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Telling the story of indigenous survival

Posted on by Tracy Assing

In October, I received an email from the Commonwealth Foundation. It contained an invitation to participate in the International Civil Society Week (ICSW) to be held in December in Fiji.

The theme: Our Planet, Our Struggle, Our Future. My heart raced as I blinked at the phone. I only had to confirm my attendance. I told no one at first. I was sure that if I spoke it, it would be somehow taken away.

In early November, another email followed. Subject: Trip to Samoa? The Ring of Fire was calling me. My story titled Unaccounted for, in the So Many Islands anthology seen only by editors and printers, was going to come to life half-way around the world. Inside me a huge moon was beginning to wax.

For as long as I have known my voice I have thrown it to the Pacific. The area of our planet which is home to the most diverse range of indigenous cultures. I remembered reading about these islands and the Ring of Fire during my geography classes in Secondary school. The ring is dotted with 75% of all active volcanoes on Earth. It stretches from the southern tip of South America, along the coast of North America, across the Bearing Strait, down to Japan, into New Zealand and Antarctica. These islands were smack in the middle.

In July, at the Pacific Island Development Forum Leader’s Summit in the Solomon Islands, Fiji’s Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama said the government had accelerated plans to relocate some 40 coastal villages to higher ground. The land is suffering from ‘progress’ with unsustainable and rising natural resource extraction and chemicals and pesticides contaminating rivers but communities are working together to slow the dark and rising tides. I longed to join their resistance and wanted them to join mine. Our Planet, Our Struggle, Our Future our cause, the same.

‘It was my first chance to see what life is like on these islands, stories told by their storytellers’

‘That awkward moment when you get on the plane at 9:30pm on the 27 and get off at 6am on the 29.’ I tweeted as I struggled to stay awake during the six-hour lay-over at Nadi airport before meeting with Commonwealth Writers. We would travel on to Apia, Samoa together for the launch of So Many Islands, hosted by the Little Island Press. It was exciting to think of my work being included in this collection of poetry and stories from around the world.

On the drive from the Faleolo Airport to Hotel Vaea I considered the many similarities between my homeland and the landscape. The fale stood out and when I enquired I was immediately inspired. These simple, open huts were symbols of community and tradition. An open space where all were welcomed to be humbled and heard. The very presence of these structures seemed to underline the importance of community to me. I felt welcomed, embraced and supported by Tony Murrow and Evotia Tamua of Little Island Press, and Dionne Fanoti from the National University of Samoa. Then, I met Mere Taito, a Rotuman islander with a burning passion for storytelling and Katherine Reki from Papua New Guinea, a filmmaker and mother on a mission to create a better world for her children. Mere has written a fiery poem for the So Many Islands anthology and Katherine’s film My Mother’s Blood explores the killing of a woman, who is suspected of witchcraft, in the Highlands.

Above: Tracy reads Unaccounted For at the National University of Samoa, Apia, Samoa
Above: So Many Islands anthology, a collection of literature hailing from 17 island states in the Commonwealth, had its first regional launch at a ceremony in Apia, Samoa
Above: Tracy speaks to civil society representatives at the University of South Pacific, Suva, Fiji

In Unaccounted For I tell the story of my island and my ancestors. It is one story, the land and us. Intertwined before we became labour and the land became capital. It was an emotional experience, reading my story aloud for the first time, from its published pages to the small, attentive audience gathered in the hotel fale that Friday evening. My voice cracked just at the point where I welcomed my ancestors into the room and I was encouraged to go on by my new friends, who understood my tears and understood the struggles of my journey. I had travelled almost two days to get there. As I said my grandparents’ names, I felt their presence in the room. They were there to share that moment with me.

‘My truth is my identity, my right to declare that I belong, my right to practise and preserve my culture and celebrate my heritage’

The next day, we all attended a special screenings of six films from Tonga and Papua New Guinea produced by Commonwealth Writers. It was my first chance to see what life is like on these islands, stories told by their storytellers. We talked about that during the panel discussion that followed. How people who live on those islands and ours have been framed by those telling the story as documentary, as fantasy, and how important it is for us to tell our own stories. We have all been given the opportunity through the screenings of these films and sharing our stories in the So Many Islands anthology. So many islands separated and connected by water, even the water in our tears.

