Evening tea with documentary journalists

On the 17th of February Kārlis Lesiņš and Lelde Prūse, journalists from the Woodpecker Pictures were invited to an evening tea at the Green Liberty’s staff and friends to share the story of their trip to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where they filmed a documentary movie about the care for protected eastern gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei and Gorilla beringei graueri).

Evening tea with journalists was a non-formal event, where Kārlis and Lelde shared the story about two different countries – Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo. They told how Volcanoes National Park, and more specifically, gorillas living there supply these countries with resources for survival and development. While listening to them, the auditory could follow the process of filming in Rwanda (Kigali, Musanze, Gisenyi regions), DRC (Goma and Masisi regions) and the territory of the Volcanoes National Park. 

The journalist shared reflections about unexpected turning-points during the trip, interaction of the team, and what other journalist should consider when they go to Global Southern countries in Africa. It was exciting to hear that journalists had changed their conception of the movie: “I hoped the movie would be about pleasant and peaceful things like the animals, nature. Consequently, I could step aside from the previous experience to see the things through the looking glass of conflicts. Yet, it turned out that the foundation of the plot is the tension between people and animals, rebels, government and society, veterinarians and tourists” (Kārlis). It was very inspiring to hear that “the world is round. It means that we as the species on this planet are interconnected.” (Lelde).

It was inspiring to feel the connection between the journalists, sponsors, representatives of environmental organisations and activists. We hope that this Evening tea event helped participants to enrich understanding of why stories from Global South are meaningful for us.

Woodpecker Pictures is a brand new film studio – a group of energetic enthusiasts including a director, a journalist, a video specialist and a producer, who were brought together by a common vision of interests and professionalism. In project Media for Development, this film studio has agreed to make a documentary film that currently is in after filming stage. The documentary film will tell the story not only about the efforts to protect the animals and maintain their health and lives, but also about their geographic, political and social environment. The documentary will reveal personal motivation and attitude towards protected eastern gorillas in Rwanda and DRC – starting from veterinarians of Gorilla Doctors organisation to rebels in the war affected DRC.

The trip and documentary is also supported by the Boris and Inara Teterev Foundation. 

Mondo activities January-February 2016

The new year started with receiving new bracelets from Kenya. The bracelets were again made by women's self-help groups in Shianda village. The two groups who made the bracelets are called Ikoli and Riziki. Kalle Aasamäe, an Estonian designer and volunteer in the area, was the one who gave advice to the women and helped them find the necessary materials. This time the colours were chosen to be green and blue.

In January, the TV crew from ERR visited Birma/Myanmar for making a documentary. Our team members, Johanna and Triinu also travelled to the area during the same time. Silvia Pärmann – a journalist from Delfi (one of the biggest online media channels in Estonia) also travelled with them. Just after Silvia arrived back to Estonia, she was selected as the best travel journalist in Estonia in 2015 :)

Her articles from Myanmar can be found here:

• http://reisijuht.delfi.ee/news/reisiblogi/markmeid-myanmarist-i-kuld-kiirus-korgus-ja-pudel-hugo-bossi-parfuumi?id=73387833
• http://reisijuht.delfi.ee/news/reisiblogi/markmeid-myanmarist-ii-aja-seismise-voimalikkusest?id=73387881
• http://reisijuht.delfi.ee/news/reisiblogi/markmeid-myanmarist-iii-rand?id=73387909
• http://reisijuht.delfi.ee/news/reisiblogi/markmeid-myanmarist-iv-mis-trikke-on-voimalik-opetada-kitsele?id=73387935
• http://reisijuht.delfi.ee/news/reisiblogi/markmeid-myanmarist-v-ukski-buddha-kuju-ei-saa-olla-kuldsem-tanintharyi-inimestest?id=73387963
• http://reisijuht.delfi.ee/news/news/markmeid-myanmarist-vi-tatoveeritud-nagudega-naised?id=73568397
• http://reisijuht.delfi.ee/news/news/markmeid-myanmarist-vii-mrauk-u-udu-volus-ja-varjus?id=73623315
• http://reisijuht.delfi.ee/news/news/markmeid-myanmarist-viii-what-do-you-get-when-you-fall-in-love?id=73686985
• http://reisijuht.delfi.ee/news/news/markmeid-myanmarist-ix-printsid-ja-sodurid?id=73776529
• http://reisijuht.delfi.ee/news/news/markmeid-myanmarist-x-kulad-kuhu-oodatakse-eesti-opetajaid?id=73801131
• http://reisijuht.delfi.ee/news/news/markmeid-myanmarist-xi-kagu-aasia-koige-kuulsam-jarv?id=73920001

