Young filmmakers earn their stripes on the streets Udaipur India

I just recently returned from India. Where I was running a program for Nokia, International Youth Foundation and Free the Children, the program is called Directors of Change This programs mandate is create youth produced documentaries that are then integrated into the curriculum of Canada school boards across the country.  Each student is also outfitted with a Nokia N95 mobile video camera so they can document their own experience, as well as produce a film showing their behind the scenes struggle.

This is the second year I have run this program, the first year to the prize winning film, Crossing Borders, which depicted the lives of youth living on the border between Mexico and Arizona.  This year I took a group of students from Montreal, who had limited to no filming experience, on an adventure of a lifetime.  This blog is part one of many showing you’re the journey the youth took as well as my self.

The Stories

Our first goal was to identify and find the stories.  We used local India facilitators to find the stories that the youth had created back in Montreal. The students were mainly interested to tell the story of girl’s rights, and arts.  We worked closely with the students to develop these fictitious plot lines in order to prepare them for the reality of the situation, which would soon be coming down the pipe.  We soon received confirmation back at the potential stories that existed in this realm of interest, these include many heart wrenching stories of loss and hope.  (Please view original stories here)

The Real Deal
Once we vetted through the story options we began to narrow our focus onto the ones we wanted to tell.  These included the story of two young children who were forced to dress as gods and work the streets of Udaipur to pay of their mothers debt.  We also soon realized that the other stories were becoming quite generic and it was my job to visit India earlier to seek and find the stories these youth wanted to tell.  The stories we found and told were powerful, frustrating and empowering!

Story 1 The Two Gods

The story of Suresh and Sugna.  These two young kids aged 7 and 10 works the streets of Udaipur, raising money for their family.  They both dress so Indian gods to have their picture taken with Tourists.  The main part of the story is that their mother had to acquire a debt to pay of medical bills their received when their aunt and little sister fell ill.  They no longer go to school, and at the rate they collected money, it was only enough to cover their meal expenses on a daily basis.  To matters worse, their father was recently in a cars accident, and now does not have the mental capacity to work, making these two children the only money earners in the family.  The final part of the story is about their future.  The fear for Suresh is that she is a growing girl, and that she may fall into the trap of prostitution.  Udaipur with all it beautiful streets, and ancient India Ghats has drawn in more and more tourism, and with this tourism, those that take advantage of children now walk the streets of Udaipur.

Story two - Give me Shelter

This story follows a young American girl who moved to India with her parents as a child.  As she grew up she began to notice the treated the animals were given in Udaipur, and how there was no one there to look out for them or fight for their rights.  Her and her parents then started the first animal shelter in the entire state.  She now travels the country speaking to young girls about how animal rights are human rights, and if you are empowered to speak up about them, you will be more empowered to speak up about any other type of abuse.

Story Three - The Gypsies of Udaipur

This story tells the lives of Sayari and her 14-year-old daughter Sangita.  They are both part of the Saphara caste, which are the snake charmers of the region.  After years of struggling they have now taken that knowledge and interpreted into the motions of the snake into dance and costumes.  The key story points of this story is the empowerment of people to do what they think is right, and best for their families and culture.  Sangita dropped out of school when she was very young to pursue a life of dance.  This was not only because of her love of the culture and dance, but also because she is the only person earning money in her family, and she must send all of it back to support her family in her village.

The story also speaks about the controversy around the idea of institutional education, and its value.  For many of us in the west there is no question that school is am important fact of our up bringing, yet in many countries there is a tendency by organizations in the west to push cultures into the institutional forms of education. I do a agree that everyone needs to be able to read, write, and add, if only to sign a contract and receive you pay cherub.  But beyond that, there are many in the world who struggle in the institutions and quickly begin to lose the cultural training that has been passed down from generation to generation.

Sangita is the perfect example of an empowered young women who has known from a early age her purpose and passion in life, and though illiterate, and unable to travel alone, is doing extraordinarily well, in spite of these short comings in education, of which her mother Sayari hopes to improve.

This is the first installment of this process.  We will be following the post-production process as the youth begin to bring together their stories.