On December 3, we arrived in Fiji for the International Civil Society Week. The team expanded. We were joined by Marita Davis, an I-Kiribati writer and Glenill Burua, a 19 year-old filmmaker from Matupit, Papua New Guinea. I joined Myn Garcia, Deputy Director General of the Commonwealth Foundation for a panel discussion at the University of the South Pacific on December 6 as part of the Commonwealth Writers Conversations series. From my story, Myn read the lines: ‘What did it all mean anyway? We had grown tired of the labels people had chosen to both recognise and erase us. Each label seemed to have the same purpose.’

Waxing still, we talked about recognition and cultural loss. In Trinidad, while descendants of the island’s first peoples received a one-off holiday in recognition of their presence last year, we have never been able to declare ourselves ‘indigenous’ on any census form.

My truth is my identity, my right to declare that I belong, my right to practise and preserve my culture and celebrate my heritage. With the publication of this anthology I have an opportunity to speak it out, clear across the planet. My message is clear and resonates. The indigenous story is one of survival. Our Planet. Our Struggle. Our Future.

Tracy Assing is a writer from Trinidad and Tobago. 

Pacific Shorts premiere at the Hawaiian International Film Festival

Posted on by Janet Steel

There is something magical about sitting in a dark auditorium with 200 hundred strangers waiting to share the same experience.

Sitting along the same row as me, the filmmakers from the ten short films about to be shown. The nervous energy, verging on fear is palpable, bubbling up in some cases into stress reducing tears. We are all sat together at the 37th Hawaiian International Film Festival’s Pacific Showcase featuring films made by and starring First Peoples from the Pacific.  Included in this prestigious event are four of the six Pacific Shorts produced by the Commonwealth Writers.

One of the filmmakers, Glen Burua from Papua New Guinea, perches on the edge of his seat, arching his body as far forward as it will go without clashing heads with the person sitting in the row in front. I know it must be blocking the view of the person behind but there are no complaints. I squeeze the hand of Katherine Reki, also from Papua New Guinea, sitting beside me, whispering instructions for her to take deep breaths and enjoy, as she wipes away an excited and anxious tear. Ofa Guttenbeil from Tonga, nervously sits in between Glen and Katherine and completes the team of Commonwealth Writers filmmakers attending the festival.

“my first time in a cinema and it’s to see my own film”.

By the beginning of the third film Glen is relaxed enough to sit back in his seat. The enthusiastic applause and cheers after each film allows us all to physically express our delight in sharing stories that are seldom seen in the cinema. Stories that feature actors old and young, professional and non-professional. There are universal coming of age stories, stories of struggle and violence against women, stories about the environment and climate change. Each film is very different and told in the unique style of the filmmaker. But what ties the films together and makes the whole far greater than the individual parts is the clarity of the voices. Together the voices are magnified.

As the final credits role I am the one who is totally overwhelmed, wiping away a tear or two. Slightly dazed, the filmmakers make their way to the front for the Q&A, quietly congratulating each other as the applause continues. The questions and comments from the audience bring a whole new dynamic to the event. When Glen is asked about his film, he starts by sharing with the audience that this is not only his first film but is also the first time he has ever been in a cinema. ‘How ironic’ he adds, ‘my first time in a cinema and it’s to see my own film’.

‘It doesn’t matter how hard an artist works or how talented they are, they need development, funding, infrastructure and the venues to show the work.’

Amongst the warmth and enthusiastic congratulations in the audience there is a deep understanding that we have all truly shared an experience. We may prefer one film over another but we are all left wanting to see more films like these, hear stories like these and see faces like these on our screens.

It doesn’t matter how hard an artist works or how talented they are, they need development, funding, infrastructure and the venues to show the work. The Hawaii International Film Festival’s Pacific Showcase did what it set out to do, give a platform to new and developing filmmakers from the Pacific. Commonwealth Writers is working towards showcasing these films at other festivals and as part of other platforms so that these stories are seen and talked about by other audiences.