In January another trip finalised – the winner of the article competition "Decent Life for All" returned from Kenya where she visited Mombasasa and communities in the Mara and Shianda village where Mondo also works. In Shianda she visited the schools where Mondo has support programs and saw the work that our recent volunteers have been doing. She has posted photos on her Instagram account (@karolinkruuse) and published two blog posts from the trip:

• Photo essay from Shianda village: http://karolinkruuse.ee/fotopostitus-shianda-kulast-ja-mtu-mondo-tegemistest/
• Interview about religion from Mombasa: http://karolinkruuse.ee/my-friend-muslim/ 

February has passed under the star of planning our Ghana-trip that will happen in March. It will be a bigger group than we have had before, so it's quite challenging :)

ERR in Cambodia

A group of 3 documentary filmmakers from Estonian Public Broadcasting, author and director Gerli Nõmm, script editor Anniken Haldna and cinematographer Martin Tennokene, spent the month of January 2016 in Cambodia.

Background information

Cambodia used to be home to some of the most diverse arts and culture in Southeast Asia. Music, dance and theater flourished until in the years between 1975 and 1979, the Khmer Rouge put a devastating end to that.

During those years, 2 million Cambodians died from execution, starvation and overwork; among the dead were 90% percent of Cambodia’s artists, who were specifically targeted for execution. This was a ruinous blow to Cambodia’s cultural heritage, especially given that the skills were passed on from master to student, and were rarely written down.

Some of the Masters survived and the non-profit organization Cambodian Living Arts found them and since 1998 they have been supporting the Masters and giving scholarships to underprivileged children so the traditions could continue.

Our documentary tells the story of 3 women from different generations who all have dedicated their lives to the most ancient and endangered Cambodian art forms – Smot chanting. This buddhist poetry singing method shares the wisdom of life and death and brings comfort and knowledge to people. Smot chanters perform at traditional ceremonies, funerals and other religious events and have played a big role in khmer culture.

Our characters

Master Koeut Ran – an old respected woman, who shared with us her story of surviving the Khmer Rouge regime. Since 2004 she has been teaching Smot for younger generations, but by now has retired and given up teaching children. She continues giving private lessons to the monks and makes a small income by performing at the ceremonies.

She is the link between our two other characters Srey Pov and Srey Oun who learned Smot with Master Koeut Ran and have earned honorable positions in their communities thanks to their rare talent.

Srey Oun – our main character – is a 35 year old woman from Kampong Speu Province, Kong Pisey village. She lives a traditional and modest life at the countryside, works on the rice field with her family and has dedicated her life to buddhism, helping her old parents and teaching Smot at the local elementary school. She left school in the 9th grade to work, support her parents and help them out with household works. She has had no luck with finding a good husband, so she has stayed single, which is rather uncommon in Cambodian culture. Her biggest dream was getting a scholarship from CLA and studying traditional khmer music in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, but she had no luck. At the moment she is dedicated to teaching Smot chanting at the local school to hundreds of children. Her monthly income as a teacher is 70 USD.

Our third character Srey Pov is a good example of how development cooperation can change lives. She is a 24-year old successful business woman, based in Phnom Penh. She was born and raised in Kampong Speu province as our two other ladies, but thanks to the scholarship she had the chance to attend high school in Phnom Penh and afterwards study Smot at the university. She owns a growing business called Srey Pov Smot, that sells the ceremony organizing service to wealthy cambodians. She has more than 10 employees working for her and offering the full service of ceremonies, starting from decorations, finishing with catering and mastering the ceremonies. That allows her to dedicate on her passion for Smot chanting.

