“Children of Our Villages” film exploits Namibian children 

By: Christi Warner 

The Children of Our Villages (COV) non-profit organisation was started to empower orphans and vulnerable children through filmmaking, with the first project focusing on Namibian children. As I accidentally learned today, the first outcome of the effort is finally going to be presented to the Namibian public - in a few days.  

While the film has been screened in the US already, the children have yet to see their work and they will be unable to shape it before it is presented to the general public. Contrary to the original goal, the roles of the kids have been relegated from being filmmakers of a Namibian movie to merely exploited unpaid actors in a movie directed, edited and filmed by Americans, and with an American soundtrack. 

Since I have unwillingly contributed to this exploitation, I feel it is my duty to share the lessons learned so that others after me will benefit and not repeat my mistakes. Furthermore, it is my hope that this article will ensure that the children are not further exploited and that they are the ones that will truly benefit from the effort. 

The idea of COV started in Namibia a few years ago. My colleague and co-founder Erin Buckley, American actress and filmmaker, and I shared the inspiration of devoting some of our time and expertise to contribute to empowering some of the world’s less fortunate children. The plan was to transfer our passion and knowledge to children around the world to encourage them to use their voice by making their own films.  

After some long preparation and fundraising the first project which included a workshop and filming finally started in December 2008 in Witvlei Namibia. Erin, cinematographer Frank Kraljic and I, with the key support of Mr. Pijoo Nganate and the Witvlei Council, helped a passionate group of 16 intelligent Namibian children tell their own story and transform it into a short movie. They were taught details of filmmaking, storytelling and assigned different roles that would help them take control of their movie. They worked for free, hard and passionately for almost two weeks sometimes even late at night, motivated by the idea that they were making their own movie. To make this clear, the children were assigned all key roles in the movie, including director, director of photography, Art director, etc.  

It was a joyful and constructive experience for all involved, until the final celebration of the filming completion at Zieggies Guesthouse in Witvlei, which was generously offered to us by Jan von Ziegenweidt for the whole filming and workshop process. However, as soon as the two Americans left Namibia, carrying with them every copy of the film, it all suddenly changed. For the past one and a half year the Namibian children have been excluded from the effort, unable to see the results of their work, unable to contribute to shaping how their movie will be presented to the rest of the world.  

Since it was impossible for the kids to make their voices heard I stepped in to try to make sure that we keep the promises we made to them. Unfortunately my numerous email attempts to remind Erin Buckley of the original agreement with the children have been unsuccessful and as of today, none of us have yet seen the outcome that the Americans plan to present in our country in a few days. Most importantly, to my great shock, a poster circulated on Facebook shows that all key roles in the movie are now taken by the same people that promised to empower them - the American filmmakers and I (my name used without my consent).  

Now the movie will be shown, the kids will certainly have fun for a day and they will be happy to see themselves on screen. However as stated before the goal was to ensure an active participatory process for the children. Given that the children’s role has been dramatically altered and the promises to them not kept, how can one truly think that they will be treated differently from the zebras that have the great opportunity of appearing on movie screens abroad in documentaries? 

Not everything is yet set in stone; there is still time for the American organisers to demonstrate their honest intentions and give the movie back to the children by removing their names (and mine) from the main credits. Releasing the film as it stands is tantamount to seriously taint the professional reputation of established filmmakers who seems to have jettisoned all those democratic promises of participation and empowerment made to disadvantaged children. I believe we don’t want this film to be just another example of foreigners coming to Africa to exploit its rich resources for their own personal advantages – history contain numerous examples of this. Please help me make it right, let’s stand up for our children and their rights!