The Great Granny Revolution

Press Coverage

Local filmakers document grandmotherly compassion from Wakefield to South Africa

by: Rowan Lomas
for: The Low Down To Hull & Back News, Wednesday, March 8, 2006

A grandmother hangs laundry with a baby on her back before bathing three more children, feeding them breakfast in a one-room apartment and getting them off to school.

This scene of children orphaned by AIDS and the grandmothers who look after them in South Africa will be part of a documentary by Lac-des-Loups' Robert and Brenda Rooney. They returned from the AIDS-ravaged Alexandra Township shantytown earlier this month after three weeks of shooting the final footage for their upcoming documentary The Great Grannie Revolution, which follows the Wakefield Grannies' relationship with the Alexandra GoGos (a group of South African grandmothers) since it began almost two years ago.

For Brenda, a founding member of the Wakefield group, to see someone who has l ost her children raise a second generation in poverty was a heart wrenching experience.

The Rooney's set their lens on Petronella Makharya. While two of her charges are her grandchildren, the other two she adopted and nurtured back to health, learned Brenda one morning when she went to the South African woman's shack to film. Makharya shows amazing courage, says Rooney, though she doesn't know how she'll survive the next month.

“She was told the baby would die but she nursed this baby who's now this chubby, cute bundle. This woman has nothing, but she gets up every morning at 5:00 a.m..” Rooney fights back her tears as she describes Makharya's situation. “This is what we're supporting, this is what we wanted to capture with the filming.”

The film intends to show what a relationship between grandmothers on either side of the Atlantic can accomplish, whether it be fundraising for seeds to grow food, school fees and material to sew, or providing important emotional support through personal letter-writing.

“They need each other but they also need to feel there is help coming and the financial support allows them to feel that if a crisis happens there is somewhere to turn and there are people there to help,” says Rooney. “This acknowledgement we're giving helps them recover and gives back to us. There's no charity in this, we gain so much.”

With the help of an old friend, Susan Bazilli from the anti-apartheid movement, the Rooneys safely navigated the impoverished Johannesburg suburb, which Brenda says is a very dangerous place, especially for people who don't know it very well. They were also able to film with the help of a $6,000 grant from the Stephen Lewis Foundation, which funds grassroots projects attempting to aid the struggle against AIDS in Africa.

Since making their way home, the Rooneys cut over 30 hours of tape into an hour to show the 10 other Wakefield Grannies and their supporters what their partners go through every day, and present them each with a greeting from their counterpart.

“What we saw was some of the video they shot in Alexandra which sort of blew us away,” says Norma Geggie, who began the project with an invitation to her home in the fall of 2004. “The main thing was we were tickled pink to have this feedback because it's more personal for us and we realize it has spread beyond Wakefield.”

The Stephen Lewis Foundation's Grandmothers to Grandmothers movement, launched this March and now 45 granny groups strong, was inspired by the relationship between the Wakefield Grannies and Alexandra GoGos. The Great Grannie Revolution has an estimated budget of $100,000 and Rooney Productions is still looking for funding to ensure the documentary is ready to be shown at the foundation's conference coming to Toronto in the days leading up to the World AIDS Conference this August. People can learn more at www.rooneyproductions.com