http://viewchange.org Videos from ViewChange.org (Filtered by topics: Earthquake) en-us Tue, 10 Apr 2012 09:03:00 +0000 Copyright 2011 Link Media, Inc. http://www.viewchange.org/videos/the-health-show-spinal-rehab Leon suffered a devastating spinal injury when his house collapsed on him in during the 2010 Haiti earthquake. But thanks to the Haiti Hospital Appeal, which helps rehabilitate patients with spinal cord injuries, he is beginning to stand on his own feet again. Tue, 10 Apr 2012 09:03:00 +0000 http://www.viewchange.org/videos/the-health-show-spinal-rehab Haiti, Health, Spinal cord injury, Disability, Cap-Haïtien, Earthquake, Port-au-Prince, Rockhopper, The Health Show >> TITLE: The Health Show >> VOICEOVER: Leon Ginsly works tirelessly. He won't stop. >> HANNA: Keep going, okay? >> VOICEOVER: He has energy and determination. Leon wants to get stronger. >> HANNA: You're okay? Fatigue? >> LEON GINSLY: No, no, I'm not tired. >> VOICEOVER: Leon is disabled. He suffered a serious spinal cord injury when his house collapsed during the earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people in Haiti in January 2010. >> LEON GINSLY: The house started shaking. It collapsed. Everyone died, including my wife and eight children. I was the only one that survived. >> VOICEOVER: Leon was left unable to stand up or walk, his wounds infected. Homeless and disabled, the staff at the Haiti Hospital Appeal has looked after Leon. >> DR. PAUL TOUSSAINT [Medical Director, Haiti Hospital, Cap-Haitien]: Most of our patients were depressed when they arrived here. The first step was to rebuild their confidence, the second step was to heal their wounds, to get them back on their feet, through rehabilitation. >> VOICEOVER: Now, Leon can stand up. He can even take small steps by himself. But when he stumbles, it's a reminder that his injury is still holding him back. It's the intensive physiotherapy that has helped Leon make so much progress. >> NURSE: Leon, you have to lift your foot to touch my hand. Hold it, hold it, lift it, and lift it even more. >> VOICEOVER: Leon completes a demanding session every day. >> NURSE: Since you arrived, do you think you have made progress? >> LEON GINSLY: When I came here, I was almost dead, I couldn't move. But the hard work that I have done here has made me very strong. I am getting stronger every day. >> VOICEOVER: His progress, and that of his fellow patients, has surpassed everyone's expectations. This hospital was originally designed as a maternity hospital. Now it's known locally as the Haiti Hospital Appeal, after the British charity that supports it. After the earthquake, it took in twenty-five survivors with severe spinal cord injuries. >> CARWYN HILL [Chief Executive, Haiti Hospital Appeal]: Specialists from abroad and people within Haiti thought that at least 50 percent would pass away. 24 of them have been successfully rehabilitated, of them 19 have returned to their communities and we've been able to re-house about 80 percent of them. >> VOICEOVER: Inclusion is encouraged through sports and games, regardless of the level of a patient's disability. Relatives and staff take part too. These activities keep them strong, motivated, and entertained. As for Leon, the strength he has found through his rehabilitation has turned his life around. He has begun a new journey, to become a disabled athlete and fulfill a dream for himself and his fellow Haitians. >> LEON GINSLY: I want to participate in the Olympic games in England. I would like to be part of the games. I am getting ready and working hard so that the world realizes where I come from and what I have been through. http://www.viewchange.org/videos/making-money-mobile Capturing the game-changing power of cellular telephones to deliver financial services to the poor in earthquake ravaged Haiti, teams are building on models developed in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa. This film highlights the potential of low-cost cellular technology to serve the poor. Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:27:00 +0000 http://www.viewchange.org/videos/making-money-mobile Haiti, Technology, Mobile payment, Microfinance, Poverty reduction, USAID, Kenya, Earthquake, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Sundance Institute >> TITLE: Produced by Highest Common Denominator Media Group. Produced in association with the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. >> TITLE: Making Money Mobile>> TITLE: Eighty percent of Haitians live in poverty, subject to natural and man-made disasters. The catastrophic earthquake of January 12, 2010 throws Haiti's fragile economy into chaos.