Media for social change

LETTERS FROM LITEIN is an emotional, thought provoking, and inspiring cinema verite style feature documentary about a group of students, teachers, and parents, from a small school in Canada, reaching out from half way around the world, to touch the hearts of orphans in Africa, and as a result change their own hearts and world.

In January 2006, Fred Seymour Elementary School began a unique curriculum based global citizenship project with an orphanage in Litein, Kenya. Over the following months, the students connect with children in Litein through pen pal letters. The students are empowered to work on a number of fundraising initiatives including; a grade one/two project to record, produce and release a fifteen track CD featuring thirteen songs in Swahili sung by the orphan choir. One class formed a company called Afri-Can and developed a presentation that they took to boardrooms in the shining towers of downtown Calgary. By the end of the school year, the school surpass their goal of raising $50,000, and a group of fourteen students, teachers and parents begin preparing to travel to Africa, ready and anxious to make a difference.

WHEN THEY LAND IN AFRICA, the press corps does not greet them. They are not afforded the status of rock stars or celebrities; they are just ordinary people trying to make a difference for orphans. Once in Kenya the group is faced with numerous challenges including: the kids from Calgary not initially connecting with the orphans, the parents and teachers pursuing different agendas, and questions from the orphanage assistant manager about why they are helping the orphans in the home when there are other children in the area with greater needs, an issue the group gains perspective on after a confrontation with glue sniffing street kids. One courageous older girl from the home tells some in the group that the girls are discriminated against in the home and larger society, a fact corroborated by three female teachers. The older boys share their challenges of finding jobs and dealing with the stigma of being an orphan when they leave the home. These experiences become fodder for discussion and conflict amongst the Calgary group.

Over the course of their two weeks in Litein, each member of the group makes powerful emotional connections with the orphans. They paint the dorms, play games, dance and sing together. Local children wishing to have a pen pal in Canada, thrust letter after letter into their hands. The kids from Calgary eventually connect with the orphans, and to hilarious results, even build a skateboard ramp. By experiencing the hospitality of the people of Litein, the group from Fred Seymour dispel many of the myths and preconceptions they had of the continent and people, discovering the duality of joy and sorrow that is Africa, and the resilience and desire of the people to better their lives. The film challenges the audience to confront questions like: how best to help, will the project be sustainable, did they listen to what the locals wanted, and did they raise cultural issues (like beatings, or the treatment of the girls) that may endanger the children?

LETTERS FROM LITEIN is not a film about AIDS, war, or famine in Africa, but rather shows the power of connecting people, especially school children, through grassroots efforts, and seeing Africans not as victims, but as people, who, if empowered with a better share of resources, can lift themselves.