If You Love Our Children: Children's Health and the Environment (working title), is a 53 minute educational documentary video about the complex web of connections between environmental degradation and its impact on children's health, while highlighting what community activists, health professionals and other citizens are doing to bring about personal, social, and policy change. It will be used widely as a resource in community, labour and health professional outreach, awareness and educational programs and for national television broadcasts.
The need for this project is illustrated by a leading expert in the field of children's health and the environment, Dr. Philip Landrigan, MD, M.Sc., Director, The Centre for Children's Health and the Environment: Mount Sinai School of Medicine (Global Forum II, 2001) who notes:
It is now clear from studies in animals and children that subtle changes in concentration of normally occurring chemical such as hormones - as well as the presence of toxic agents like lead, mercury or PCBs - can produce profound and permanent changes in the developing nervous system. These changes can lead to decrements on mental performance, alterations of the reproductive system, cancers and other conditions...We must increase our understanding of the neurotoxicity of chemical agents now in the environment, and we must adopt public health policies that limit the exposure of fetuses and children to environmental chemicals.
Are we performing a vast experiment on children and indeed the future gene pool? "By default, we are conducting a massive toxicological experiment, and our children are the experimental animals" Needleman, H. quoted in T.Schettler et al. in In Harms'Way. Toxic Threats to Children's Development. Boston, Physicians for Social Responsibility, 2000:103
Today, there is growing public debate about the environmental harm children are being exposed to in Canada and elsewhere. If You Love Our Children will raise awareness, explain the issues in everyday language and present safe alternatives to harmful substances in the air, water, food and soil. Some young people, who are engaged in protecting children's lives and ecosystems will be profiled as will be health professionals, researchers, and activists who will contribute to viewers' knowledge of this challenge and offer hope for creative responses/actions to this modern day scourge.
The purposes of the film project include:
- to identify and explain risks children and future generations face from environmental exposures;
- to mobilize knowledge and opinion for personal, social and structural change;
- to offer positive strategies for personal action and the generation of social and public policy
regarding environmental health, toward the creation of a cleaner safer, more just world for present and future generations.
The film is Phase one of a three phase project. Phase one entails the financing, research, development, production and securing a broadcaster of the film. Phase two includes the research, writing and production of accompanying educational materials, the design of the video jacket and print materials, the planning, preparing and launching of the film in English and the versioning into French. Phase three involves organizing community education/film outreach, training trainers workshops, participation in various community programs, conferences, seminars and the like.
The Women's Healthy Environments Network (WHEN) is the sponsoring organization for the film and the scientific advisors are the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE). WHEN is a non-governmental charitable organization (#119262533 RR0001) that works and educates with various local community groups, parents, teachers, health professions, the general public, the media and policy makers to the fact that environmental health is a key determinant of public health. WHEN actively promotes the primary prevention of environmentally linked health conditions such as breast and other cancers, asthma, allergies, immune system related problems and the like by advocating the reduction of toxic emissions, a shift to safe production models, biological agriculture and lawn care; energy conservation, efficient, renewable energy sources; affordable public transportation; and more. WHEN was founded in 1994 and collaborates within many environmental health partnerships in Canada (and elsewhere). More detailed information is available upon request.
WHEN's previously sponsored film, Exposure: Environmental Links to Breast Cancer, launched at the First World Conference on Breast Cancer (1997), winner of the Best Health Documentary at the New York Independent Film Festival, 2001, and nominated for a Gemini award has now been versioned into seven other languages. That film, with its accompanying resource guide and educational workshop program has proven to be an innovative and dynamic multi-media popular education tool, one that has and continues to be effective in stimulating change in communities, institutions and with health professionals locally, nationally and internationally. We have every expectation that this project will have a similar impact.
Similar to our experience with Exposure, now in these many languages, we anticipate that diverse cultural groups will wish to help to create versions suitable for their particular Canadian immigrant as well as home countries' educational support. We are fortunate to have the services of two award winning film makers, Director, Barri Cohen and Story Editor, Karen Shopsowitz, each of whom has a vast experience in documentary film making.
Filming commenced at the Canadian/U.S. Global Forum 11 on Children's Health and the Environment, Washington, D.C.(2001) from which we have made a 12 minute promotional "clips" to use to help create awareness of the issues. Both Exposure and the If You Love Our Children "clips" are available from the WHEN office.
We are at the completion stage of the co-production development agreement for the film's development/treatment with The National Film Board of Canada (NFB). This first stage has been prepared for what is anticipated to be a co-production of the full film in the near future. Such a co-production agreement requires that we raise 51% of the total budget to their 49%. The NFB producers are most inspired by this project and see it as an important application of their renewed mandate of film as a tool for education for change. There is also consideration of television broadcast following approval of the treatment by Michael Allder, Executive Producer, the CBC `Nature of Things'.
To date approximately $115,000 has been raised of our half of the projected $338,000 budget. Another approximately $54,000 is required. If all goes according to plan, it is anticipated that completion and launching of the film will be in the winter of 1994-5.
Please consider making a donation to the film for which you'll receive a charitable tax receipt. Any amount is appreciated, no amount is too small or too large. Should you wish to see the full film proposal, please contact WHEN at when@web.ca or 416 928 0880.
Please make your cheque out to WHEN - the children's film
and send it to WHEN at
101-24 Mercer Street
Toronto, ON M5V 1H3
Producer, Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg MES, PhD Feb. 2004
