Academy for Educational Development

TUMAINI LETU (OUR HOPE) WINS BEST SHORT DOCUMENTARY AT NEW YORK AIDS FILM FESTIVAL

Washington, D.C., December 11, 2006 — Tumaini Letu (Our Hope), a film about three women caring for children orphaned by AIDS, was named Best Short Documentary at the 2006 New York AIDS Film Festival.

The festival aims to utilize visual media to prompt social action in the fight against AIDS. Tumaini Letu was one of 18 films selected to screen at the festival.

Produced by the Academy for Educational Development (AED), Tumaini Letu captures the lives, struggles, and spirit of these women, who care for some of the hundreds of thousands of children orphaned by AIDS in western Kenya. Rasoa Kivairu is raising ten grandchildren; Anna Khautu is a single mother of five; and Anna Aredo has taken in four nephews.

“The numbers are staggering, and I wanted to put a human face on the children and families the epidemic has left behind,” said Natalie Halpern, AED media relations manager and the film’s producer and director.

The caregivers receive support from the AED Speak for the Child program which provides weekly visits by a trained community mentor who offers them information about nutrition and other child development issues. Preschool fees, immunizations, basic medical care, and membership in a monthly caregiver support group are also covered by the program.

“Speak for the Child has improved the lives of thousands of children in Kenya since it began in 2001, and will reach more than 130,000 orphans over the next seven years,” said Frank Beadle de Palomo, senior vice president and director of global HIV/AIDS programs for AED. “The film not only personalizes the impact of HIV/AIDS on society’s most vulnerable, it shows a program that gives Africa’s next generation a chance at a better life.”

Tumaini Letu has screened at numerous film festivals, including the Chicago International Film Festival, where it won the INTERCOM Competition’s Silver Hugo in the Non-Broadcast Documentary category. The documentary was also shown during the XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto and at the U.S. Capitol. Watch Tumaini Letu at www.aed.org/ourhope.

Founded in 1961, the Academy for Educational Development (www.aed.org) is a nonprofit organization working in all the major areas of human development, with a focus on improving education, health, and economic opportunities for the least advantaged in the United States and developing countries throughout the world.

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