Pacific Voices is the culmination of a craft development programme by Commonwealth Writers which built on the success of the 2012 Commonwealth Shorts. For this project Commonwealth Writers focused on the Pacific, a region which is lacking in support and infrastructure for directors and writers who want to make films. Six writer/directors from Tonga and Papua New Guinea attended script development workshops with local script editors before developing their own scripts and shooting their own films, with the assistance of the New Zealand Production Company BSAG Productions. All of the films highlight stories and issues that they feel passionate about that affect their communities: find synopses and film clips here. All six films have also been selected for the Maoriland Film festival in New Zealand in March. 

Janet Steel is Programme Manager for Commonwealth Writers. 

Advocacy is not complaining: Jamaicans for clean air and water

Posted on by Suzanne Stanley

Jamaican communities living near to mining and quarrying operations often experience adverse impacts to air and water and to their quality of life.

At the same time, these commercial operations are also a source of jobs and economic development which restrains residents from taking action. The Jamaica Environment Trust (JET) has been working with mining communities on the island since 2013. Our objectives have been to ensure community members know why good air and water quality is important to their health and about their rights under the law. JET has also worked on empowering communities to advocate on their own behalf, rather than simply filing complaints with JET and/or government regulators.

‘Community members knew what their problems were – dust, noise, impacts to water – but did not know how to address them and did not know who to talk to’

With funding from the Commonwealth Foundation, JET has been implementing a project entitled Jamaicans for Clean Air and Water since October 2016. The target communities are: Hayes/New Town in Clarendon, affected by a large alumina processing company and its Residue Disposal Area (RDA), Ten Miles at Bull Bay, St. Andrew, affected by quarrying by a cement company, Pleasant Farm in Ewarton, St. Catherine, also affected by bauxite mining, processing and waste and Port Morant, St Thomas, affected by sugar cane production and processing.

Site visit to Port Morant with community group and sugar factory representatives (2017)

Community members knew what their problems were – dust, noise, impacts to water – but did not know how to address them and did not know who to talk to. JET conducted advocacy training, with a focus on developing familiarity with the legal framework for mining and quarrying, especially regarding the environmental permits issued for these activities. Residents learned, for example, that the companies were required to keep a complaints register at a location that was easily accessible to them. The registers did exist, but were held inside the companies, where local people did not have easy access. Because they were not used, the companies were able to argue to regulators that there were no complaints. We also taught communities how to do logs of pollution events, so that they would be able to provide evidence of these impacts. Work continues to encourage communities to use these unaccustomed avenues.

Participants in the training also learned how to use the Access to Information (ATI) Act. They knew they were affected by dust, and they knew air quality was being tested by the company, but they did not know how to get the information, or how to interpret it. During workshops, community members learned how to do a simple ATI request and were excited to receive the information from government agencies after their requests were submitted. Because the information was often highly technical, however, they still needed expert input from JET and its consultants to understand what was sent to them.

‘Community members also benefit from meetings with regulators through the project’

JET continues to push the regulatory authorities to proactively disclose information about air and water quality to the public, especially nearby communities, in a form that is understandable by a lay person. A major output of this first year of the project was the release of a Review of the Legal and Policy Framework for Air and Water Quality in the island of Jamaica. This was launched at an Editor’s Forum at Jamaica’s main daily newspaper, the Gleaner, and received broad media coverage. In 2018, we will engage with the main environmental regulator, the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), regarding the recommendations of this study.

Community members also benefit from meetings with regulators through the project. Stakeholder meetings have given them the opportunity to meet the responsible officers and tell them in their own words of their experiences. The regulators had to grapple with their first-hand accounts and contact information was exchanged.

Meeting between JET, community members and government stakeholders (2017)
Meeting between JET, community members and government stakeholders (2017)

However, despite improved knowledge and networking facilitated by JET amongst the communities, participants still remain somewhat unwilling to contact government officials, as they fear victimization. JET set up a WhatsApp group to receive updates and this is being lightly used to exchange information, but the communities would much rather complain to JET and have us liaise with regulators on their behalf. Over time, through public education and training JET hopes to build the confidence of the communities and the wider Jamaican public, and inspire community-led advocacy on air and water quality, and other environmental issues.

Suzanne Stanley is CEO of Jamaica Environment Trust.

