Ethiopian AIDS orphans subject for Gallup filmmaker

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Theo Bremer-Bennett knows that worldwide AIDS statistics are just too overwhelming to really comprehend.

According to a November 2006 report on the United Nations Web site, 39.5 million people now have AIDS. Last year there were an estimated 4.3 million new infections, and 2.9 million people died of AIDS-related illnesses in that same year.

As a result, millions of children, particularly in Africa, have been orphaned and left homeless due to the AIDS-related deaths of their parents. Four years ago, in just one African country alone — Ethiopia — there were over 100,000 orphans in the city of Addis Ababa and more than 5 million orphaned children in the country.

Bremer-Bennett, a Gallup graphic designer, musician, writer, and now filmmaker, knows that such huge numbers leave most people feeling powerless to help. But as overwhelming as the crisis is, a number of nonprofit organizations are trying to make a dent in the problem, and Bremer- Bennett is now spending much of his time trying to raise public awareness about the work of one of those organizations, Yezelalem Minch, a grassroots Ethiopian program that has a strong connection to the Gallup community.

Bremer-Bennett and Johno Wells, a filmmaker from California, have recently completed "Yezelalem Minch — The Everlasting Spring," a one-hour documentary about the Ethiopian program that cares for AIDS orphans. The film will premiere at 7 p.m. on Saturday at El Morro Theatre, 207 W. Coal. The public is invited, and admission is free.

Yezelalem Minch means "never-ending spring" in the Amharic language of the Ethiopian people. It is a reference to the Old Testament scripture of Isaiah 58:10-11: "If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, .... You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails."

Bremer-Bennett, a co-owner of the Glyph Engine graphic design company, learned about Yezelalem Minch through the efforts of two local women, Janet Arrowsmith and Jayne Morrison. Arrowsmith, a Gallup physician, and Morrison, a civil engineer, both are former residents of Ethiopia. They continue to make frequent trips back there to promote the care of AIDS orphans, and they also devote much time in the United States to raising funds in support of the project.

Yezelalem Minch, founded in 2001 by an Ethiopian couple, began caring for about 30 children. Now it serves more than 300 children in home-based and community-based programs. Children who no longer have any family members to care for them live in family-styled homes with housemothers. Children who do have relatives or guardians willing to care for them are enrolled in a community- based program where their food, clothing, medical needs and education are assisted by the Yezelalem Minch organization.

Individuals in the United States, including many in Gallup, sponsor a child with a $30 monthly donation. The more sponsors enrolled in the U.S. means more children can be enrolled in the program in Ethiopia.

And that's the goal of the "Yezelalem Minch" film: to raise public awareness and thereby help more children. Unlike Hollywood film companies, Bremer-Bennett and Wells have no concerns about DVD piracy; they actually want their audience to make copies of the film and distribute it around the country.

"We're going to mass produce the DVD and start sending it out," said Bremer-Bennett, who explained the film will not be copyrighted.

Bremer-Bennett, who said he just dabbled in filmmaking before, took two trips to Ethiopia in the last year and composed all the original music for the soundtrack. He and Wells shot over 30 hours of film footage and about 4,000 still images during the making of the documentary. Bremer- Bennett said he donated his labor to the project because he "didn't think it was right to be paid" when that money could have gone to care for children of Yezelalem Minch.

Although the filmmaking project was one of the most challenging he has undertaken, Bremer- Bennett said it was also the most rewarding for him personally and for the message it shares. "Ordinary people like us in Gallup, N.M. can do something to help with a major, world emergency," he said.

And in spite of the circumstances of the children's lives, Bremer-Bennett said the film shows the children are living lives full of hope.

"It's not a guilt-driven story," he said."It's a story driven by hope."