Last March, on a trip with Australia for UNHCR to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, I filmed in this Nutrition and Stabilisation Centre. These mothers had recently arrived across the border from South Sudan, with their malnourished babies. UNHCR helps them with therapeutic feeding programs to get their babies back to health. I used this footage to help illustrate the looming drought in this area and how extreme hunger forces families to leave their homes and flee.
As Australian parents were getting their children ready to go back to school, Australia for UNHCR asked them to also think about refugee children and their needs. I made this video as a gentle way to ask them to help.
In March, I travelled with Naomi Steer, Director of Australia for UNHCR, and Elizabeth Mulhall, our Digital Content whiz, to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya to meet refugees, see some of the programs that are run in the camp and do some filming. We met some amazing people, including schoolgirls at the Angelina Jolie School for Girls at Kakuma Camp 1.
We also met some impressive refugee women making baskets and bags for an income, which enables them to send their kids to school. We visited an model agricultural project, the hospital maternity wards and the lovely Sara, who is foster mother to 11 children who lost their parents during the war in Sudan.
On 18 November, Australia for UNHCR hosted a fundraising screening of “He Named Me Malala”, a documentary about the extraordinary Pakistani girl who survived being shot by the Taliban to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Fantastic film. We showed it at the Dendy Opera Quays to a full house and I showed my short ‘appeal’ video before it, to help raise money for Syrian refugees facing a harsh European winter. We are still clearing the rights to use the music “We Found Love” before I can put it online.
Four months after we showed “Fire Stories” at the Edge Cinema in Katoomba in 2013, severe bushfires struck Blue Mountains townships. On 13 November 2015, in the Katoomba Cultural Centre, the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute announced the results of their Impact Evaluation. This extensive survey asked, did people change what they did to get prepared as a result of seeing our “Fire Stories” film, how much and how?
The report is called “Now I Get It”, because it clearly shows that people DID get it and substantially changed their behaviour and preparedness before the 2013 bushfire season. Very satisfying to see actual evidence that our film made a real difference in saving lives, especially on these insanely hot November days.
http://www.fire.bmwhi.org.au, if you want to read more about it or see the film.
To celebrate Australia for UNHCR’s achievements in 2014, I made this video which was shown in the Chauvel Cinema in Sydney at Christmas as a trailer before the wonderful documentary Constance on the Edge.
I recently shot and edited a video for the Wolli Creek Preservation Society, who held a ‘Tree-Mendous Wolli’ Day in July 2014, celebrating the beautiful bushland at the western end of the Wolli Creek Valley threatened by the WestConnex motorway development.
Catharine Campbell from Nine Lanterns directed these scripted dramas about depression in the workplace, looking at people’s fears of telling their boss, but also highlighting workplace obligations to workers’ mental health. We recently finished editing the videos. Beyond Blue is working to reduce the impact of depression and anxiety in the community by raising awareness and understanding, empowering people to seek help, and supporting recovery, management and resilience.
Working with Channel 7 journalist James Thomas, I edited an early four minute trailer about the work of the Mercy Ship that travels the West African coast, offering free surgery to people in need. A longer story was later shown on the Channel 7 Sunday program.
Laura Zusters, ZedMedia 