An Analogy ... of Sorts

A group of us were discussing the incredible movement of people from rural areas to urban areas in Mexico. Friends who live in Mexico City and in Tijuana told us recently that up to 1,000 people move to those two cities each day.
I live in a town of 6,000 people. Imagine if 1,000 people moved to my town each day. In one week, we would double our town. Add a few more weeks and our town would be quadrupled.
Here's what would happen:
Our supply of clean, safe drinking water could not keep up with that kind of influx.
Our sewage system could't beginto cope with that influx.
We don't have near enough homes for all those people so they would start doubling up, living in any abandoned buildings they could find, and when the growth continued, they would start squatting on farmer's land near the town so they wouldn't be too far from any potential jobs.
In short order, we would have the beginnings of a slum in the rural heartland of N'W Iowa.
It's a simple analogy, but extrapolate that to what's happening in Manila, Kinshasha, Bucharest, Mumbai and so many other places. When you look at it this way, it becomes understandable why so many places have informal housing, lack of sanitation and security, just lack of planning. How does one plan effectively for an influx of 1,000 people a day?
There's more to it than this little story illustrates, but it's a start on the road to understanding.

Getting to Manila

In just over a week, 10 amazing students from Dordt College will accompany me on a real adventure into what is a daily reality for hundreds of millions of people around the world: Grinding Poverty.
We will spend our New Year's Eve somewhere over the International Date Line and may find ourselves ringing in the new year a few times while flying high above the clouds. We will land in Manila late at night and after clearing customs with all our gear, wearily crawl into bed ... somewhere. The next day, our work begins.
A family in one of the slums--still nameless to us (slum and family) has agreed to let us be part of their lives for many days. A small crew will accompany them along their daily path as they work, eat, socialize and survive. We will film their home, what they eat, where they go, how they wash their clothes, who they hang out with, what they talk about ... and we will get to know them. When we take our leave after many days, this one family from millions in the greater Metro Manila slums, will be no longer be strangers, but friends. They will still be part of the "one billion" who live in slums, but perhaps, with exposure in a documentary of the type we are making, the world--or at least those who care to watch--will see that this nebulous "one billion" isn't so different after all. They're just people. A lot like us, with kids and grandkids, who want enough to eat, and meaningful work, and security for kids and grandchildren.
Well, we hope those are the things we'll be uncovering in just over a week. The thing with documentary films is you can't script them. A producer has ideas, lots of idea and visions about how the film will go. Then reality shows up and the story can go a whole different direction. And that's what makes producing a documentary film such a thrilling adventure. It's unpredictable, always unfolding, revealing itself each and every moment. And when those golden, serendipitious moments arrive, you hope your cameras are rolling and you're alert enough to recognize the gold for what it is.
If you miss the moment, you tell yourself it wasn't so good, there will be more, not a big deal. But if you capture the moment, and capture it well, you revel in it, you dream about what you'll do with it in post and you congratulate yourself for being so good at what you do.
That's the nature of documentary film making.

Not all the students are going into the slums. While we're in Manila, we are also doing some pro bono work. Some fine organizations are doing some fine work among the poor and we can help them with their PR and promo needs. Two teams of camera-crew-students-writers-photographers will spend their days telling those stories and using all that raw material next semester in an advanced editing class. There they will craft the footage into usable stories that we will send back to Manila for use there.

Meanwhile, the documentary footage will keep growing as we do more shoots and interviews in different parts of the world. With each shot taken, the story will reveal itself more and more until finally, it will all be there and then we will wrap up post production and we will be ready to show our work.

But first we need to get to Manila.

A Work in Progress

The Slum Documentary Film Project is a work in progress. As time goes on, the website will reflect more content and greater depth. It will offer a richer viewing experience. As interviews are conducted--with slum dwellers and experts--that material will be posted here. As images and video clips are shot, portions will be put on the "media" page of this site. As we uncover new evidence in the growth of slums, we'll post that.
So the moral of this story is: Check back often to see what's happening. Over time, this should become a rich site not only to check the progress of this documentary film, but also to keep yourself informed of the story of slums in our world today.
Thanks for your interest.