Seasonal message from the Director-General of the Foundation

Posted on by Vijay Krishnarayan

On behalf of the Commonwealth Foundation I want to take a moment to extend good wishes to our supporters during this season of goodwill to all.

It has been an important year for the Foundation – marking the successful conclusion of one Strategic Plan and the beginning of a new cycle. This is a time to thank our member states for their continuing support for our work. Their approval of the new Strategic Plan indicated trust and confidence in the organisation.

That relationship is built on our achievements, which over the past year has seen us: manage 38 continuing grant funded initiatives and approve a further 14 projects in June; receive more than 5,200 entries for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize; and welcome a combined following of 19,000 for our Foundation and Commonwealth Writer’s Twitter feeds.

Behind the numbers are the stories of the partnerships that we have continued to nurture with civic voices across the Commonwealth. Voices like those of young people in Southern Africa, working together to shape employment policy on the region through the Southern Africa Alliance on Youth Employment. Voices like those of the six filmmakers from the Pacific Islands who saw their ideas go from script to screen at the Hawaii International Film Festival this year.

We look forward to 2018 and the opportunity provided by the Commonwealth People’s Forum, which will take place in April here in London. The Forum is the single largest gathering of civic voices from across the Commonwealth. It will bring more than 300 people together including advocates, writers, performers, film-makers and other catalysts for social change. They’ll be making the connections between inclusive governance and a contemporary Commonwealth. You’ll see that registration is open now.

A final word then to thank you for your continuing support for the Commonwealth Foundation. It’s keenly appreciated by staff and we look forward to working with you in the new year.

Vijay Krishnarayan is Director-General of the Commonwealth Foundation. Image Credit: John Stratford Flickr CC.

Just, peaceful and inclusive societies: CPF 2018 programme takes shape

Posted on by Shobha Das

No matter how many international events I help organise, I always face the same challenge. How do I best capture and present the priorities, aspirations and dreams of the many thousands, hundreds of thousands, or in the case of the Commonwealth, the 2.4 billion people the event is about?

In designing and delivering the biennial Commonwealth People’s Forum (CPF), the Commonwealth Foundation takes an effective approach to this challenge. Using a series of well-conceptualised internal and external processes, it formulates and validates the themes, focus areas, and aims of the event in active consultation with civic voices from around the Commonwealth.

The core conceptual framework for CPF 2018 has emerged from the Foundation’s extensive experience with and understanding of civil society priorities across the Commonwealth. CPF 2018 will focus on Sustainable Development Goal 16, and examine how inclusive governance can engender just, peaceful and inclusive societies.

This framework is being sharpened in consultation with a 7-member external Content Design Committee (CDC), which is made up of civil society actors from Bangladesh, Ghana, Jamaica, Malaysia, Malta, Samoa, and the United Kingdom.

‘Content Design Committee Members members have been at the forefront of civil society in their countries’

CDC members have been at the forefront of civil society in their countries and regions for a long time, and have an impressive breadth thematic expertise between them. The range of interests and focus of the CDC includes: human rights, access to justice, gender equality, community organising, environmental justice and advocacy, education, digital activism, LGBTI+ policy and creative expression. They bring diverse lenses with which to interrogate the purpose, content and methods of CPF 2018. Their clear vision and robust questioning helps ensure that the programme for the 3-day event is coherent in its content and flow, relevant to current civic debates, and most importantly, useful to delegates in the important work they do.

During the design process, the CDC asked challenging questions about the CPF 2018 programme. What are the difficult questions the Forum needs to ask? What are the important sessions to have, what innovative methods can we use to discuss complex themes, and who might be suitable speakers and panellists? How can we maximise delegate participation? How can we make sure the outcome document will have positive social benefits?

The process so far points to an exciting and inspiring CPF 2018. I feel certain it will be grounded in people’s everyday realities, it will challenge the status quo where necessary, and it will dare to dream about creating a genuinely inclusive, just, and accountable Commonwealth for all.

Johannesburg waste pickers organise to defend their livelihoods

Posted on by Vanessa Pillay

Four months ago, WIEGO’s project with the Commonwealth Foundation Waste integration South Africa (WISA) took an unplanned turn as Johannesburg’s waste-pickers were faced with a major challenge to their livelihood.