During the month in Cambodia our team had the chance to take a close look at the khmer culture and Cambodian history. We experienced the amazing hospitality of cambodian families that welcomed us in their homes and let us participate in the religious ceremonies, that were often very personal and intimate. We witnessed the harsh contrasts and class divisions in cambodian society.

As many other Southeast Asian countries, Cambodia is developing rapidly. The capital is full of fancy cafes and shops that the locals often can't afford to go to. New skyscrapers are in the process of construction almost at every street corner. At the same time, only 2 hours car drive away, there are endless rice fields, coconut forests, pagodas and villages where the inhabitants are trying to hold on to the disappearing traditional ways of living.

Education is the key factor to move Burma forward

Burma which is officially known as the Republic of Union of Myanmar will be covered in a television documentary produced by a team of Estonian public Broadcasting (director Tarvo Mölder, cinematographer Margus Malm and editor Indrek Treufeldt).

According to western media Burma has been widely known as a military-ruled authoritarian country. Nearly 50 years the country has borne international isolation. There Buddhism has a special status. Still it is a country of ethnic and religious conflicts. Officially the government recognises more than 130 distinct ethnic groups and also eight so-called ‘major national ethnic races’.  Recent general elections have brought some hope for democratic parties but a flawed constitution could be an obstacle for urgent reforms.

The TV crew started its visit from Mandalay, a city considered as a cultural capital of Burma. From Mandalay they went to Hsipaw and Namlan which both are in Shan State. It is a state with distinctive ethnicity and culture. There was a chance to travel to some remote and isolated areas with small settlements and villages. Finally the crew arrived in Yangon which is the former capital of Burma with more than 4 million inhabitants. 

The documentary examines problems and challenges concerning the educational system in Burma. There is a comparison on two different schools as typical examples of recent advances in the country. The development aid component is vital in both cases. Estonian volunteers have been working for the Rural Development Fund, an institution that helps to develop primary and also secondary education in Burma. Also Estonians contributed to find some innovative teaching methods in the biggest monastic school in the world.

One of the schools observed during the visit was a primary school Zarm Kar, in a small village of Shan State. It is a village of 200 people and 50 households. At present there is no electricity, no telephone lines or mobile network coverage. The school was opened recently as an initiative by Sai Naw Kham. He is the person who leads the Rural Development Foundation. As he explains besides logistical obstacles (bad roads and poor infrastructure in general) there are also economic and psychological constraints. In many cases children have to work on fields to help families to get their basic income. The community leader Lon Num said in the interview that after the school was built, families found new ways to cooperate and finally let children to go to school. Still the problem is that only a few children can continue their education in secondary schools. The Rural Development Foundation started to build special dormitories for villagers in towns where secondary education is available. Still there is a long way to go.

The second school observed closely during the journalistic visit was the Phaung Daw Oo Monastic Education High School. It is situated in Nanshe, in the suburb of North East Mandalay, one of the biggest cities in Burma. The school was founded by a young monk U Nayaka who currently is the headmaster of the school. His idea was to educate poor children, regardless of ethnicity, religion or gender. U Nayaka considers that the traditional Burmese teaching methods (first of all primitive repetition, monological teaching principles) do not enable to develop necessary creativity and critical thinking skills the country needs. Now all the teachers of the school use competitive debate as a tool to teach critical thinking to help to present different sides of an argument. Those are vital preconditions for emerging free and democratic public sphere in the country.

Young students (Htet Nainglin, Phone Mit Ko) described their experiences with different students projects, which are new for a country like Burma. The warden of the girls’ dormitory (Har Khaw Dee) explained what does it mean to bring together children of different background (ethnicities and religion). Traditionally monastic system has been dominated by men. Now there is an opportunity provided also for girls. There is interesting to see how traditional (Buddhist tradition first of all) and innovative pedagogical approaches come together in the biggest monastic school in the world with more than 8 thousand students where English is widely spoken which is not typical for Burma.

