Where is Create Change at?

So I just thought I'd pop up a wee update on how the Create Change project is coming along so that you dont all think I'm just out here on a holiday! Since we returned to Tamale in late December Shannen and I have been working pretty much flat out (apart from last week when I went to see some wild elephants-more about that soon) to edit all of the video footage which we have captured thusfar.

We currently have quite a large bank of footage but because we are hoping to produce over 20 short films we are still a few weeks filming away from having enough footage. So my work at the moment consists of conducting interviews with a range of local people which has so far included characters such as the local chemical seller aswell as numerous school childrens' parents. Besides interviewing I also have to get alot of footage from the local rural villages where we are working. Just this morning I found myself knee deep in a watering hole near Kpaumo filming women and girls collecting water.

In this case we are putting together a short film about the water situation in their village which sees them drinking this dirty water from the dam, resulting in health problems such as guinea worm among the villagers. Its pretty shocking to see the condition of the water (so filthy I had reservations about walking into it!) ... and the amount of work which the women and young girls are expected to do to ferry it back to the village in barrels on their heads. Its the start of the dry season now and in the coming months this water source will dry up completely forcing the women to search for water in the countryside which can sometimes take upwards of 6 hours per day.

Through the video which we are making we hope to raise money to build a borehole in the village of Kpaumo which will provide the village with a source of clean drinking water year round. This will have obvious benefits such as the eradication of guinea worm infestation but will also result in lowering the workload placed on schoolgirls on a daily basis so that instead of carrying water for 2 hours every evening after school they might get some time to study using all those text books which we bought them at the start of the project last year!

So the next few weeks will see things continuing in the same vein...out in the field filming during the day (trying my best to get some semblance of shade from the ~40deg heat!) and then uploading and editing the footage in the evenings. Not a bad way to spend February I suppose! And after that...well thats material enough for another blog posting... !