>> MAN: The situation is very bad, it's very bad.>> KOKOEVI SOUSSUVI [Economic Recovery Program Manager, Mercy Corps]: When the earthquake happened I made a personal decision to come to Haiti. I lost a very dear friend of mine in the earthquake and I'd made a promise to him that one day I would come, and I had no other choice than coming here now, to hold that promise. After the earthquake, a number of branches, bank branches were closed, or some of them even collapsed. People could not get access to their own cash, cash they needed to protect themselves against the disaster, to buy food, medicine, water. So cash-based interventions were relevant in the context of Haiti. With a purely cash-based economy, we know that people have a very short-term view.>> GEORGETTE JEAN-LOUIS [Chief Financial Officer, Fonkoze Microfinance Institution]: Our credit agents, sometimes they have to go by foot, and sometimes we are very high in the mountains, so we have to walk.>> CLAUDE CLODOMIR [Deputy Chief of Party for USAID/HIFIVE]: The number one issue is violence, it's crime. We know for a fact that these women who actually make the majority of street vendors get money taken away from them.>> GEORGETTE JEAN-LOUIS: These people, they can be robbed, they can be killed, they can be kidnapped.>> PRIYA JAISINGHANI [Senior Advisor to the Administrator for USAID]: One woman was paying a gang member USD$20 a day to keep her safe.>> MAN: I think life is not good at all for us, for almost all of us.>> TITLE: In the midst of this chaos, cellular service continued to function.>> PIERRE LIAUTAUD [VP Product Development, Voila]: Cell phones save lives. A number of people who were recovered underneath the rubble were able to text their exact location in the house. >> TITLE: There are 6.8 billion people living on the planet. Nearly 5 billion of them use a cell phone.>> CLAUDE CLODOMIR: People have cell phone service and needed these financial transactions. The economy was moving, but they needed to be facilitated and mobile banking became evident as a result of the earthquake. >> KOKOEVI SOUSSUVI: Mobile phone penetration in Haiti is really significant, about 85 percent of Haitians own a phone.>> PIERRE LIAUTAUD: Without cell phones in Haiti there is no communication. It's not a luxury; it's a basic need of survival.>> STEPHANE BRUNO [Senior Technology Advisor for USAID/HIFIVE]: Since this device is already in the hands of the majority of the population, it makes sense to use it also for financial services.>> KOKOEVI SOUSSUVI: You have a very strong platform for mobile banking to succeed: mobile payments, transfer from one person to the next, from one side of the country to the other, and international remittances. >> CLAUDE CLODOMIR: Mobile banking is basically allowing someone to do a banking transaction via telephone.>> PIERRE LIAUTAUD: Clearly the technology exists to allow a country like Haiti to become a cashless country.>> CHARLES CASTEL [Governor, Central Bank of Haiti]: It is part of the initiative to enfranchise the disenfranchised.>> PRIYA JAISINGHANI: And we've seen that it can work, we've seen in Kenya where there's a service called Mpesa. There are more than 10 million clients now using their cell phone to save money and to transact with one another. It's the silver lining in a devastating situation.>> WOMAN: I need to add minutes to my phone.>> KOKOEVI SOUSSUVI: Mobile payments are important because, in a country like Haiti, there are only two bank branches for about 160,000 people.>> MAN: When I have to cash a check, you have to come to the bank, and the lines are so long and so slow.>> PRIYA JAISINGHANI: You might have a woman who has some extra money, and she wants to hide it -- hide it from her husband, hide it from herself -- by buying a goat. But, when she needs just a few dollars, you can't just sell half the goat, you have to sell the whole goat, so it can be an illiquid and expensive way of saving money.>> PIERRE LIAUTAUD: If all my money is in cash and it's not in the bank, where is it? In my mattress? What happens if my house burns down?>> KOKOEVI SOUSSUVI: So linking cash-based intervention and mobile banking is taking this relief effort one step further because as we do this we also educate people to make the most of financial services.>> TITLE: Mobile money training session>> KOKOEVI SOUSSUVI: We are right in the middle of phone distribution, just about ready to begin the training on how to use the mobile phone to receive payment after a heavy cash-for-work day.