The city’s official waste management service provider, Pikitup, signed contracts with private recycling companies to expand Pikitup’s Separation at Source programme.  Separation at Source diverts recyclable waste away from landfills and encourages residents to separate their waste at home. In this way, according to Pikitup, recyclables remain clean and can be resold more easily.  Effectively, however, this would exclude waste-pickers from the recycling service they have provided for decades at no cost to the city and negatively affect the income that they earn from selling recyclable material.

WIEGO has been working with the waste-pickers of Johannesburg who collect, sort, separate and recycle the City’s waste from the main landfills as well as from the street sides.  There are 6,000 to 10,000 people in Johannesburg who depend on waste-picking work.  Unemployment in South Africa has reached a record 27.7 percent, so excluding wastepickers will create additional hardship.  By giving recycling contracts to private companies, the city is opting for a private system, when a less costly, more socially responsible and environmentally–friendly solid waste management programme, including waste-pickers, is possible.

Listen to a radio interview with waste picker representatives, Eva Mokoena and Steven Leeuw from Johannesburg about the  impact of  this troubling development.

Aware of the potential introduction of the Separation at Source programme, WIEGO and waste-pickers have been asking Pikitup and the City to disclose and discuss the contracts since September last year, but to no avail.  As a result, an Interim Johannesburg Reclaimers Committee (IJRC) was set up and in July waste pickers from seven regions of the City marched to protest outside Pikitup’s offices.  Eva Mokoena from the IJRC presented a Memorandum of Demands to the Managing Director of Pikitup on behalf of the Committee.  See a video of the protest on Facebook.

As a result of the campaign, Pikitup put a halt to signing any new contracts and acknowledged wastepickers as principle stakeholders in Johannesburg’s waste economy. Pikitup says that it is requiring the companies to include reclaimers, but it is leaving it up to companies that have no experience in integrating them to figure out how to do this and have not consulted with wastepickers on how they should be included. However, dialogue has now been opened up between Pikitup, the City of Joburg and the wastepickers, which is very much welcomed.

For waste pickers, the four key pillars of integration are: recognition as workers providing public and environmental services for which they should be paid; inclusion in the current and future solid waste management system; consultation on all decisions affecting their livelihoods; and, all of the above to begin with the registration of all waste pickers in a centralised database to ensure that the integration process is well planned, fair, transparent and able to be properly monitored. 

Negotiations to develop a framework of how the integration process will be implemented have been underway for the past three months.

See the WIEGO site for further information.

Vanessa Pillay is the WIEGO Organisation and Representation Programme Officer, Johannesburg

 

Gypsy in the Moonlight by Caroline Gill

Posted on by Commonwealth Foundation

I wish I had amnesia so I could forget Sally Burry. We were at school together, Sally and I, in Heart’s Pen, the coastal hamlet where we were born, on the Caribbean island of Perseverance. We were Poor White – the inbred aftermath of a long-forgotten British penal colony. Cromwell’s hangover.

Households numbering ten or twelve weighed in on the small to normal side of things in our village and this made Sally and me unique because we were from one-child families. Each of us had hair the color of overcooked pumpkin and neither of us had a father at home. But this did not make Sally and I chums. No one was chummy with her. She suffered a seeping eye condition. One pink-ringed eye cried nonstop globs of pus that left her with a faint, but persistent pong of sour milk.

One morning, as the bell rang and we formed two lines – one for boys and one for girls, Sally filed into place behind me. Her proximity and my belief in her unremitting infectiousness caused me to tread on the heels of the girl ahead.

As we settled at our desks, she approached and whispered, “Borrow me a black lead, please?”

I refused.

“Please? I would give it back after school. And, I would borrow you my radio.”

I plugged my nose and hissed, “You don’t have no radio.”

It was November 1957. Sally and I were twelve years old and half way through our second to last year in our one-room schoolhouse. On the third of that month, Russia sent a dog into space and the government of Perseverance had yet to build a bridge over a river that swelled to such proportions during raining season, that our village became cut off from the rest of the island.

