Water First by Hart, Amy - Movie Review Example

Water First He that wears the shoe sure knows where it pinches the leg, the fact that Charles Banda, a local fireman that is now working as a waterman successfully drilled over eight hundred wells in 800 in his native and impoverished country of Malawi, makes him the most qualified man to narrate the story about the problems of water that Malawi is faced with. The action of the international community to salvage the country of this problem is not to be swept aside. The story of Charles Banda, the founder of the Malawi Freshwater Project was packaged into a film called, “Water First” and this film discusses the important role of clean water in the community and its importance in the solution to the problems of hunger, poverty, gender equality, HIV/AIDS scourge and environmental sustainability and which are all problems of Sub-Saharan Africa. The documentary was directed by Amy Hart and it also talks about the United Nations step towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). 1. Different scenes of the video present the issues of women’s equality as the video tried to preach equal rights of women in the society. The film clearly conveyed the crucial role that clean water plays in aiding the UN in achieving their Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) and its critical importance in tackling global problems such as: women’s equality and environmental sustainability. The film did not only succeed in showing scenes on gender equality and environmental sustainability, it also shows that if the people from the rural community have easy access to portable water, it would reduce the risk at which they contact water-borne diseases such as: diarrhea, dysentery and cholera (Charles Banda and the Malawian People). The film showed the story of Makalosa village, a city that had been enjoying clean water until the borehole pump that the government installed for the region broke about two years before the production of the film and these sad developments pushed the women to fetch water in distant areas and exposing them to different threats to their health. The women were shown carrying pales of water on their heads after drawing water from stagnant pools, thus exposing them to water borne diseases like Cholera and other related diseases. The film showed that people cannot grow crops without water thus underlining the importance of importance and its role in reducing hunger and poverty, especially in a country like Malawi where the farmers rely on the profits they make from the crops they grow (Charles Banda and the Malawian People). It was learnt from the documentary that clean water is closely associated to global health issues as these issues cannot be talked about without a mention of clean water. The documentary showed that if the world was serious in tackling the problems in the world, they must learn to put water first. Charles Banda, the founder of the Freshwater Project (FWP) was depicted drilling wells across villages that lacked this basic amenity, thus easing the accessibility of water to people in the rural areas. In the movie, the Fresh Water project (FWP) was able to provide about 600,000 Malawians with water in their ten years of existence as a humanitarian organization. Being a local, Charles Banda knows the people that are in dire need of clean water and in the video, he is seen targeting these people in order to provide their water need. Banda tried to explain that the MDGs in the areas of gender equality, education, environmental sustainability and population control cannot be attained without water. Though, he believes that water is only a necessity but it is not in any way sufficient for these changes to take place as it needs to be mixed with other tool that are necessary for a substantial development. The film shows that clean water would help in the area of environmental sustainability as it shows that if there are clean waters, people would not really need to boil their water before drinking and as a result of this, there would be less demand for firewood that would be used in boiling the water and the environment would be saved. Clean water would make the scrub and trees stay in its place and this means when the rain falls, there would be trees to hold up the rain and there would be no abnormal run off as the roots of the tree would stop the flow. The ecology would be conserved and the environment sustained. The firewood that is burned to boil water would have a rippling effect in the environment as the result would be deforestation and this would cause global warming and this shows the relevance of having clean water as it would reduce the rate at which people hewn down trees to make firewood. Meeting the challenge of providing the people with clean water would help reduce death and diseases and it would help reduce hunger and poverty to a minimal level (Charles Banda and the Malawian People). It would solve the problem of gender inequalities in the sense that the availability of clean water would reduce the number of women that go to a very long distance to fetch water for their male counterparts and this means the females would now be able to face other areas of their lives and thus maintaining their rightful position in the society. The female members of the society would now have the opportunity to attend schools and do the things that their male counterparts do, thus creating a balance in the society. Water First shows that the creation of a latrine in a school would trigger lots of benefits as it would provide educational opportunities for girls, increase in the literacy level as people would be inspired to go to school, it would also generate income for the people and these are steps towards achieving a better and improved life. The film did well to show the relationship between having good hygiene and clean sanitation resources in schools as it tried to explain that it would keep the girls in school as they are the ones that need these basic things for their bodily functions (Charles Banda and the Malawian People). Water First has been able to show that the clean water issue that has been swept aside in recent past is highly important for members of the society, especially the girls as it has helped in getting most girls educated in Malawi as through the Fresh Water Project, the girls know that they can be assured of a safe environment around them. The cinematographers did a great job by capturing the beautiful landscape and the countryside of Malawi as it shows people of all ages drawing water from faraway regions and these areas were usually unprotected, meaning that the girls could be raped along their way to fetch water from these distant locations, thus exposing them to sexually transmitted diseases like HIV/AIDS and so on. A girl that was raped on her way to fetch water would not be empowered in the society as there would a sort of gender inequality and this shows the importance of water in solving these problems. The film also scored great success in showing other benefits that the availability of clean water has to the community. Access to clean water would go a long way in dealing with the problems of water-borne disease as long as the source of this water is separated from sewages. 2. The United Nations tried to use the film to show the relationship between the significance of clean water and global issues such as gender equality, ecological management, hunger, poverty and diseases such as HIV/AIDS. Though the United Nations recorded considerable success in showing viewers the relationship between clean water and the global issues on human rights, but the fact remains that they have not fully achieved the Millennium Development Goals they set aside for themselves. It is clear from all indications that the UN did not make clean water their top priority and linking this with the global issues on human health would have helped them attain these goals quickly. The only tangible reason that the UN has achieved what could be referred to as an average success is due to the fact that they have not tried to effectively link the availability of clean water to the global issues on human rights. The documentary showed that the United Nations would make giant strides in achieving about 30% of their MDGs, if they concentrate more on clean water and sanitation (Charles Banda and the Malawian People). 3. I recommend this video for other viewers as it is a must watch for anybody that yearns for progress and development. The reasons that I strongly recommend this masterpiece documentary is that it would really help people that want to learn about the problems that the people of the developing world are faced with and it would also help people to be able to teach other people about water in the developing world. The documentary must be watched by everybody as it discusses the problems that could arise if clean water is not made available to a particular society. The documentary is not to be viewed by only average individuals, but it should be watched by the government and people in the helms of affairs as it sensitizes them on the water problems that people are faced with, especially the people in the rural areas and it forces them to act swiftly in the areas that help is needed. Water First would compel people around the world to take the issues of clean water more seriously as it would show the rippling effects of clean water on women as they would be encouraged to go to school seeing the effect that the clean water project have on the women in Malawi. Apart from the fact that adults would be inspired from watching the film, children would also find the documentary interesting. Work Cited Water First. Dir. Hart, Amy. Perf. Charles Banda and the Malawian People. 2006 Read More