>> PIERRE LIAUTAUD: She's never had a phone before and I said, "You'll learn fast," and she said, "Yes, yes, yes.">> STEPHANE BRUNO: It's really a tool that the government can use to improve the quality of its services to the citizen.>> KOKOEVI SOUSSUVI: So by using the mobile technology we can actually bank outside the bank.>> CLAUDE CLODOMIR: The benefit to someone, a poor person having savings -- it reduces their economic vulnerability; they are able to plan out expenses and invest in their small businesses.>> WOMAN: For me, saving is great because I don't need to have the cash right away but it's there for me whenever I need it.>> KOKOEVI SOUSSUVI: People are amazing, they are really getting it. They are really using their phone to test out the power of mobile money.>> MAN: This is a tool that is going to be very good for us all.>> KOKOEVI SOUSSUVI: We are there, right at the beginning of it. You know, we're the first one doing it. I mean, this is the best idea we've ever had.>> PIERRE LIAUTAUD: I will bet that, one year from now, we will have seen the greatest success of mobile money in the world in Haiti. >> KOKOEVI SOUSSUVI: It's going to be great.>> TITLE: [end credits]>> TITLE: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2010 launched a USD$10 million incentive fund to jumpstart financial services by mobile phone in Haiti. This initiative is helping deliver cash assistance to earthquake victims and lays the foundations for advanced banking services that could help millions of Haitians lift themselves out of extreme poverty. http://www.viewchange.org/videos/unicef-radio-links-haitian-families-to-life-saving-aid A cacophony of songs and radio reports drift from the tented camp; thousands of radios are providing entertainment and, more importantly, information. A UNICEF Public Service Announcement on nutrition blares out of several radios tuned into Port-au-Prince's Radio One. The station is one of many that work with Internews, an organization that is distributing information to earthquake victims. Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:04:00 +0000 http://www.viewchange.org/videos/unicef-radio-links-haitian-families-to-life-saving-aid Haiti, Earthquake, Internews, Technology, Media, Foreign Assistance, Port-au-Prince, Radio broadcasting, UNICEF >> VOICEOVER: You're watching UNICEF Television. Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, lies hidden under a cloud of dust. A massive relief effort is underway, but without information, the aid is useless to many of those most in need. But UNICEF and other aid organizations have been working with Internews to distribute valuable information to the country's devastated population.>> JACOBO QUINTANILLA [Humanitarian Coordinator, Internews Emergency Response]: In any emergency, the first priority is the delivery of critical aid. But communities need more than that: they also need information. It's critical for them to know where they can get water, where they can get certain facilities, how to access those medical centers. Is it safe to go home? Where is my family? How can I get in touch with the people I love? That's why information is critical and why information can save lives. >> VOICEOVER: Working with local journalists, the organization produces daily radio programs relevant to the disaster-affected communities. Johnny is one of these journalists. Each day he takes to the streets and in this case, the camps of displaced, to find out what the challenges are and whether people are getting the help they need.>> JOHNNY CESAR [Journalist, Internews]: Today I went to one of the biggest camps in Port-au-Prince. We're trying to find out how these people are living, are they able to get food, and are they able to get water. That was the story here for today. >> VOICEOVER: Internews works with 23 radio stations in Port-au-Prince that together cover the entire country. The daily radio show is packaged alongside public service announcements from UNICEF and other organizations. >> ELIZABETH AUGUSTIN [UNICEF Communications for Development, Haiti]: This is an opportunity for us to gather information on health, mostly for hygiene, also HIV/AIDS, to remind people about HIV/AIDS prevention and what they can do to get their medication and also nutrition, especially for breastfeeding. So we've been sharing our messages that we prepared with the Ministry of Health, and they broadcast them for us freely.