They Come in the Name of Helping

TheFoolOnTheHill

http://www.baibureh.org/

They Come in the Name of Helping - a film by Peter Brock

"I wanted to see what development efforts look like from the perspective of those they are intended to benefit. I wanted to know if we could gain insights into improving and reforming our development efforts by simply listening to those people whose lives we have sought to change. "

I'm unable to get this film to run on my computer. If any of you can see it, do comment.

Linked from the excellent http://weightofsilence.wordpress.com/ site

__________________

Say no to Novocaine - Transcend Dental Medication

clivington

Hope this isn't "teaching grannie to suck eggs" but...
This is a PDF document rather than a film. If you are having problems viewing it from your web browser, do a "right click" with your mouse on the address (http://weightofsilence.files.wordpres s.com/2007/12/chapter1.pdf)
and select "Save Link As.." or "Save Target As.." and save it to your desktop. Once there, it should open with Adobe Acrobat Reader.
If you have to do this it probably means there's something wrong with your web browser's Acrobat plug-in and you might have to download and reinstall Acrobat Reader again.

machadinha

No, there's a Quicktime video on that page alright (the Baibureh one, not the WeightOfSilence one). Didn't look at it extensively and it doesn't run very well at my end either so I can't be bothered; probably just a trailer or intro/summary, or that's what they usually are.

__________________
Reading tips, all picked up at IndiaMike : INDAX's A Comprehensive Guide To India / Dinoj Surendran's Desi Humor / ITHVC on Culture Shock & Travel Health / JetLag Travel Guides For the Undiscerning Traveller / India Travel Links

clivington

Urgh... sorry, mea culpa.
I've watched the film now. It is a Quicktime movie, about 25-30 mins long, and well worth viewing. It ran fine here (UK) although I did struggle with the stronger Sierra Leonean accents (my lack of brain-processing ability). It's basically about the desirable qualities of respect, humility and humanity of outsiders (NGOs, colonisers, businesses, whatever) in financially poorer counties which, far too often, are on the receiving end of arrogance, ulterior motives, ignorance, superficiality and self-righteousness. There was a nice quote from Mandela about education being key, and the good work of Joseph Kaifala was highlighted.

TheFoolOnTheHill

Thank you clivington and machaindha ( macha - I get your ID incorrectly spelt so often, that I've resorted to errrr just 'macha'! )


Yes, I was referring to the www.baibureh one...I could see the Quicktime logo, but gave up after refreshing twice.

I'd like to watch it - it seems to echo my sentiments. I have come across more than one "kind and generous" charity donor who later go on to make the crudest of comments on how their money was used! Hence the interest in the film.

machadinha

Ta Clive. So that's the whole movie you'd say, or an excerpt?

I looked up the maker at Imdb.com but while there are some of that name, I don't think this guy is listed there. So no idea about his backgrounds or anything.

Fool, I think the video isn't quite properly presented so it runs into some blockages at my end, and since I'm not desperate to see it, I left it at that. If you do want to see it, you might want to look into your permissions, or any block messages you get. (It basically seems to want to install the Quicktime player or plugin which I already have and normally works fine, so I'm like No way José.)

ps Mac or Mach or Macha or whatever you like will do just fine, Fool, that's what many here abbreviate it to

clivington

It's the whole movie in its entirety.
I've just recovered it from my "Temporary Internet Files" folder and it's 277Mb, .m4v format (a flavour of MPEG-4) if that means anything to anybody with a life!

TFOTH - it resonates with me also.