Progress and Additional Projects

Things ingested in the last week include:

Interviews with:
Petois - Congolese (DRC) Refugee
Zezito - a key "senior" Angolan refugee assisting the Forge program implement its projects.
Madame Chama - a Zambian teacher at Meheba High School
Tom Silverman - Forge Volunteer
Joseph - Angolan Refugee

I've also started to move beyond interviews with my digitizing. Some scenes ingested include:
Planning and contruction of the sports league facilities.
Arianna and Tom meeting with the High School's AIDS awareness club upon arrival.
Arianna teaching HIV education classes at Meheba High School.
Angolan refugees attending a UNHCR field meeting on repatriation.
The final "People's Dance" (Saturday evening entertainment) Forge attended at Meheba High School.
Tom giving a guided tour of Meheba High School

I also digitized something else that may lead to a side project..
During the magic hour of the evening of the final People's Dance, I took 2 of the school choir groups out into the fields and recorded each one doing 5 songs. Some of the vocals are amazing. I am considering releasing a DVD / AudioCD of this material prior to the larger "Zambian Forge" documentary. I also recorded people singing at both a Catholic Confirmation Mass and at the "New Covenant Church". I have not digitized these groups yet, but they may also find a place on the DVD, tentatively called "Choirs of Meheba".

So, lots going on. I will be adding more storage to my computer system within 2 weeks to accomodate it all!

Ciao
David

Progression in Digitizing

Progress is being made. Every day I'm chipping away through tapes and getting more material on to the computer. 80 hours of footage is a lot to get through though!

Additional items ingested include interviews with:
Kjerstin Erickson (FORGE founder/director)
Ahmed Gubartalla (head of UNHCR Zambia at the time)
A HIV positive woman
Sara, Tom, and Nicole from FORGE
A group of 8th grade girls.

I'm also burning multiple window dub DVDs of just about everything I digitize, and continue to do so as I go. This is to facilitate spreading it around for feedback to incorporate into the next stage of the editing and fundraising process.

I've already burned through 1/2 of an external 160GB hard drive and 1/3 of my new internal 300GB drive. I may need to investigate additional storage solutions soon!

I'll keep updating as I go.
David

WFP cuts Zambia Food Rations

This is an article I pulled from the BBC's website, published Thursday Sept. 30th:




Refugees in Zambia face food cuts


The UN World Food Programme says it is cutting by half food rations to over 100,000 refugees in Zambia as of Friday because it is running out of money.

WFP director for Zambia David Stevenson told the BBC that they were seeking $3m (£1.7m) to ease the refugees' plight.

Zambia is home to some 300,000 refugees, mainly from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola.

"The purpose of today's appeal... is to emphasise how very serious the situation is," Mr Stevenson said.

The WFP says that with the world's attention focused on the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan, the often desperate situation of refugees elsewhere in Africa is being neglected by the donor community.

"So we're simply just saying to the donors, come let's go to the plate for this one and not forget the needy people here in Africa," Mr Stevenson told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.

The WFP also said a further reduction in food rations would be implemented if more donor funding was not forthcoming by November.

Digitizing, digitizing

Quick notes..
Additional footage digitized includes:
Patrick - UNHCR Chief of Mission for Meheba.
Emmanuel - UNHCR Protection Officer for Meheba.
A group of Orphans
Eric from FORGE
Several other Refugees

I've also edited about another 100 still photographs since the last update.

I'm also looking a brand new 300GB hard drive that is about to go into my G5. :)

David

Back in San Francisco, work continues..

A couple of people have pinged and asked for an update on the doc, so here's how it stands at the moment..

Computer system was prepped and is now ready. (At least until more storage is required!)
Edited (cropping, color correction, etc.) approximately 125 stills photos so far.
I've begun the digitizing process for the footage. Gone through an amazing interview with Marie Lobo, the at-the-time "Senior Regional Community Services Officer" for UNHCR. Also digitized a bizarre encounter with an African Herbalist.

I'm working on more every day.
My goal is to have footage digitized and a showreel of highlights put together by Thanksgiving.

More updates soon.
David