Heart of the Congo
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
In the heart of the Congo, at the end of a war, a handful of aid workers help refugees who have lost everything. They mobilize villagers to dig wells for clean water, train health workers, and nurse children with acute malnutrition back to health. They are confronted with threats of violence from roving militias, systemic corruption, and a legacy of colonial dependency. And there are times when it is very clear that these workers exist apart from those they aim to help, benefiting from services and luxuries of the modern world that are beyond the reach of the rural Congolese.
In spite of this the Congolese and European aid workers struggle to encourage the will of the people, and build the skills necessary, for a self-sufficient future. HEART OF THE CONGO is a film about courage, hope, and perseverance.
'Most of the images we see from Congo are of death and destruction...but this unusual film shows us something else as well: the process of trying to help a community rebuild. With uncommon honesty and no sentimentality, it shows both the difficulties and the absolute necessity of creative humanitarian aid projects in a country recovering from catastrophe.' -Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost
'Having lived and worked in Democratic Republic of Congo as an humanitarian aid worker I could identify with everything portrayed. The juxtaposing of Congolese and expatriate perspectives and also of historic and current events, has brought us a very real vision of the trials and tribulations of humanitarian intervention.' -Andrew McKenna, United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs, Kinshasa
'Heart of the Congo represents the incredible challenges and hardships facing the Congolese in light of impacts of ongoing war and the legacy of a brutal colonialism. The film lays a great foundation for a further dialogue about international aid, and the necessary support for structural changes within the Congo. The Congolese know that only through courage and perseverance on a day to day basis can true progress be made.' -Katie Sternfels, Grantmakers Without Borders
'Heart of the Congo accurately captures the real lives and the personal stories of the people working in international development in Africa, both the foreign nationals and the local people. It tells those stories in the context of the larger cultural and political realities and manages to tell a story that finds good reason for hope, endurance and perseverance in a hard situation.' -Kevin Jones, The Anglican Malaria Project
'Heart of the Congo is a stirring film..[It] subtly brings into focus the problems of communication that are inherent in humanitarian aid projects as well as all the difficulties of joint action within a militarily unstable region.' -Pierre Petit, Centre d'anthropologie, l'Universite Libre de Bruxelles
'Tom Weidlinger asks the right question about an international aid group in the Congo, and by implication all do-gooders everywhere, and that is how to they get the recipients of their largesse to take back their destinies after they have gone? This heartwarming but unsentimental documentary suggests an answer to that tantalizing question.' -Phillip Fradkin, author and former foreign correspondent of the LA Times
'Heart of the Congo is a clear-eyed examination of humanitarian aid in action...There are no quick fixes here, just slow, necessary steps toward a more hopeful future.' -Dave Gilson, Mother Jones magazine
'The film effectively illustrates the practical and sociological difficulties of laying the groundwork for independence in a developing country, and gives the humanitarian workers an opportunity to explain why they continue such work in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Heart of the Congo is suitable for college-level collections supporting studies of the Congo's struggle to establish a peaceful and productive society in the aftermath of civil war, or more generally of humanitarian aid in Africa.' Educational Media Reviews Online
Citation
Main credits
Weidlinger, Tom (screenwriter)
Weidlinger, Tom (film director)
Weidlinger, Tom (film producer)
Weidlinger, Tom (narrator)
Gosling, Maureen (editor of moving image work)
Bogas, Edward (composer)
Galinda, Guillermo (composer)
Other credits
Editor, Maureen Gosling; original music, Ed Bogas, Guillermo Galinda.
Distributor subjects
African Studies; Anthropology; Conflict Resolution; Developing World; Ethics; Geography; Global Issues; Health; Humanities; Hunger; International Aid; International Studies; Migration and Refugees; Multicultural Studies; Poverty; Sociology; War and PeaceKeywords
WEBVTT
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[sil.]
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You see how… how many problems they have
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but big, big problems, and they
just go on, and go on, and go on.
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[sil.]
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Many things were different for
my, what I was mentioning.
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But it was what I was looking for
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to learn, learn a lot.
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[music]
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Between 1998 and 2003,
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three and a half million people died.
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And what has come to be known
as Africa’s First World War.
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Seven African nations sent soldiers
into the Democratic Republic of Congo,
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a country as large as wall of Europe.
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In the fight for the control of the
country, the lies of one and three people
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were directly impacted by
violence, hunger, and disease.
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Though the war is officially over,
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the eastern Congo is still unstable
the remain local armed bands
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who call themselves Mai-Mai.
Here it was pretty crazy.
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When the soldiers suspect there are
Mai-Mai hiding in the village,
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they’ve burned all the houses.