The only way in or out of the Pen was by boat which meant most of us weren’t going anywhere. When the rain let up, children played rounders barefoot on the flat above the school. The bat or ball, or both, inevitably walloped Sally. I watched as she was tripped and shoved to the ground, as she wiped mineral-red earth from scraped knees and the wetness around her eye, as she hurried to smooth her dress and stand – but never in time to stop us seeing the strap marks on the backs of her legs. When someone had a new welt or bump, we would point it out and ask, “What happen?” The answer was always ‘Burry-sitis’.

At recess, when we had to play indoors, the girls formed a circle for a choral game with clapping and dancing called, Gypsy in the Moonlight. But none of us would clasp hands with Sally, so she swayed and sang along from outside the ring.

Walk in gypsy, walk in/Walk inside I say/Walk into my parlour and hear the banjo play/I don’t love nobody and nobody love me… Tra la lalala…

It was a pet prank for one of the boys to sneak up and crouch at the edge of the circle, pass gas and fan his bottom. Us girls inflated cheeks and waved hands until someone delivered the inevitable punch line, “Something smell stink like Sally Burry.”

Sally laughed off the teasing. She seemed unaware of the freckles of dried mucus stuck to her cheek. Every school day was the same; it had been like that all her life.

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Mental health policy reform: time to decolonise our minds

Posted on by Vijay Krishnarayan

Mental health legislation in 20 per cent of Commonwealth countries was passed before 1960.

The term “idiot” remains on the statutes of 10 Commonwealth countries. The law in many Commonwealth countries is in conflict with contemporary international human rights obligations towards people with mental illness. The roots of mental health legislation can often be traced to a bygone era. It’s time we de-colonised our minds.

‘The roots of mental health legislation can often be traced to a bygone era.’

The Commonwealth Foundation is not a mental health focussed organisation but we are committed to strengthening civic voice in policy reform. We funded a review of mental health laws across the Commonwealth five years ago. The final report – produced by the Commonwealth Health Professions Alliance (CHPA) and written by Dr Soumitra Pathare and Dr Jaya Sagade of the Indian Centre for Mental Health Law and Policy highlighted the dichotomy between existing laws and human rights. The CMNF identified two countries where policy reform was being considered. They applied to the Commonwealth Foundation for a grant to help make change happen and were successful.

One of the project’s countries is Seychelles and I was privileged to see for myself the way they are going about the process of reform. Seychelles was identified because of the willingness of lawmakers, and civil society (mental health and allied professionals and people with mental illness) to work together to address the policy challenge. The inclusion of people with mental illness in the process speaks to the Foundation’s core purpose of strengthening less heard voices.

Civil society has provided the impetus for reform but it has drawn strength from the support of the Minister for Health who impressed upon me the need for civic-state dialogue to make health services responsive to contemporary demands. The need for change is evident. The existing law is the Mental Health Act of 2006. Although relatively recent the legislation was passed before Seychelles signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I heard from mental health professionals that the law emphasises retaining people with mental illness in institutions rather than the treatment and rehabilitation of patients. As one mental health professional critiqued it’s about protecting “us” from “them.”

‘the law can help to either re-inforce or deconstruct social attitudes.’

A Mental Health Advisory Committee was established to steer the project in-country. It is chaired by the Chief Medical Officer and it brings together health professionals, policy specialists and service consumers. The Committee is supported by the CMNF and Dr Pathare and during my stay I sat in on their discussions. I heard how hard it is for people with mental illness to enjoy rights that we take for granted – to gain employment or to get insurance. I also heard how easy it is for people with mental illness to be incarcerated or restrained. The particular challenge of the stigma associated with mental illness in a small state was never far from the surface and it was recognised that the law can help to either re-inforce or deconstruct social attitudes.

Essential to the process of reform was the engagement of the Attorney-General’s office. I had the chance to meet with the newly appointed Attorney General and I was struck by his recognition of the importance of bringing his office nearer to people. His representative sat with the Committee as they pored over the new draft Act, line by line. The draft Act was then presented at an open meeting at the Seychelles Hospital. About forty people from all walks of life gathered: patients, politicians, police and practitioners. They attested to the need for change, called for more and targeted dialogue with particularly affected parts of society like young people. They want to see the Act passed and fully implemented. They want to see the new law make a difference and all were optimistic about the chances of the Act going before Parliament by next April.