>> VOICEOVER: CDs are printed and the programs delivered by hand to radio stations and hit the airwaves within minutes. To ensure the information is received, Internews is distributing thousands of handheld radios to the same radio stations that broadcast their show. The stations in turn sign an agreement to distribute the radios to those most in need; women-headed households and people displaced by the quake. The radios are wind up, solar powered, can be tuned in to multiple frequencies, and double as a torch, which means those living in the camps, those that have lost everything, will always be able to tune in. >> JOHNNY CESAR: We see that in many camps, around the tents, people are using the small radio now to get the show.>> VOICEOVER: As clearing and reconstruction efforts begin, it is vital that those who have survived the quake get the information and thus the help they need to survive the next step. This is Guy Hubbard reporting for UNICEF Television. Unite for children. http://www.viewchange.org/videos/new-zealand-pacific-guest-workers <p>While most industrialized nations are trying to prevent economic migrants from crossing their borders, New Zealand has quietly opened its door to thousands of seasonal guest workers from five Pacific Island nations. Not only are Kiwi businesses happy to have the extra labor, but also worker remittances go directly to where they're needed most: poor villages on islands such as Vanuatu and Tonga.</p> Wed, 06 Oct 2010 00:06:00 +0000 http://www.viewchange.org/videos/new-zealand-pacific-guest-workers Vanuatu, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Guest workers, Farmworker, Foreign worker, Migrant worker, Australia, Emigration, Fruit picking >> TITLE: Pacific Guest Workers >> VOICEOVER: The Pacific Dawn slides into Vanuatu's Port Vila harbor. Onboard are 2,000 mainly Australian passengers. Local traders frantically prepare for the onslaught. The visitors will spend AUD$400,000 dollars in just eight hours in port. But there's one hard economic reality: despite this weekly splash of cash by the cruise ships, Vanuatu cannot survive on tourism alone. A couple of years ago, an international survey declared Vanuatu to be the happiest place on earth -- and while it may be so, when you move away from the cruise ships and all the tourist trinkets here, you find a very different country. By western standards, Vanuatu and many other South Pacific island states are nations in poverty. Here, only one in five people have access to electricity. If you want basic healthcare or any form of education, you have to pay for it. And, like many other countries in this region, people living in the outer islands and villages are being drawn to the city in search of work to pay for these services. The only problem is there are no jobs to be had. Twenty-seven-year-old Rene Nimisa is acutely aware that he lives in a world of haves and have-nots. Like thousands of others, Rene can't find steady work. Up in the hills in the shanty settlements behind town, he takes us to his family compound. >> INTERVIEWER: How many people live here? >> RENE NIMISA: I think 20. >> VOICEOVER: A decade ago his parents sent him here from his home island of Tanna, investing the family savings so he could finish high school, get a job, and support his clan. His wife Gloria works six days a week serving tourists in a cafe. >> GLORIA NIMISA: It's too hard ... it's too expensive to live here. >> VOICEOVER: They can't even afford to keep the family together. One of their two daughters lives with grandparents back on Tanna. Rene wants more than this for his family, but there's never enough money. >> RENE NIMISA: This is my house. >> VOICEOVER: But now there's hope. For first time in his life, the chance of a real job. Rene has been offered seasonal work picking fruit as part of a new guest worker scheme in New Zealand. He doesn't understand the details, but hopes for the best. >> RENE NIMISA: I won't feel good. I'll feel sad. But I have to go -- it's work. We need the money, and when the children grow up they'll need clothing, education, and food. The money will help. >> SIGN: Maximillions >> VOICEOVER: At the local club and casino, the guest workers anxiously await a briefing. >> DICK EADE [Labor Contractor]: Okay, well welcome everybody. Nice to see you all here. We'll have a roll call ... >> VOICEOVER: Kiwi expatriate Dick Eade is a contractor, hiring teams for New Zealand's bold experiment in labor mobility. >> DICK EADE: So I'm going to speak to you in English today, because when you get down there, everybody will speak English. The tax on NZD$750 ... >> VOICEOVER: Taxation, rent, fund transfers, even New Zealand's cold weather -- there's a bewildering amount of information to absorb. The men also learn that they're making history. Facing chronic labor shortages, last year New Zealand took 400 Pacific islanders in a trial