Community to Community Film & Discussion

Saturday February 20 at 7 pm, Mahon Hall Salt Spring Island. Join filmmaker Gary McNutt and writer Andrea Palframan for an evening of stories and images from brightest Africa.

The evening is a fundraiser for the Phelisanong (Together we Work for LIfe) project in Lesotho. Hear about how this group of disabled and HIV positive villagers banded together and formed a group dedicated to caring for their community’s most vulnerable, the orphans and disabled children left behind by the AIDS pandemic. Through their solidarity and vision, this group has built a community centre that thrives, against all odds, in one of the poorest countries in the world.

Palframan and McNutt are headed back to Lesotho on February 26th, and will be bringing with them what funds they raise at Saturday’s event. This year they are fundraising for new orphanage buildings at Phelisanong, each of which will house 10 children with special needs and chronic illnesses. The buildings cost $20,000 each and two are already under construction. They are also fundraising for an expansion on the project’s tiny one-roomed health clinic, a computer lab, and their scholarship program. They hope to raise $4000 to top up their year-long fundraising efforts over the weekend, both at this information evening and at a benefit concert at Moby’s on Friday the 19th.

“Trying to keep up with the galloping imagination of these supposedly ‘unempowered’ people has been the greatest challenge,” says Andrea Palframan, the event’s organizer.  “There is no limitation to the goals that Phelisanong sets, and we just try to hang on. We know that every penny we raise goes directly to help the people who need it most: as the African proverb says, there isn’t much water spilled when you’re carrying it uphill.”

The Phelisanong projects’ director, Mamello Lehlotha, came to Salt Spring island in 2006. Many islanders  recognized in Mamello  a rare opportunity to channel funds directly to an indigenous, community led project in Africa free from interference of corrupt governments or top-heavy aid agencies. Since her visit, there have been back-and-forth visits to the project by Salt Springers: Saturday’s presentation is a chance to hear from two such visitors about what they learned and witnessed watching a real-time community-to-community partnership unfold.

Through it all hear how Salt Spring Islanders have played a role in funding and supporting a primary school, a health clinic, and a secondary scholarship program for girls. McNutt’s film features footage taken since 2004, when the project consisted of a series of collapsing mud huts, to today’s quadrangle of school and orphanage buildings, standing surrounded by lush fields and orchards. “We can point to each of these buildings and say the name of people on Salt Spring who’ve donated money to build them,”  says McNutt. “While Canada is famous for doing good in the world, Phelisanong is a rare example of how sustained and long term commitments on the part of small communities like ours can really make a lasting impact, on literally thousands of people’s lives.”

There have been some deep challenges, and hard lessons, along the way, which offer valuable insights to anyone involved in development work overseas. “So many projects fail because they are arranged around outsiders’ needs and timeframes,” says Palframan. “What we’ve learned, sometimes the hard way, is that any ‘aid project’ needs to absolutely involve the people who will work to sustain it in every step of the process. That goes for reconstruction in Haiti to the kind of long term development that we’re involved in in Africa.

“While people look to us to be poor and desperate, they are incredibly resourceful from having to live in such harsh circumstances. They don’t need to be saved by us, they just need us to invest in their ideas. Their approach is going to be different, their pace is going to be different, but we learn a great deal if we take the time to slow down and listen up.”
Everyone is invited to come out on Saturday night to Mahon Hall, watch the film, and join in a discussion about development, community, and international solidarity.

Find out how you can be a part of the next chapter in this evolving community-to-community story.  930-4279