The Strongest Link
Story Access to Healthcare
The Strongest Link, filmed in South Africa, shows how Access to Healthcare can make a real difference in the future of a family and a community in South Africa. Bulewla Cima, a young woman with AIDS labors to keep the disease from infecting her unborn child.
About the A dollar a day series
A dollar a day is six-part international series that shows what it means to live under the poverty line. While many people recognize that surviving on a dollar a day is a struggle, very few understand the nature of poverty. In addition poor people are often not recognized for the creativity and resourcefulness they possess. The six episodes of the series revolve around themes, respectively – access to capital, access to markets, access to jobs, access to health care, access to basic needs, access to good governance.
Educational Interest
Each documentary in the A dollar a day series is an excellent resource for individuals and groups that want to learn more about the causes of poverty and what can be done about them.
Social Interest
These programs illustrate that while poor people may lack money, education, security or healthcare, they do not lack creative initiatives, knowledge and willpower. Perhaps the greatest value of this series is that you get to know people who live on a dollar a day. They become real human beings and not just “the poor.” In knowing them you discover that they are not so different from us, because their poverty is largely a result of circumstances beyond their immediate control.
Scenes
‘Condom bash’ in the streets of Philippi, Cape Town, South Africa
Bulewla Cima is HIV positive and pregnant. She works for Wola Nani , an organization that offers personal assitance to people with AIDS by people with AIDS in the poor area’s of Cape Town and raises awareness for the virus. The second part of the scene shows a ‘condom bash’ in the streets of Philippi . Bulewla Cima informs men about a new type of condom.
Free medication reduces the consequences of HIV
Bulewla Cima tells about the access to free medication and how this has improved the lives of HIV carriers. She visits a clinic to talk about the medicin ARV, Anti Retro Viral , which reduces the chance of transmitting the virus to her unborn child.
The work of Wola Nani in the South-African townships
This scene starts with a meeting at the support center of Wola Nani in Cape Town, to discuss serious cases that the home-based carers are confronted with. Bulewla brings in the case of Nomalawu Nomzanga, a very ill woman she visits regurlary and does not get medication. In this scene Bulewla visits her again. Besides, Dr. Virginia Azevedo of the Cape Town Public Health Authority comments on the work of Wola Nani.
The power of drama in high schools
Life skills program leader Thembile Papeteka works with youngsters in high school on a stage play that deals with the issue of HIV . Drama is able to break the circle of silence around the subject, he says.
SHAWCO at work in a township
SHAWCO is a student healthcare and welfare organization, run by medical students, volunteers and community health workers, who offer medical help in their mobile clinics to poor inhabitants of townships. This scene shows the medical students at work.
The role of traditional healers in South Africa
Bulewla CIma visits a traditional healer with her son, who has stomach problems. Dr. Azevedo comments on the work of traditional healers and tells how the medical clinics try to cooperate with them instead of undermining them.
Bulewla Cima’s openness on HIV
Bulewla Cima raises awareness and openness once again in the streets of Philippi on the subject of HIV .
Stage performance in high school
Students perform in a play on the subject of health care and in particular HIV . Through drama they find a way to communicate about the issue.
Good news for Bulewla Cima and baby Yolanda
Bulewla Cima receives the good news about her daughter Yolanda, who is not infected with HIV while her blood was tested negative.