scheme called the Recognized Seasonal Employer program, or RSE. It's been such a huge success that this year, 5,000 workers from here, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Tonga, the Solomons, and Samoa are all headed to the "Slice of Heaven". They can stay for seven months a year and will be paid the award rate of NZD$12 an hour -- the same as a New Zealand casual laborer. For these men, it's a fortune. >> DICK EADE: NZD$12 an hour in New Zealand is 900 vatu [VUV] here. Now 900 vatu is one day's pay here, minimum. So they're earning in one hour what they would earn in one day here. >> VOICEOVER: The beauty of this scheme is that remittances go directly to the villagers, bypassing the region's notoriously corrupt and incompetent governments. Lionel Kaluat is Vanuatu's Labor Commissioner. Without a guest worker scheme, he sees a bleak future. He's watched the civil unrest in neighboring Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and worries that expectations of the younger generation will not be met. Already, 10,000 high school students graduate every year, with high hopes but little chance of employment. Eight hundred Ni-Vanuatu are now working in New Zealand, but he wants to send 5,000 abroad. >> INTERVIEWER: Is this, in one sense, a substitute for foreign aid? >> LIONEL KALUAT [Labor Commissioner, Vanuatu]: Definitely. It's going to become the second biggest income earner for foreign income for Vanuatu. If we grow this seasonal worker [program] to an extent where we get up to 5,000 workers, you're looking at probably leading the table in the foreign income exchange, apart from the tourism. >> SIGN: Short flight to the bright lights: fly to Brisbane and beyond with Pacific Blue >> VOICEOVER: Soon, workers may also be heading for the bright lights of Australia. For decades, the idea of Pacific guest workers has been taboo in Canberra due to fears of illegal overstayers and the creation of a permanent underclass. But now the new Australian Government is closely examining the New Zealand model. While Rene and the other laborers ultimately dream of working in Australia, they're wary of the past. This is a culture with a rich oral tradition, and everyone knows the story of when the white man first came from Australia. Arriving not as tourists, but as kidnappers -- the so-called "blackbirders". From the 1860s, more than 60,000 islanders were taken to cut sugarcane in Queensland. The elders remind Rene that some went willingly, but others were forced to leave at gunpoint. >> ELDER: When the elders went out fishing at night with a torch, they came ashore in a small boat and grabbed them. They were yelling out, but they were already taken to the ship. >> RENE NIMISA: Can we trust the white man now, that they won't do what they did before? >> ELDER: I hope the white man will pay you well and look after you, and then you come back here with money and you help your home and island. >> VOICEOVER: The big day has arrived: it's time for Dick Eade's team to leave for New Zealand. >> DICK EADE: There's a lot of joking business going on. I get called a blackbirder, which I deny and say I'm not, I'm a white birder. >> VOICEOVER: For Rene, the excitement is tinged with sadness. He'll be away for seven months before returning to carve out his little slice of heaven for his family. Pacific Islanders and Asians have been working in small ad hoc programs in New Zealand for 30 years, many illegally. What's changed drastically is the scale and organization of this scheme. >> SIGN: Welcome to NZ our Vanuatu orchard staff >> CLIVE EXELBY [Fruit Packing Manager]: How are you? Welcome to New Zealand. We welcome you even though you wear an Aussie shirt! >> VOICEOVER: Now in New Zealand there's a big emphasis on what's called "pastoral care." And that's the job of Clive Exelby, manager of Aongatete Coolstores, a company specializing in picking and packing kiwi fruit. >> CLIVE EXELBY: From the moment that they land in New Zealand we have to make sure -- we don't have to necessarily pay for, or provide for everything -- but we have to make sure that every need is taken care of. >> VOICEOVER: There's a quick introduction to New Zealand's culinary delights, then a drive to the small township of Katikati, on the North Island's "Bay of Plenty". Home for the next seven months will be this caravan park. The workers get their first hard lesson in the user-pays economy. >> CLIVE EXELBY: This is a shower with a NZD$2 slot for the water that you'll get. Nice warm water. Alternative? Just over here there's a cold stream. You can swim in the cold stream if you want to. Not for