Both schools were also visited by the representatives of NGO Mondo (Johanna Helin and Triinu Ossinovski). For the TV crew it enabled to get valuable background information on perspectives and challenges of international development aid cooperation.

Local Roundtable EQUALITY OF LOCAL AND GLOBAL COMMUNITY

To what extent are local and global communities connected? How to ensure the equality of local and global community? 

Green Liberty invited development cooperation policy makers from Jelgava municipality to the local round table „Equality of Local and Global Community” on November 17, 2015.

The event was opened by a representative of Green Liberty, Lauma Ziemeļniece, who introduced the Sustainable Development Goals. It was followed by the screening of the movie "Ar domu par labāku pasauli" (With a Thought about Better World), then development cooperation story "Me&You" was presented by Madara Mazjāne-Kokina from the organisation ideA. 

The round table was opened by an introduction which was presented by six representatives of stakeholder groups who are responsible for development and development cooperation issues in the local municipality of Jelgava:

• Ginta Avotiņa - Head of  Education department in the municipality of Jelgava,
• Kristīne Kode - Head of youth policy in the municipality of Jelgava,
• Modris Jansons -  deputy of the municipality of Jelgava,
• Uldis Dūmiņš  - chairman of the non-governmental organisation "Zemgale NGO Centre",
• Līva Kaunese - journalist in the municipality of Jelgava,
• Arnita Žukauska - representative of Youth Council in the municipality of Jelgava.

The discussion tackled the issues such as involvement in the development of local municipality, decision making process, collaboration, supported initiatives and cooperation on finding solutions in both the local and global context.

Representatives admitted that the global emerges and results from the local, meaning that everyone expresses their identity in different contexts - local, national, European, global. In their opinion, the equality of local and global community is described by our unity, variety of opinions and experiences. They shared that equality of local and global community results in empathy, feelings of belonging and equality, participation and helping others in the world.

The participants evaluated this event in connection to personal context such as reflections and new conclusions on human safety on various levels, development cooperation and our opportunities to contribute to development of global society and help others. They admitted that from national context Latvia is a small country that can, actually helps and in the future would participate in aiding despite our local issues. The participants were enthusiastic to look into the realities of countries of Global South.         

Participants expressed readiness to watch other movies and participate in discussions on the development cooperation and paradigm changes, where everyone learns from each other. Networking, cooperation and co-creation in this roundtable was recognized as an important initiative for professional activity and development of local community that can provide new non-financial solutions. It was recognized that the current need is the creation of new opportunities for youth, such as a strategically development of voluntary work. Globally, the desirable need is the development of cooperation with Ukraine.

In the participants’ opinion this was a significant event for the community of the municipality of Jelgava. It broadened and changed their perspective on self and the world, developed empathy towards other nations and understanding of developing countries’ peoples’ lives.  The event brought out the importance of local needs and global issues, involved youth as well as the representatives of a local municipality and entrepreneurs in discussions. 

Overall, this event was recognized as a success as it was well organised and met the participants’ expectations. The most meaningful approaches were round table discussion and screening of the movie that represented the period before Latvia joined the European Union. It showed the period when Latvians received help until the period when Latvia helped other countries. The event opened next issues of the same context that could be introduced for upcoming participants of local round tables on local and global communities.      

One kind of development Rwanda is gorilla tourism

Starting from the end of November 2015, a three-membered crew of documentary moviemakers from Estonian Public Broadcasting (ERR), author Reimo Sildvee, director Märten Vaher and cinematographer Meelis Kadastik, visited for almost four weeks the Republic of Rwanda with an intention to produce a television documentary.

Our teams goal was to make documentary how people of Rwanda, who about twenty years ago witnessed the rage and brutality of genocide, during which almost 1 million people were killed in one hundred days, have managed to build up and developed their state and communities.

One example of this kind of development is so-called gorilla tourism. Rwanda is one of the three countries, besides DRC and Uganda, where there are living these near extinct mountain gorillas (gorilla beringei beringei). As these great apes, close relatives to our own species, are living in the Volcanoes national park in Virunga volcanic area in Rwanda, our crew headed to Musanze administrative district and stayed there for almost the whole period.

