In his re-election speech President Obama spoke about his commitment to addressing issues of poverty, inequality and progression but what is the current situation like and what are we doing to change it? During the week of 25-30 November the BBC, together with 66 other international broadcasters will show us through means of eight top quality documentary films.
Five-hundred million people from all over the world will be able to view eight, one-hour documentaries by top class filmmakers about poverty, inequality, aid and trade, challenging audiences around the world to debate the question: Why Poverty?
Why Poverty? is an international cross-media event, produced by Steps International, and they want to reach audiences worldwide through a variety of media such as television, radio, internet and live-events.
“Why has 50 years of aid not been able to change the fact that 1 billion people are still living in poverty? Why is it so difficult to ensure a decent life for everyone?” says Mette Hoffmann-Meyer, founding board member and executive producer at Steps International. “These questions made me want to investigate and look into the complexities and challenges of inequality through different stories and point of views. We all wish our children to grow up safe, get an education and a life without fear.”
The BBC’s Nick Fraser has worked as an executive producer for the documentaries and is also a chairman of the board at Steps International. He says: “A new debate is needed to identify what it means to be poor today. It is no longer a question of rich countries and poor countries, with aid and charity providing a solution to the imbalance. Our aim is to kick start this new debate with the idea of opportunity, equality and justice for everyone at the heart of it.”
All the films in the Why Poverty? series have been directed by a top bill of award winning filmmakers, such as Alex Gibney and Brian Hill, and tackle ambitious topics in an engaging manner.
The Documentaries:
Park Avenue Money, Power and the America Dream by Alex Gibney
The Oscar awaraded director asks how much inequality is too much?
“There’s always been a gap between the wealthiest in our society and everyone else, but in the last 30 years something changed. That gap became an abyss.” says Gibney. “As of 2010, the 400 richest Americans controlled more wealth than the bottom half of the country. That’s 150 million people. The question is what are they going to do with all that money?”
The filmmaker explores the subject by looking at Park Avenue in New York, home to some of the wealthiest Americans. Especially in the apartment building 740 you will find the 1% of the 1%, people so rich it is hard to get your head around it. However, a mere ten minutes to the north, over the Harlem River, is the other end of Park Avenue – in the South Bronx. Here, on the same street, more than half the population needs food stamps and children are 20 times more likely to be killed.
Poor Us: An Animated History of Poverty by Ben Lewis
In a funny and sinister way Lewis’ film shows that the poor may always have been with us, but attitudes towards them have changed. Beginning in the Neolithic Age the filmmaker takes us through the changing world of poverty. You go to sleep, you dream, you become poor through the ages. And when you awake, what can you say about poverty now? There are still very poor people, to be sure, but the new poverty has more to do with inequality…
Give Us The Money by Bosse Lindquist.
This film asks whether Live Aid to Make Poverty History have really lifted millions out of poverty? Sometime in the 1980s a new idea came to the world. If music and entertainment focused popular attention on the needs of the world’s poor, there would be a demand for change that the politicians could not ignore. Bosse Lindquist’s film tracks the history of this idea. “A band of musicians set out to change the world” he says “and now the time has come to ask: What did they achieve, and is celebrity politics is the right way of combating world poverty?” In Give Us The Money activists Bob Geldof, Bono and Bill Gates speak candidly about how to lobby effectively and how to play to politicians’ weaknesses for glitz and popularity.
Welcome To The World by Brian Hill
Hill’s documentary asks whether it is better to be born poor or die poor? 130 million babies are born each year, and not one of them decides where they’ll be born or how they’ll live. In Cambodia, you’re likely to be born to a family living on less than $1/day. In Sierra Leone chances of surviving the first year are half those of the worldwide average. Brian Hill takes a worldwide trip to meet the newest generation – In the US Starr’s new baby could well be one more of 1.6 million homeless children now living in the streets.
Land Rush by Hugo Berkeley & Osvalde Lewat
How do you feed the world? Seventy-five per cent of Mali’s population are farmers, but rich, land-hungry nations like China and Saudi Arabia are leasing Mali’s land in order to turn large areas into agribusiness farms. Many Malian peasants do not welcome these efforts, seeing them as yet another manifestation of imperialism. As Mali experiences a military coup, the developers are scared off – but can Mali’s farmers combat food shortages and escape poverty on their own terms?
Education Education by Weijun Chen
What does an education get you nowadays? In ancient China, education was the only way out of poverty – in recent times it has been the best way. China’s economic boom and talk of the merits of hard work have created an expectation that to study is to escape poverty. But these days China’s education system only leads to jobs for a few, educating a new generation to unemployment and despair. Chen’s film, set in central China, looks at the realities of Chinese education through the lives of Wang Zehziang, a tutor at the private Hongbo Education college, Wang Pan, a high school graduate and would be student, and Wan Chao, a graduate job seeker who goes from one unpromising interview to another.
Solar Mamas by Mona Eldaief & Jehane Noujaim
This documentary considers whether women are better at escaping poverty than men. “A girl is not supposed to continue school past the age of 10, it’s considered shameful,” says Rafea, a mother of 4 daughters who is keen to challenge the status quo in her remote part of the Jordanian desert. “Is it not shameful that these girls’ youth is wasted without work? Without education or purpose in life?” she asks.
Rafea is the second wife of a Bedouin. She wants a better life for herself and her children. The Barefoot College takes uneducated middle-aged women from poor communities and trains them to become solar engineers and so create power and jobs in their communities. We follow Rafea as she overcomes difficulties to become a solar engineer and starts to alter her life.
Stealing Africa by Christoffer Guldbrandsen
What is a fair profit? Zambia has the third largest copper reserves in the world, but 60% of the population live on less than $1 a day and 80% are unemployed. Rüschlikon, on the other hand, is a village in Switzerland with a very low tax rate and very wealthy residents. But it receives more tax revenue than it can use. This is largely thanks to one resident – Ivan Glasenberg, CEO of Glencore, whose copper mines in Zambia are not generating a large bounty tax revenue for the Zambians.
Based on original research into public documents, Stealing Africa describes the tax system employed by multinational companies in Africa. Guldbrandsen says: “This is a story of global trade where money and natural resources only flow one way. The Zambian story is only a small piece of the puzzle. Neither the rule or law nor morals determine what investors pay in tax in Africa. It comes down to what you can get away with.”
In addition to this extensive programme of documentaries Why Poverty? will also distribute thirty short docs ranging from 2-6 minutes on their YouTube channel and their own website www.whypoverty.net.
If you live outside the UK then please check the Why Poverty website to see on which local channel you can watch the documentaries.
For those living in London, ahead of the screenings on the BBC, DocHouse and The Frontline Club will be hosting various screenings of the documentaries in the series, often followed by panel discussions and director Q&A’s. Please visit their websites to find out more.
Written by Alexandra Zeevalkink
