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Global Focus Films: HOME
Email: GlobalFocusFilms@aol.com
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Global Focus Films
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Global Focus Films was organized in 1998 to showcase nongovernmental and community-based organizations around the globe that have developed and implemented successful programs focused on positive social change.
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South Africa Beckons
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To Kellie & Global Focus Films,
This is to cheer you on and give you the suck it in strength. Whenever I was working on a movie or project that gave me a frustrating or painful time, I would sing 'Beautiful, beautiful Copen-HAH-gen!!!' in a phoney operatic voice and it always made me smile. It's kind of stupid and crazy but sometimes these things give me a boost.
With love, Lily Tomlin
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In July 2000, Global Focus Films traveled to South Africa to attend the 13th International Conference on AIDS. Following the conference we spent an additional week in
Soweto, Witbank, Johannesburg and various rural areas to see the impact of HIV/AIDS on families and communities there.
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By traveling directly to South Africa, one of the countries hardest hit by HIV/AIDS, Global Focus Films was able to see firsthand the impact the disease is having on the lives of its citizens. In the global fight against HIV/AIDS, we realized that the devastation occurring in developing countries is inseparable from the fight against the disease in our communities. This presents many opportunities to share experiences, information and hope.
We visited community organizers, activists and educators on the frontlines of HIV/AIDS, those who remain steadfast, with little or no pay, bound by a deep commitment to lovers lost, affected and infected family members and friends, and an undying hope that AIDS can be overcome. In the process, we have learned that the savagery of disease is only made worse by the devastation of silence.
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In sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS is more than a healthcare issue; it is inextricably intertwined with poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, the low economic and social status of women, stigma and discrimination, and the virtual absence of any government programs for the disabled and destitute. HIV infection is hitting hardest among youth aged 15-30, tolls loudest among young, black, impoverished people and exists in a region where government responses have been slow, at best. No wonder, when foreign debt payments of most sub-Saharan Africa countries is four times their health and education budgets combined.
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Poverty & Development
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After overcoming the horrors of apartheid, the country finds itself in the throes of a far deadlier enemy. Over 4.2 million South Africans are infected with HIV, 1,500 become infected daily and children orphaned by the disease, along with some 200 born infected daily, struggle to find a sense of security and stability in communities that refuse to utter the word "AIDS." At the conference we learned that 50% of today's 15 years olds in several sub-Saharan countries will die of AIDS before they reach their thirtieth birthdays. The implications for regional and global social stability, economic development and family structure are tremendous. The call for involvement from all sectors, national and international, is paramount.
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Who, we asked ourselves, has gone to fight on the frontlines of this war? Millions of parents are dead, dying or sick and unable to work. Children are left to care for themselves. Grandparents, many in their 60s and 70s are forced back into the labor pool to raise their grandchildren. Teachers are dying at a rate of four per day. The health care system is understaffed, underbudgeted and is losing providers to AIDS as well. We found part of our answer in the work of Grace Mnguni.
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*Representation of people on these pages is not an indication of their HIV/AIDS status.
Photos & text by Kellie Gibbs
Copyright 2000
Global Focus Films
All Rights Reserved
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