AN AFRICAN MESSAGE FOR AMERICA Boni in classroom Boni: My name is Boniface Mwangi, I’m a photographer and an activist from Kenya. BONI: The point why I’m here today is talking about how do you discover yourself and how do you get your voice. If you discover your voice and discover yourself, then you give value to the world. Locator: Carrboro High School, North Carolina MATT (teacher): Anybody have any concrete thoughts on what if anything they might do? GIRL: I would work for advocating in women throughout the world. I would go to places like India and Africa and the Middle East where it has the most issues. BONI: Can I ask a follow up question? MATT: Yeah, please BONI: So, as a woman of color why travel all the way to talk about women in India when you have race issues in your country and actually they affect your people, people who look like you, and young black men. And if you speak about it here they’ll hear you more because you’re local. GIRL: Um, I don’t know. I guess I feel like people in India and Africa and the Middle East suffer more than women here do. BONI: You don’t know them, they don’t know you. And they won’t listen to you. We have people working in India every single day to deal with those issues. Why don’t you start local before you go international? BONI: No, i’m not putting you on the spot, I’m not putting you on the spot, I do apologize. GIRL: It’s ok. It is important to start local I guess. BONI: There’s so many things in your backyard you can address without traveling all the way to India. Boniface at his desk in Nairobi. Title Card: Boniface founded PAWA254, an organization of artists and activists in Nairobi. [1] Photos of Boniface on his desk; teenager; pan to TED photo BONI: I used to be a coward growing up and then I rose up and I found my voice along the way. Violence stills & video Stills with title card: In 2007 Boniface was a news photographer covering the violence that broke out during the Kenyan elections. [2] BONI: The violence changed my life. And it forced me to act. And that’s how the work that I do now was born. Title Card: Boniface has grown a citizens’ movement to fight for social and political change in Kenya. [3] Protest footage BONI VO: I can’t hold myself back when there’s injustice. I can’t. LOWER THIRD Boniface Mwangi BONI: So there’s the idea that you need to be helped, I don’t think we need to be helped. But I know as human beings our challenges, our struggles are connected. So I come here to share with them what we guys are doing back home and what they can learn from them. Walking with Duke student outside Title card: Boniface has been invited to North Carolina by Duke University, to meet with students in an international volunteering program.[4] Title card: Over 1 million Americans volunteer overseas.[5] The most popular continent is Africa.[6] STEPHANIE: I went to Guatemala. It was a great experience... But in what world does it make sense to go and fly out to do a community service project. GIRL2: In terms of someone coming from a different country and going and making impact or doing work, it just seems like it’s less helpful than it would be if these people were being helped by people within their community so they could have a continuing relationship. GUY 1: Why do you think we are not having that conversation? I can completely say from personal experience there’s a clear sense of glorification — and there’s this sense of faux heroism. And then when i’m here like locally in Durham doing very similar work, people aren’t as excited by it. BONI: There’s a quote, it’s a Nigerian quote: “until the lion has its own storytellers, the hunter will always be glorified.” [7] And that’s what we need in Africa, we need the people who live in Africa to tell their own stories. Why do you get white people talk about Africa and they have no context? Why don’t you ask Africans about Africa! Why do you have to get someone from here who’s an “expert” because they went to Africa for two weeks. GUY2: The problem is how we frame the issue. You’re not going there to save anybody, you’re going there to save yourself. Because at the end of the day, this money you’re spending booking tickets and all these things, if it was just sent there, actually it could do a lot more. The guys who go there, who travel to Africa, to those countries, they’re the ones who benefit more. This experience played a part in them getting a job. So they are the people who benefited, it’s not Africa. BONI: There’s nothing wrong with service and serving other people and going abroad, I think it’s a very noble idea. The question is the why are you doing it? And that’s what you brought up. And why go abroad if you can serve at the local shelter, or the homeless place, locally. My concern is that you guys, as you try to save the world, you’re neglecting the issues at home. Like race issues, what’s happening in Missouri right now BONI vo: If you’re abroad you think America is all rosy and beautiful and things work and cops do their job. Then you come here and realize cops lock up innocent people. You come here and realize cops discriminate against people of color. They shoot them. They arrest them. Boni walking in NYC; getting on subway; series of stills BONI: It’s a sad place to be. I think this country, as an African-American, with or without a job, you still have to prove yourself every single day. You can’t be you. So why do you want to help us? Help your own country. I think Africa doesn’t need a savior, America needs a savior. END CREDITS Directed & Produced by Cassandra Herrman Co-Producer - Kathryn Mathers Camera - Andy Bowley Ted Richardson Editor - Linda Peckham Archival Stills — Boniface Mwangi Thank you - Duke University BAVC Series Producer And Curator Jason Spingarn-Koff/The New York Times Coordinating Producer Kathleen Lingo/The New York Times Series Researcher Lindsay Crouse/The New York Times [1] http://pawa254.org/the-pawa-254-team/ [2] http://www.irinnews.org/in-depth/76116/68/kenya-s-post-election-crisis / http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2013/08/a-conversation-with-boniface-mwangi/ http://www.bonifacemwangi.com/ [3] http://storymojafestival.com/speaker-lineup/boniface-mwangi/ http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Boniface-Mwangi-Art-Artivism-PAWA-254/-/1056/2459188/-/ohcdpyz/-/index.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2014/02/pictures-challenging-diaper-me-2014214152310977388.html [4] https://today.duke.edu/2014/10/boniface [5] http://csd.wustl.edu/Publications/Documents/RB10-11.pdf http://www.unitedplanet.org/volunteer_abroad/50plus/ https://books.google.com/books?id=Ms-8fCWtFvEC&pg=PT210&lpg=PT210&dq=“Over+1+million+Americans+volunteer+overseas”&source=bl&ots=dqD9xSZ8hp&sig=_hHZ9EiqjmdK_UcO3XO_Osh6RTA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OCOSVLTxDsTwoATXwYG4CA&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA - v=onepage&q=“Oveh —The Migration Policy Institute Report, 2010:www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/diasporas-volunteers.pdf [6] http://blog.movingworlds.org/9-facts-about-international-volunteering/ UC San Diego 2008 report on International Volunteering: http://www.ereleases.com/pr/africa-top-destination-for-global-voluntourism-11907 —http://www.backpacksandbunkbeds.co.uk/travel/africa-vs-south-america-where-to-volunteer/ — http://www.volunteersmagazine.com/top-10-volunteer-abroad-destinations-2014/ —http://www.peacecorps.gov/about/fastfacts/ (Africa, 45%) [7] http://www.afriprov.org/index.php/african-proverb-of-the-month/32-2006proverbs/224-april-2006-proverb-quntil-the-lion-has-his-or-her-own-storyteller-the-hunter-will-always-have-the-best-part-of-the-storyq-ewe-mina-benin-ghana-and-togo-.html “NOTE: Variants in other African languages are: Until lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter (Igbo, Nigeria).”