THE
MAKING OF "DISEASE
OF THE WIND" |
 |
When the American Red Cross invited actress Jane Seymour to join the National Celebrity Cabinet in February 2001, she was asked if she would like to support the American Red Cross Measles Initiative because of her long history with, and appreciation for, health and child-related endeavors. She volunteered to go to Africa for the week-long mass measles vaccination campaign in Kenya, one of 11 campaigns this year, where she would help the Red Cross with its biggest challenge: educating and mobilizing mothers and parents to bring their children to be vaccinated against this completely preventable disease. To help inform the people of the United States of this endeavor, filmmaker James Keach suggested making a documentary of the trip. To give the film more human interest, eight schoolchildren from Hawthorne, California were selected to accompany Jane and to experience first hand, the measles campaign in Kenya. Shortly after arriving in Nairobi, Jane and the students make an unscheduled trip to a slum called Mathare. The unbearable stench rising from the refuse and sewage covered streets make it difficult to breathe. Still, hundreds of Kenyan children lined up to be vaccinated. It is on these streets that Jane and the schoolchildren met Jackson, a sweet young boy who loves school, but is unable to attend because his family can’t afford the fees. The Los Angeles students gave Jackson their spending money so that he would be able to go to school for one more year. Music, banners and a great deal of excitement accompany Jane, the American students and the thousands of Kenyan Red Cross volunteers on the official launch of the Kenya measles vaccination campaign. Overcrowded schools play a central role in the transmission of the measles virus. The disease moves easily from child to child, and many transmit the virus to younger siblings at home. With underdeveloped immune systems, children under the age of five are at particularly high risk of blindness, deafness, pneumonia and death from the virus. Volunteers from the Red Cross play a crucial role in educating the public about life saving vaccinations. Kibera, the largest slum in Sub-Saharan Africa, is home to half a million people in Nairobi. Here the American students are visibly shaken as mothers cook dinner next to open, sewage-bearing trenches and raw meat, covered in flies, is put out to sell. For the Jane and the students, the most difficult thing to comprehend is how happy the people are, content with their lot in life. At a clinic in Kibera barely a cry escapes the mouth of a young child receiving a vaccination. Finally, a respite: Jane and the American students head for Masailand. Two lionesses stalk a herd of zebra; an elephant nurses its young. Custodians of Kenyan wildlife, the Masai are pastoralists who maintain a traditional way of life. With few health care centers in a vast area, the Kenya Red Cross and its volunteers play a crucial role in getting young Masai children vaccinated at schools and in some of the most outlying villages. By the end of the week, 13,302,991 or 97.9% of Kenyan children between the ages of nine months and 15 years had received measles vaccinations, a crucial step in combatting the spread of infectious disease in an increasingly small world. The Los Angeles students now have seen first hand the international work of the American Red Cross and its partners, and the importance of taking care of a global community. A young Masai poet expresses her personal struggle near the film's end, "Perhap if we shed these words of age, color, tongue or creed - the pleas of the African child, the world will consider and heed." Director:
James Keach
|