Our colleagues on the Advisory Committee – public officials and civil society alike are committed to change. They agreed that there was no point in trying to change elements of the existing 2006 Act and are developing a national policy that will provide a framework for the new Act. They recognised that the spirit of the existing law was a ghost from a time long past. This was a time when administrators wrote laws to suit themselves and when it was presumed that people with mental illness were objects of charity rather than agents of their own destiny.

Colonial institutions are not just fine buildings that are well preserved but they are laws and practices that have also endured. While I’ve been here, discussions with Ministers, senior officials and civil society have all touched on the continuing relevance of the Commonwealth. In Seychelles they’ve taken a problem left behind by empire and addressed it using the empathy and solidarity that are the hallmark of the People’s Commonwealth.

Image credit: Flickr CC darkday

Through a different lens

Posted on by Emma D'Costa

Despite extensive planning, when Commonwealth Writers start work on a creative project, we don’t always know the exact course it will take or what unexpected results it will achieve.

In 2012 we launched a capacity building scheme to give emerging writer-directors the opportunity to make a film on the theme of relationships. Five filmmakers – from Bahamas, Barbados, Canada, Kenya and New Zealand – made short films which highlighted issues affecting them and their communities.

The subject of one of these short films, Passage, by Bahamian filmmaker Kareem Mortimer, is now an award-winning feature film, Cargo, which won the Amnesty International Human Rights Award at the Trinidad+Tobago Film Festival recently. The Award recognises the importance of film as a vehicle for raising awareness about human rights issues and advancing inclusion and social justice. Films such as Passage and Cargo tell the personal story and human cost of illegal migration, putting dangers and suffering under the spotlight, and giving the viewers a different perspective.

‘Cargo examines the world’s refugee crisis from a very local perspective’

Kareem has described Cargo as the ‘feature version of (his) short film Passage’, feeling that ‘there was a great deal more to be said about human smuggling.’ Passage tells the story of a young Haitian woman and her brother fighting for survival while being smuggled into the United States on a dilapidated fishing boat. With over fifty screenings to date, including showings in New Zealand, Nigeria, Europe, the Caribbean and the US, Passage has also won a number of awards including the Best Diaspora Short Film at the Africa Movie Academy Awards 2014. It also made Kareem the first Bahamian filmmaker to show a film in Havana, Cuba, at the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema.

Inspired by true events, Cargo examines the world’s refugee crisis from a very local perspective. When his income, further eroded by his gambling addiction, proves insufficient to cover his son’s school fees, an American exile living in the Bahamas turns to human smuggling in order to raise desperately needed funds. He finds that he is good at this dangerous yet profitable enterprise —good enough to trust himself with smuggling his own girlfriend and her son to the US. But when faced with having to abandon refugees at sea far from Miami shores, he is suddenly forced to reassess his responsibilities.

The largest Bahamian film project to date, this latest feature from Mortimer is, as described by the Miami Film Festival where it premiered in March 2017, ‘a thrilling, vital call for empathy in troubled times.’ As Mortimer has said, he hopes the film ‘sparks conversations …. We live with this and have been living with this for the better part of 30 years. It’s time to address it. Bodies wash up on shore a couple of times a year.’ As well as portraying the human cost of illegal migration, the feature film shines a light on Bahamian culture, something rarely seen in films where the islands are more often simply an exotic backdrop.

‘The last scenes are gutting, yet your heart is left pounding for unexpected possibilities for survival and opportunity.’

One of the judges for the Amnesty Award, Trinidadian writer, activist and scholar Gabrielle Hosein, said that Cargo, ‘presents real life for many Caribbean people in layer after layer of devastating, intimate and disturbingly beautiful detail. The story-telling is deeply personal, yet feels global. You visually connect to the land and seascape of the Bahamas, where Mortimer’s film is based, but cannot help but think about such experiences cross-cutting our blue planet. The film follows multiple vulnerabilities and imperfections as experienced by Jamaican migrant workers, Haitians seeking a better life and middle-class deportees. It also explores the difficulties of family as they intersect love, sex and the global economy, and their complex inequities. While focus is on the disempowering effects of illegal migration, trafficking in persons, the drug trade, and domestic and retail sector workers’ low-status and informal labour, you are left gasping for breath … The last scenes are gutting, yet your heart is left pounding for unexpected possibilities for survival and opportunity.’

