The Wakefield Grannies, and filmmakers Brenda and Robert Rooney are putting the little village with the big heart on the map again - this time when the couple's documentary on the Grannies will be aired at a conference preceding the World AIDS conference held in Toronto this summer.
The Stephen Lewis Foundation, a non profit organization that funds grassroots organizations in the struggle against AIDS, announced March 7 that it is getting behind the Wakefield-inspired project and launching 'Grandmothers to Grandmothers,' a campaign to raise awareness and mobilize support in Canada for Africa's grandmothers to cope with the pandemic. The Foundation has also invited the Rooneys to screen the rough cut of their documentary The Great Grannie Revolution this August.
The Wakefield chapter are aiding in development of the conference meant to broaden the "granny" concept, said Brenda, and she hopes the film will inspire other women to take up the cause.
The connection between the Wakefield Grannies and the Alexandra GoGos, a South African equivalent, began a year and a half ago when a group of 12 Wakefield women came together after hearing Rose Letwaba speak about her work as a nurse in AIDS-ravaged Alexandra Township on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Letwaba told of a whole generation of South Africans who have lost their adult children and now carry the burden of raising their grandchildren. The Grannies have since been raising money to help the GoGos till their fields and raise a second generation of children.
Recently, the filmmaking couple took up the cause.
"I asked what we could do," says Wakefield's Brenda Rooney. "I think my reaction was an urge to action."
Brenda and Robert Rooney have experience filming the subject of AIDS, having produced the documentary Condoms, Fish & Circus Tricks that immersed viewers in the pandemic. But being a Wakefield Granny herself, the documentary she's been working on since the group was formed is a personal account of the Wakefield-Alexandra relationship. According to Brenda, the most positive part of the exchange isn't the money raised, but the moral support it lends to the cause.
"When I got my first letter from my partner I discovered that it was much more about the personal relationship," remembers Brenda.
In a letter written by her Alexandra counterpart Magdeline Ramakobo, who was distraught and overworked due to her husband's illness, Brenda learned that simple correspondence and an empathetic ear changed everything for Ramakobo.
According to Letwaba, all the women involved in Alexandra are committed to the program and their self esteem is boosted by the help.
"The morale is high in this group and there is a lot of hope," she wrote in a letter to fellow Granny Norma Geggie. "Just the idea and the thought that there are other grannies on the other site of the world who care so much about them make this group appreciate life."
The impact Letwaba has described is what Brenda and husband and fellow filmmaker Robert Rooney intend to capture when they travel to South Africa in April and film the courage represented by the women there.
In addition to the foundation supplying seed money for the GoGo Grannies outreach project in Alexandra Township, it has pre-purchased a 'use license' from Rooney productions to use the film as a public education tool, which adds to the funds already raised for filming and helps them get to Africa to complete the project.