Voice of America radio interview - India's Railway Children

September 29, 2014

A couple weeks ago I recorded an interview with Voice of America radio talking about the lives of railway children in India and the amazing work being done by Children of Mother Earth (CoME). Several years ago my filmmaker friend, Annette Walton, and I travelled to India to document this work and were so touched by the wonderful balance of caring for the physical and emotional needs of up to 200 children in 5 different homes.

CoME takes impoverished street-children into homes and provides them with food, medical treatment, emotional support, education and a beautiful family of loving brothers and sisters. It was an honour and delight to document this wonderful work and great to have a chance to promote it again all these years later.

You can listen to the interview on Voice of America here

A sidebar of those who inspire...

'Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage'

- Anais Nin

Over the years I've been filming I've had plenty of moments to ponder the truthfulness of this simple quote by Anais Nin - a woman who lived passionately and with courage.

Regularly I film people of courage but not always do I see their lives expanding, at least in a physical sense. However, I think this is where the courage lives - in the lives of people who, facing incredible odds, continue to create community, share resources, laugh at stupidness, and love with honesty.

It is always humbling to be welcomed in the lives of courageous people.

Lou

Many moons ago the universe gave Lou to me. Little did I know at the time she was to become my life long friend, source of endless inspiration, wise mentor, adopted mother, daughter and sister. Lou is an internationally respected authority on the difficult subject of Intimate Partner Sexual Violence (IPSV) and her amazing work can be viewed via her website

Laughter...

This little girl seemed to excel in pulling the best faces that would crack me up while I was filming workers on the Mae Sot rubbish dump on the Thai/Burma border. Filming lives that are so vulnerable and exposed often leaves me feeling like a cheap voyeur. It was good to sometimes put the camera aside and just pull faces together.

Asylum Seeker Resource Centre

When I first became involved in filming refugee stories the ASRC was a place where I saw the perfect mix of head and heart in responding to refugee needs. Founder, Kon Karapanagiotidis was, and still is, a power house of vision and inspiration. Since 2001 the ASRC has grown to be Australia’s largest asylum seeker organisation delivering services to over 1,200 asylum seekers at any one time through programs such as material aid, health, legal, counselling, casework and foodbank.