Four films from Commonwealth Writers’ latest film project, Commonwealth Shorts: Pacific Voices, are about to be premiered at the Hawaii International Film Festival on 10 and 11 November.

Six writer/directors from Tonga and Papua New Guinea attended script development workshops with local script editors before developing their own scripts and shooting their own films, with the assistance of BSAG Productions in New Zealand. Like the original Commonwealth Shorts, all the films highlight stories and issues which affect their communities, as well as shedding new light on Pacific culture and opening the world’s eyes to talented filmmakers.

Emma D’Costa is Senior Programme Officer for Commonwealth Writers, the cultural initiative of the Commonwealth Foundation.

SDGs: it’s NOT just about data

Posted on by Myn Garcia

It has been buzzing in development circles. But it seems stronger now in certain places. It’s the buzz on the data revolution.

And there is also a lot of talk about the need for people in the margins to participate in the monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But what does the data revolution mean? And what would it take for citizens to be interested in monitoring the SDGs?

The Participate Initiative’s Policy Brief, Using knowledge from the margins to meet the SDGs: the real data revolution says that ‘the ultimate success or failure of the SDGs depends, in large part, on inclusion.’ Indeed, inclusion is key. But what does inclusion look like? What does it take for the SDG process to be genuinely inclusive in a governance context? SDG 16 is regarded as the goal that would ‘unlock’ the SDG framework and fulfil the ‘ambition to leave no one behind.’ But how?

‘Arguably, localisation is about taking the SDG agenda back to its roots, where the difference matters and where it actually matters most.’

Domestication and localisation of the SDGs is an effort that is currently underway in many countries. Dissecting how it works allows us to understand facets of inclusion. To say localisation gives one the impression that the process now should be driven from the top to the ground after a set of global goals have been agreed. Lest we forget, the goals were arrived at after civil society, community-based organisations and NGOs were consulted (perhaps over consulted) in developing the architecture for the Post 2015 Development Agenda. Arguably, localisation is about taking the SDG agenda back to its roots, where the difference matters and where it actually matters most.

One of the tasks at hand for the sustainable agenda “unanimously adopted by 193 UN members” is to ensure the domestication of the agenda into national development plans and / or poverty reduction strategies of countries and that these are informed and influenced by local development plans developed through processes that are participatory, formal and informal.

‘Inclusion in governance undeniably requires political will and is complex, embedded in a system.’

A decentralised structure of governance allows for people’s participation at the local level with citizens engaging with local authorities and councils. Conversations with civil society, local authorities and local councils in some Commonwealth countries raised the challenges to decentralisation. But they also pointed to some of the enabling processes:

  1. Formal, institutional spaces designed for citizen to engage and have the authority to input in or influence decision-making processes such as local planning and budgeting. This may come in the form of membership in local councils and service delivery committees, among others
  2. Informal engagements such as citizen led mobilisation, advocacy campaigns and community-based dialogues on issues that policy makers would be able to consider for the agenda of both the executive and legislative council, for example
  3. Raising awareness of citizens’ rights in areas that matter to them such as delivery of services; enabling citizens to engage more constructively and confidently
  4. Citizen-generated and evidence based data which includes citizen scorecard and gender barometer and individual or collective stories and testimonials which would facilitate dialogues and other inclusive processes between government and citizens
  5. Citizens access to information and protection of fundamental freedoms
  6. Collective action and social movements that connect people in the margins to people in power- in government, civil society and wider society including the media, donours and the private sector

Inclusion in governance undeniably requires political will and is complex, embedded in a system. Inclusion engenders accountability which should be understood within a system characterised by the nature of power and economic, cultural and social contexts. It requires an integrated approach at different levels in a web of interconnections. It certainly can’t work through ‘one-off processes of consultation or narrow citizen-monitoring mechanisms‘. It is definitely not just about data.

Myn Garcia is the Deputy Director-General of the Commonwealth Foundation. Image credit: Flickr CC Judson Weinsheimer