me, but you might like it. >> VOICEOVER: And there will be other costs: the men will have to repay half of their airfare, and fork out for power, food, and lodgings. >> CLIVE EXELBY: There are six vans that you will occupy and you know which three are going in this van, three in the next one. You only have one key, one chance ... >> VOICEOVER: The vans are small, and will be extremely cold in the New Zealand winter, but there are no complaints from Rene. >> RENE NIMISA: Are there devil spirits here? No devil here? >> MAN: No devil here. >> INTERVIEWER: What do you think? >> RENE NIMISA: Very good, very good. >> CLIVE EXELBY: We are audited on accommodation. New Zealand immigration people will come to make sure that we've complied, we're providing suitable accommodation for these people. It also means that we have to provide transport to and from the workplace, and ability to get to cultural activities: taking them to church on Sundays, all those types of things. >> VOICEOVER: Clive Exelby takes his pastoral duties seriously. It turns out he's a former pastor of this evangelical church. But his team also has a few surprises. Of the 16 men, three are also Christian pastors. They've discreetly signed on as laborers to check out the scheme before recommending it to their congregations back home. While most of the team get in the spirit of things, Rene's not so sure. Monday morning, and it's down to business: the gentle art of picking kiwi fruit. New Zealand horticulture depends on 40,000 seasonal workers each year. Finding staff was a near-impossible task: extremely low unemployment, unreliable backpacker labor, and a steady exodus of New Zealanders to Australia. The Pacific RSE scheme, says Clive Exelby, was born out of necessity. >> CLIVE EXELBY: The alternatives aren't worth bearing or even thinking about. If you can't pack the fruit, what are you going to do? You can't get the work done. I mean, the grower's losing, we as a company are going to lose, and New Zealand as a country would lose a tremendous amount of money. >> VOICEOVER: Across the Tasman in Australia, labor shortages are costing fruit and vegetable producers AUD$700 million a year in lost productivity. >> WOMAN: So, in here, you could probably pick two fruit at once, like that. >> VOICEOVER: But here, the horticultural industry now has ambitious plans to nearly double production over the next five years, all on the back of the RSE scheme. >> CLIVE EXELBY: There is 25,000 people in the Pacific alone who could come onto the workplace, both men and women, at any time, and so our 5,000 are just really scraping the surface, you know? >> VOICEOVER: One of the strongest arguments against guest worker schemes around the world is the contentious issue of illegal overstayers. New Zealand's solution? Laborers are the employer's responsibility, the logic being that a happy, well-paid guest worker is more likely to play by the rules and go home at the end of the contract. >> CLIVE EXELBY: So after their seven-month period here, we have to guarantee that they hop on the plane and go home. Otherwise we will have to pay New Zealand immigration up to $3,000 per person for them to find them in New Zealand and to put them out of the country. >> VOICEOVER: Still, there have been problems. On the streets of Auckland we join Melino Maka of the Tongan Advisory Council. He says most of the 50,000 Tongans in New Zealand live around here in the southern suburbs of Auckland. There are now also several hundred Tongan RSE guest workers in the country. Tonight, he's looking for one who's quit his job and is now wanted by the authorities. >> MELINO MAKA [New Zealand Tongan Advisory Council]: I said think about your family and what is best for you. Organize yourself to go back home before they deport you. Once they pick you up, you know, you're gone. >> VOICEOVER: We find Saia 'Aholelei living in the garage of a suburban home. He claims he was hired under false pretences by another kiwi fruit company, brought in at the end of the picking season and only paid for the few days worked each week. >> MELINO MAKA: By the time they take all their expenses sometimes it's less than a hundred, sometimes you get two hundred. Plus their living conditions were smaller than this for five of them, and they pay $1,000 a fortnight. >> REPORTER: A thousand a fortnight? >> MELINO MAKA: Yes, for a room about same or smaller than this, for five of them living in it. >> VOICEOVER: Saia 'Aholelei refuses to leave, but if immigration find him, he risks being deported and never being allowed back into the country. Another team of disillusioned Tongan workers