, free of violence, much like Gandhi's approach when he freed India. However, differing just ever-so-slightly with no protests or rebellions to respond to. Peace is the world, free of anger. Anger towards another person, anger towards another country, anger towards who has the most weapons. Peace is the world, free of the thirst for power, free of the fight for power. Through armament, through wars, through money. Peace is the world, free of weapons. Weapons that are able to hurt, harm and destroy. Peace is the people, the people of the world. And the love and trust they have for each other.
Labels: humanities
The Children of Huang Shi
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
I took a bit of time thinking this movie over before I was to post a blog entry on it. Most people will probably consider me weird for not liking this movie as much as they did (I think I'm the only one in the class who didn't like it as much as everyone else...). The Children of Huang Shi just didn't really work for me. I'll go onto explain why this movie didn't work for me and what I thought of it overall. And one thing I can talk a lot about is movies. So this entry may be huge!
This movie is based on the story of a British reporter called George Hogg who goes to Nanjing and ends up saving 60 orphaned boys by helping them travel through the silk road.
I think I expected more from this movie than it could offer. The pace of the movie was relatively slow and I kept waiting for something to happen, only it didn't... however, there were some (although relatively minor) build-ups. The storyline was plain and although one may argue that it's based on a true story and the director/writer wanted to stay true to the story, but the thing is, it's BASED on a true story. This generally means the movie has been altered a little to sort of fit to the prescriptions of cinema and movies. The fact that the build-ups were minor and somewhat absent, and there was no climax in the movie lowered my opinion of this movie in general.
The acting was alright. But Jonathon Rhys Meyers' (who was great in Match Point) George Hogg failed to work on me too. From the movie, I picked up George Hogg was obviously a Christ-like figure except Rhys Meyers' acting or I guess, interpretation of how he should play George Hogg, did not make me really look up to him as one should to Christ-like figures. Although this may be the fact that the movie didn't manage to portray the fact that he saved 60 orphaned boys as a huge issue! The passage through the mountains/on the silk road was pretty dull also, with the exception of a little sandy tornado. The ending, well, it was pretty anticlimatic. And as soon as Hogg had said "It's just a scratch." I had a feeling that his end might be coming (Romeo and Juliet anyone? "Aye, tis nothing but a scratch." I might have paraphrased sorry). Although I was sort of wondering whether he would really die because he was a Christ-like figure (and in most movies/books the Christ-like figure generally sacrifices their life for something they believed in or dies a horribly martyr-like death eg Cool Hand Luke, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Lord of the Flies), but it was based on a real person. This sort of made me anticipate the ending, just to find out whether Hogg would really die, because I was curious as to whether a REAL-LIFE Christ-like figure would suffer an end much like they do in fictional books, movies etc.
As for the theme of the amount of change an individual can make, I was glad that the theme was there because I managed to pick it up by the end of the movie. This theme is one that I like a lot, having watched many Frank Capra movies like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life, both of which have the main message of how much change an individual normal man can make to his country or just the people around him. It's through these two movies that I realized how much an individual can do and I am always so touched when I watch these two movies and cry at the end from how wonderful it is that a person is able to do something like that. However, I didn't cry in The Children of Huang Shi because I don't think that the theme was predominant enough for me to feel so touched by the end of the movie that I end up in tears. Some people might criticize me for comparing this movie to the old Capra movies, but I'm just writing down my thoughts and please don't judge me!
On a good note, I learnt some new information from this movie. I didn't know that George Hogg even existed before this movie. I didn't really know of the Europeans who were involved in helping the Chinese out during the occupation of the Japanese before the start of WWII but through this movie, I've found out that there were actually some Europeans who had helped many.
My overall thought from the movie was that I think it could've been done better. It could've made me cry, it could've made me look up to George Hogg and there are more things it could have been done. Although some people in my class will probably beat me for saying this, I wasn't really touched emotionally by this movie (Maybe Cindy will, she sure was emotionally touched, bawling her eyes out next to me through the WHOLE movie). I'm glad that I was able to learn some new information about 1937 in China.
Labels: humanities, movies
Reflection on Landmine Awareness Campaign
This is my first blog entry on Blogger so bear with me a little in varying my page with pictures and everything because I'm a Livejournal user! I'll get the hang of it in a few days!
I haven't been here for most of the landmines topic and turned up just on time for this assignment! Oh well, onto the real stuff. I thought this was a really good experience for me, making this video about landmine awareness. Firstly, because I had never used iMovie before let alone make a movie from scratch. I've watched a lot of movies, but never really made one myself. So learning how to actually use the program was really great for me because I now know sort of how to make movies on it!
In an attempt to catch up, I read through the text book on the things I had missed out before but it proved to be beneficial for me because I haven't really studied about landmines. I had joined the Amnesty International Club in New Zealand for a bit and we were doing a campaign to ban cluster bombs and getting people to sign the petition. I didn't really know much about cluster bombs or landmines and reading the textbook has improved my knowledge in this area a lot.
In order to make the movie, I had to look through and research for some statistics and in looking through the statistics I realized how major this landmine issue actually was. I had no idea that every 15 minutes a person dies from detonating a landmine. The research that I had done basically added to my knowledge further and I thought it was good that I was actually learning something different that I didn't know was affecting the world today.
I thought it was quite a challenge for me to make this awareness movie because as I've already said, I've never used iMovie before! But also in the fact that I was somewhat unsure of the elements and the tone I wanted to give to the movie/video. I wanted to share the awareness I had gained through reading the textbook and internet websites to people who don't know about this so that they can become "enlightened" like I have. I thought if I could show the people affected by landmines and what they are generally doing when they are either harmed or killed by landmines, the audience would understand more about the severity of the issue. So I found footage of people who are actually from countries with landmines going about their daily activities, followed by a silent (deliberate...?) explosion and edited it in time to The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. Through this, I learned that music is a HUGE factor in media and manipulating with the audience's reactions and emotions. Given the correct music and sound effects (including silence), a video/movie/advertisement etc could draw sympathy from its viewers, anger the audience or/and frighten them. I thought this was really interesting and chose my song especially to fit in with the whole idea/tone of the movie, having watched several...(well more than several) movies and becoming wise in the ways of media/audience manipulation through my constant viewing of old movies such as a lot of Alfred Hitchcock films. Hitchcock was probably one of the best directors who used their sound really wisely and effectively at that, to create suspense (the "missing" soundtrack to The Birds anyone?), tension (The famous shower scene from Psycho) and fear (basically any Hitchcock movie...I can't think of specifics but they scare me sometimes, in a good way!).
I'm not sure if we need to write reflections about what I thought of other people's videos but I might as well because I'm on a roll! After watching the videos made by my classmates, I thought the standard of the videos were really high and very varied. I was really glad that there were so many different styles of video/movie-making which were present in those videos, from satire to in-your-face to tugging at the audiences' (well, mine at least) heartstrings. It was a really exciting experience for me and I think I've learnt a lot from this!
PS. I tend to ramble a lot. If you haven't figured from the length of this blog entry... And you'll definitely find (some pointless?) references here and there to movies I have seen or liked a lot of the time!
Labels: humanities
