‘Takes a Village’ was nominated at the internationally renowned Birmingham Film Festival for ‘Best Music Video’ and ‘Best Social Media Content’.
This was an incredible experience, seeing my first commissioned short film ‘Takes a Village’ on the big screen! It was very moving. The poem for this film was written during a desperate time of isolated parenting. A time I still find myself in and out of now, mostly in, and that I see many other loved ones in too.
Parenting as a single or isolated parent is incredibly challenging. Added factors such as poverty, racial discrimination, PTSD, CPTSD, and many others, only increase the level of challenge isolated parenting brings. After speaking and spending time with multiple other single and isolated parents I have witnessed firsthand the immense struggle parents silently experience due to a lack of support from families and communities in modern-day parenting.
This film highlights how threatened struggling parents feel by society’s judgment and social services intervention and how community support is what parents need more than social services assessment.
The biggest difference between ‘professional’ intervention and community support is that many struggling parents are all too aware of the ‘professional’s duty of care’ to report concerns about children’s safety to authorities. Although a well-intentioned policy, this power of authority to escalate concerns into professional’s hands who have the legal power to take our children and remove our right to ever see them again can feel crippling and disabling. This might seem a far-out fear to some, but anyone who grew up in the care system or faced the system as a parent will know how quickly false allegations, false information, and miscommunication can lead to extreme measures taking place. Or for others the fear is related to a fear-based belief that they are not ‘good enough’ parents and ‘deserve’ to not care for their children. This could be particularly in parents experiencing CPTSD.
In contrast, community intervention does not come with the authoritarian power to take children and profit from them through the adoption industry by implanting the child into a totally different family. Community intervention is about grandparents, aunties, uncles, extended family, friends, neighbors etc supporting the mother and or father in raising the child or children.
It Takes a Village to Raise a Child
African Proverb
My film ‘Takes a Village’ is a cry out for the Village.
I couldn’t get any childcare support on the day this film was screened and although I found it incredibly stressful and exhausting driving an hour to Birmingham and back and managing my children’s needs throughout a long day, it was really special to sit down in the cinema with my kids and watch the film I had made on how much it hurts me and other mums to be raising in children in adverse circumstances that could much be alleviated with more family and community support.
It was a lovely surprise to see the music producer and my friend Ryan (ABYOUNIVERSE) with his son in the welcoming area of the festival. We were later joined by my friend Elka, Directing Manager of MediZen, Birmingham and both Ryan and Elka was able to support me with the kids during the screening. The village was there, and for that moment, I could feel the peace that comes in a village.
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