has already quit and gone home. It's a fine line between opportunity and exploitation. Even the Tongans admit that Vanuatu has done a much better job at hiring workers. Back in Vanuatu, recruiter Dick Eade is on his way to check up on one of his successes. >> DICK EADE: Hey Johnny! Welcome back, good to see you. >> VOICEOVER: Johnny Taleo is just back from four months of strawberry picking near Auckland. He's returned with NZD$6,000, the equivalent of three years' wages in Vanuatu. That's if he could ever find a job. >> JOHNNY TALEO [RSE Worker]: This I built with the money from New Zealand when I came back, yes. And, let's see, material, I just got it again for extension of my house. >> DICK EADE: On the other end, >> JOHNNY TALEO: The other end, yes. I got the cement, I got the timber here, already got some iron roofs, here. >> DICK EADE: So this is the house that strawberries built? >> JOHNNY TALEO: Yeah, that's the house that strawberries build. Yeah, all my house strawberries. >> VOICEOVER: Here it's difficult to see any losers with this scheme. The results for these villagers are tangible. >> DICK EADE: It's like the ripples in the pond. It's that one guy that I'm sending, but he's influencing or having an effect on a whole ring of people like the ripples in a pond. Maybe one person is having an effect on 10 or 20 people back here, and it's good to see. >> VOICEOVER: Over the decades, Australian and New Zealand officials have poured billions of aid dollars into the troubled Pacific region, often with questionable results. Perhaps this simple labor program may finally provide a true course to that elusive "Pacific solution." >> TITLE: [end credits] http://www.viewchange.org/videos/health-delivery-png-style <p>They walk for days through the highlands of Papua New Guinea, carrying a pack full of supplies, through rivers, knee-deep mud, and mountain passes. But they're not a group of Australian tourist trekkers; they're a group of very committed PNG health workers going to see their patients. And they're being funded as part of Australia's development program in PNG.</p> Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:42:00 +0000 http://www.viewchange.org/videos/health-delivery-png-style Papua New Guinea, Healthcare, AusAID, Australia, Kokoda Track, Jungle, Rural area, Paramedic, Hospital, Health >> VOICEOVER: Kokoda is synonymous with Second World War battles and the starting point for trekkers on the famous track, but it's also home base for one of the most dedicated medical teams on Earth. Led by a paramedic, when this group of health workers hits the road, a four-wheel drive takes them only to the edge of the jungle. The rest is done on foot, carrying medical supplies and equipment to the villagers. There are no roads in this part of the world, and the team can spend up to a fortnight away. Neighboring villages are not exactly close together. Getting from one to another takes time. >> LEON SIME [Medical Team Leader]: About two days' walk, that would be the longest. Just by walking, we come to the last village. >> VOICEOVER: The highlands of Papua New Guinea are so vast and so rugged, logistics and a lack of trained medical personnel combine to make this task enormously challenging. >> LEON SIME: Sometimes we don't visit a particular village for years, some it's about two or three years we haven't gone in, because I don't have the manpower. >> VOICEOVER: Not surprisingly, greetings when they do arrive at any village are very enthusiastic. There's little in the way of privacy for patients. It's like a social occasion as examinations are carried out in the full glare of those in the waiting room. Medicines are dispensed and children immunized, a process undertaken with such professionalism, it almost masks the underlying problems of healthcare in these remote communities. >> LEON SIME: Every day we've seen a case of malaria, so malaria is still a common problem in here, and respiratory diseases like pneumonia, asthma, bronchitis. >> REPORTER: Apart from the obvious difficulties encountered in servicing these remote areas, there's the problem of supplying vaccines. They need to be administered within 48 hours of refrigeration, and there are no cooling facilities out here. So a runner is dispatched between the teams in the field and the hospital. Sometimes that can be a day in either direction. Nevertheless the program is delivering positive results. Health outcomes are almost impossible to measure but the barometer of patient satisfaction is definitely rising. >> MICHAEL LUCAS [Kanga Village Leader]: I think the services, what AusAID is bringing in