 There, they were looking for the best practices how nature conservation and gorilla tourism have bonded together to help local people to create sustainable livelihoods. They were following the daily lives of people who are gathered into so-called economic co-operatives and are for example making the gorilla-themed and traditional hand-craft items in the hope of selling them to foreign tourist. There are also crop farming and honey collecting and other agricultural activities that benefit greatly from the national park’s official revenue sharing programme, that got our team’s attention.

But the most interesting life changing stories emerged from the conversations and interviews with people who used to be illegal hunters in the national park that is created to protect mountain gorillas. Those ex-poachers were no more than 10 to 5 years ago eager to put on daily bases snares and traps in the forests, that though not meant for hunting gorillas, were very dangerous and could also be fatal for gorillas. ERR’s filming crew wanted to find out how it has been possible to motivate them to stop the illegal hunting and how they are now motivated to work for the cause of conservation. 

As a result, there now many hours of film footage, that needs to form into a documentary movie that portrays the work and life of local people who, through mostly economic means, have now understood the importance of saving critically endangered mountain gorillas, that many consider an iconic animal for all wildlife conservation in the world. 

House of Europe: ending the year with a premier of a documentary

Production of the documentary In an Alien Land

Lithuanian National Television (LRT) film crew went on a field trip to Lebanon in November 2015 to prepare a documentary about the life of Syrian refugees in Lebanon revealing legal and social challenges they face, everyday realities, as well as their personal values and future hopes. In December 2015 - January 2016, the documentary In an Alien Land (Svetimoje žemėje) was twice broadcast on LRT attracting the attention of more than 283 300 viewers.

A TV Advertisement for the documentary, December 2015.

Bulletin on Migration 

In December electronic bulletin on migration was issued and sent out  to policy makers and opinion leaders, in particular, members of the Parliament, public officials, politicians, journalists, representatives of NGO sector and national academia.

The bulletin aimed to address migration crisis and its impact on global development. The issue featured the following topics:

• Migration from Lithuania in the 19th century and the potential of Lithuanian immigration policies after recent amendments (prepared by Lithuanian journalist and migration expert Gintarė Gedrimaitė);
• The importance and lack of enduring immigration strategies in Lithuania (prepared by Reseacher at CEPS (Centre for European Policy Studies) Lina Vosyliūtė).
• The tendencies of migration in the Mediterranean analysed (excerpts from International Organization for Migration and the Knoll blog).
• Refugee stories (based on information collected from the Red Cross in Lithuania, „The New York Times“, „Desperate Reasons for a Desperate Journey“ and Human Rights Watch).
  
  

Cover of the Bulletin no 2.

Roundtables with journalists

In December 2015, two roundtable discussions with journalists were organised. The events were open to the public and encouraged an exchange of views between business, media and NGO representatives.

At the first roundtable development and environmental challenges in Nigeria as well as migration and refugee issues in Lebanon were discussed. Journalist Rosita Garškaitė who visited Nigeria shared her insights and presented the current situation in Niger delta after recent oil spillovers. TV Journalist Edvardas Špokas described the TV crew experiences in Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon  and the idea behind the forthcoming documentary In an Alien Land (Svetimoje žemėje).

A Roundtable with Journalists, 3 December 2015.

The second roundtable was addressed the issue of traditional crafts in Kenya. Nanook.lt contributors Berta Tilmantaitė and Karolis Pilypas Liutkevičius who went to Kenya to prepare photo stories and a short documentary about everyday life of local tribes presented their fieldwork experience. A number of questions were raised throughout the discussion concerning the possible role of the global North in fighting the extinction of traditional crafts in developing countries. The similarities between traditional Lithuanian and Kenyan crafts were also discussed there.

A Roundtable with Journalists, 17 December 2015.

Photo exhibition

The photo exhibition The World as You See It is further displayed in different locations. In December 2015, it was on display at the “Swedbank” headquarters in Vilnius. At the end of the year, during the closing national events of the European Year for Development it was exhibited at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Exhibition The World as You See i” at the Lobby of Swedbank, December 2015.