About to start filming in Barmoi
For Alice and Peter's Weblog, see http://alicepeter.blogspot.com
11 December 2004
After about two weeks of initial research, we are now almost
ready to start shooting our educational film on maternal health.
We have travelled quite a bit around Kambia district to try and
find the best location for filming.
We've visited 15 health clinics throughout the district and
talked to a number of medical staff both at the clinics and at the
hospital in Kambia, and have selected Barmoi, a town about an
hour's drive out of Kambia Town, as the location for the film.
The clinic in Barmoi is pretty well off in terms of staff;
there is one nurse in charge, two Mother and Child Health (MCH)
aides, two motivators that work with the communities and a porter.
We decided to work with a clinic with more than one staff member
to avoid putting pressure on a clinic with only one or two staff
members already finding it hard to cope with their daily
workload. The staff in Barmoi have been really welcoming and
assured us that we can stay overnight at the clinic, if
needed.
Local comedian has joined the film crew
Apart from searching for a good location for the film, we have
drawn up a rough story-line. We are pleased to have made an
agreement with a local comedian and actor, Israel Davis, to help
us get the story together and play the narrator in the film.
Israel is currently employed by the Medical District Officer in
Kambia and is coordinator of a local drama group who use drama as
a way of communicating health messages to rural communities.
Story telling has been recoginsed by medical authorities and
non governmental organisations (NGOs) worldwide as a powerful tool
to get messages across to people not used to hour long lessons on
subjects that they are not familiar with. In our film, Israel will
appear as a jester/ clown to keep the audience informed about the
developments in the story and summarize some of the most important
points. Israel often plays the role of a clown (see photo), when
he is in the villages and watching him in action we've been able
to see how receptive villagers are to his role.
We hope that in our film he will be able to add a spoonful of
humour to the otherwise serious subject that we are dealing with
and really get the message across in a memorable way.
Village women to be cast
We have decided to write the film as fiction based on real-life
stories, in order to get the message of the film clearly across.
It will show the story of our two main characters; one fortunate
mother who follows the health advice given to her and a more
unfortunate mother who doesn't.
The fortunate mother goes to the local clinic and learns about
how to have a healthy pregnancy and what problems to look out for.
She has a good relationship with a trained traditional birth
attendant (TBA), who accompanies her to these classes and her
husband is also very supportive of her. When she encounters a
problem in delivery the TBA and her husband arrange for her to go
to the clinic for more specialised care and she delivers a healthy
baby.
The unfortunate mother doesn't go to the classes at the clinic.
When she goes into labour she stays at home in her dirty room and
is assisted by an untrained local birth attendance. There is a
problem with the labour, the woman starts haemorrhaging and
eventually she and the baby die.
We plan to use local women to play these characters, and this
will be one of our tasks next week when we go to Barmoi to prepare
for the filming. Everybody here have said that it will be no
problem finding enthusiastic, lively women to participate in the
film. Let's hope that they are right!
Link to working paper on
maternal health film
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