our ward, it's ... I see that they are very happy. >> JOHN DAIRE [Ebei Village Leader]: If this program continues, maybe our health problems in here will be reduced >> VOICEOVER: Some villagers are being trained as in-house educators, providing the latest health messages, attempting to overcome centuries of reliance on traditional treatment for diseases like TB and malaria. >> JOHN DAIRE: The traditional belief ... they believe that it's caused by sorcery, witchcraft. >> VOICEOVER: Some other traditional methods: this demonstration of patient transport highlighting difficulties faced by the sick and injured, unable to walk to the hospital. >> LEON SIME: Sometimes with a sick patient they carry them halfway and then the patient dies, so they have to turn back again. >> VOICEOVER: Even stretchers are of little use during the wet season. River crossings become too dangerous between December and March, and the health team is confined to home base. >> LEON SIME: In the wet season when someone's very sick it's difficult to bring them into hospital, so they stay there. They died, most of them. >> VOICEOVER: Despite all the adversity, healthcare delivery comes with complete dedication and care. The only frustration, it seems, is the enormity of the task. >> LEON SIME: We can't go out there into the villages and see everybody and talk to everybody. It's impossible for us. >> VOICEOVER: The outreach program represents only a fraction of the total commitment to health in Papua New Guinea by the Australian and PNG governments, and to these villagers a visit from the medical team is a gift beyond measure. http://www.viewchange.org/videos/unicef2_8312_china_child <p>UNICEF and the Chinese government have set up 40 child-friendly centers in the area devastated by the Sichuan earthquake in May 2008. These provide safe, protective environments to help children recover from their traumas through play and creative expression.&nbsp;</p> Fri, 04 Jun 2010 17:16:13 +0000 http://www.viewchange.org/videos/unicef2_8312_china_child Sichuan, Earthquake, Child, 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, UNICEF, Kindergarten, Han Chinese, Foreign Assistance, Family >> VOICEOVER: At a resettlement center in one of the hardest-hit areas of Sichuan province, six-year-old Doudou spends her days riding her bicycle, or singing and dancing with other children. For her, it has been a long road toward recovery. She lost both her parents in the quake that struck in May 2008, and now lives under the care of her grandfather. >> GRANDFATHER: The earthquake ruined everything that our family owned. At that time Doudou missed her parents very much. She didn't want to eat. When she went to bed at night, she cried for her father and mother. >> VOICEOVER: When a special center for children opened near her home, Doudou slowly began to find comfort in songs and games with other children. >> GRANDFATHER: With the community's help, conditions have slowly gotten better. Plus, she has learned to attend kindergarten, and plays when we take out the toys. >> VOICEOVER: This is one of 40 centers set up across the earthquake zone by UNICEF and the Chinese government, providing safe, protective environments where children can interact and develop through play and creative expression. The effects of last year's quake are still taking a toll on families throughout the region. The "Child-Friendly Space initiative" aims to give children the psychological and emotional support they need to recover from the trauma and also prepare for a new start in life. Parents and teachers say they've noticed a dramatic change in children's behavior over the past year. The manager of a child-friendly space in Feishui township, Tang Xiaoping, says the children's emotional progress can be seen from how their drawings have changed since the aftermath of the quake. >> TANG XIAOPING [Feishui Child-Friendly Space]: Our first activity here was to have the children to draw what was in their minds. One boy drew a capsized boat; a girl drew buildings falling and people running in the streets. This year, we again invited children to paint pictures, and now you see colorful balloons and smiling faces. >> VOICEOVER: The child-friendly spaces offer not only emotional aid to children, but support adults as well. >> HE LIPING [Leigu Township All China Women's Federation]: I lost my own daughter in the earthquake, and I was very sad for the first couple of months. But now I work here and I am with children every day, I feel happier. It is like when I see them, I can see her. >> VOICEOVER: A space for songs and smiles -- also a haven for healing.