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Also when the my might come to
a village, they will burn it.
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Then they go into the fields and make
the villagers destroy their crops,
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so there will be no food
to give to the soldiers.
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[music]
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In the wake of these events, International
Aid Organization Action Against Hunger
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is helping people get back on their feet.
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David, Mariona,
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and other European expatriates
work with a Congolese team.
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I think that for the expats
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the most difficult problem
is understanding the context
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because this country has
its highs and its lows.
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We are used to this. But we see that the expats
are not used to living in such circumstances.
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Maybe one day they will say
we’re tired of these people.
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We don’t know how to live with them.
And they will leave.
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We can’t always be beggars action against
hunger is not here for very long.
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One of these days they
will have to go home.
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We must learn how to
manage our own affairs.
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When they leave, we, the local Congolese
can take charge of the programs
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that they leave us.
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In this film, we follow three stories
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tracing the progress of three programs
to provide food for children,
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health clinics, and clean water.
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[music]
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We have come here today to Cabasa because we’re
going to build a well next to the health center.
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We know that here there are many
problems with the water supply.
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Here a lot of sickness is
caused by drinking bad water.
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[non-English narration]
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If in the villages,
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we can explain how they can improve their
life with what is available right here.
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Things will go very, very well.
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When I meet with village leaders,
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I say to them if three quarters of your
people are sick, they won’t be productive.
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But if your people are strong, they will work
hard and respond to the needs of the village.
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If we make a traditional well,
the community can copy.
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And maybe there will be one brave person who
will say, \"I’m going to build my well too.\"
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When they heard that action against
hunger was going to dig a well,
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they asked themselves, \"Who
has performed this miracle?\"
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He said, \"God is with us.\"
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He must have heard our play that is to say,
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\"No, one expected us in Kabozya.
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[music]
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Tending to cases of acute malnutrition
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is a first step on the
road back to normal life.
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With kwashiorkor malnutrition
one sees bilateral edema
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that start at the feet and then move
to the legs and even to the face.
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If you press the edema,
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and the skin stays indented,
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then you know you have a kwashiorkor case.
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It’s because of our suffering that
I came here. Since I had no money,
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I sold some of our things including my
wife’s clothes but it was not enough.
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I decided to come to the hospital
so the child can be treated.
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[sil.]
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[non-English narration]
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To be at this hospital is to
obey the rules of this hospital.
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[non-English narration] While
your children are here,
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they must drink only milk,
no other kind of food.
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One of the mothers had the
characteristic edemas
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of kwashiorkor malnutrition which
one usually only sees in children.
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She died a few hours
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after being filmed.
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[music]
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The war changed people’s sense of time,
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survival became a day-by-day proposition.
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It makes no sense to plan for the future,
knowing that it could be so easily taken away.
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Which is why, it seems like a small victory
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when Mariona gets news that
villagers have cleared the brush
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from the site with the
new wells to be done.
00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:10.000
[music]
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This is the third well
00:10:55.000 --> 00:10:59.999
that Mariona Miret has initiated. It gives
her some credibility with the villagers
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that she’s been successful before.
When we start to work in Mutombo,
00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:09.999
yeah, we were one of the first
NGO who has going to do
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something there. So they were
not used to see white people.
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When we start doing the well,
they always call me Mzungu.
00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:24.999
Mzungu, it means white people in Swahili.
And every day was
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a Mzungu… Mzungu… Mzungu. Since
we found the water in the well,
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they start to call me Mariona.
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[non-English narration]
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[music]
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When we first got here 300 miles
00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:59.999
from the nearest paved road, my
sound men and I expected to find
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deep people, serious, Mother Teresa types
00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:09.999
but it’s not like that.
00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:18.000
[music]
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Mariona, David, and the rest
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seem is unhinged as most
20-something’s except for the fact
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that they volunteered
for a year to be here.
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[music]
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It seems everyone gets on pretty well.
00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:54.999
The Congolese have well-paid
jobs by local standards
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and the expats have the support they need to work
effectively. The results are evident at the feeding center.
00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:08.000
[music]
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[music]
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David Doledec is in charge of another
action against hunger project.
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[music]
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He is going to train in all Congolese staff
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to operate a health-clinic in
a region that until recently
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has been completely isolated by the war.
They’ve all walked 60 miles
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to attend training classes in Malemba.
It’s a little complicated right now,
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we don’t have many available nurses.
00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:14.999
[non-English narration] We will have to
use people who are not well trained.
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The Midwife will probably be
someone without medical training.
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So we will have to provide a lot more training
than usual. I don’t have the full team of nurses,
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I’m still missing too.
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[music]
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[non-English narration]
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[non-English narration] I first thought.
