At a screening of Tapestry of Hope at her Short Hills home, Olivia Lange, right, joined forces with filmmaker Michealine Risley, to support the Girl Child Network of Zimbabwe, which helps child rape victims.
Photo by Elaine Durbach
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October 28, 2009
For many teens, their mitzva projects end when they have their bar or bat mitzva celebrations. Not so for Olivia Lange. The Short Hills eighth-grader had her celebration at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in January, but her effort to empower girls in Zimbabwe deepened recently when she came across a California filmmaker just as passionate about the cause as she is.
Olivia had never been to Zimbabwe, the country where her father grew up. In recent years it has become too dangerous for tourists, and people there have faced increasing hardship. But when the time came for her to choose a mitzva project, she saw it as a chance to connect with her dad’s background.
“I looked on Google and found out about The Girls Club of Zimbabwe,” she told NJ Jewish News. In a society where many men believe that raping a virgin will cure them of HIV AIDS, this is no casual social venue; the club, part of the Girl Child Network of Zimbabwe, is a temporary haven for victims of sexual violence.
Until other safe homes are found for them, the club provides the girls — some just toddlers — with affection, counseling, song and dance, play, and education. Across the country, 30,000 girls are now involved with GCN.
“I learned that even girls my age were being abused. I wanted to do something to help them,” said Olivia. With letters to friends and family members, and sales of bracelets she designed, Olivia raised around $1,000 to help GCN.
On Oct. 15, she and her parents, Ellen and Trevor, hosted a screening at their home of Tapestry of Hope, a documentary about the network; the film’s director, Michealine Cristini Risley, was there in person to answer questions about it.
Risley and her executive producer, Michelle Titus, brought the film to the Lange home two days before its first showing in Manhattan and about a week before she showed it to members of Congress in Washington, DC (see sidebar).
Thanking the hosts afterward, one visitor said, “I can’t say it was an enjoyable evening; it was harrowing — but it was fascinating, and so moving.” She made a contribution, and went away proudly wearing one of Olivia’s blue rubber bracelets imprinted with the words, “Empower Girls of Zimbabwe.
Olivia said she heard about the Risley film by chance.
“I contacted her and told her about my mitzva project,” Olivia said. Risley and the Langes have since become friends, bonded by their shared concern.
“It’s so exciting to see this connection, to see a girl in a setting like this care so much about how other children are suffering,” said Risley, who is the mother of three boys.
Meanwhile, Olivia said she feels empowered herself by the wonderful response she has had from people here. “It feels really great,” she said.
Her father, who said that at first he was wary of his daughter’s getting involved in a Zimbabwean issue, agreed that her project was “terrific.”
For more information on Risley’s film and the Girl Child Network of Zimbabwe, go to www.tapestriesofhope.com.
‘Hope,’ and danger
Tapestry of Hope director Michealine Cristini Risley is herself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, the topic of her 2003 film, Flashcards. It won awards but she struggled to get anyone to show it. Then she met Zimbabwean powerhouse Betty Makoni — who has been nominated as a CNN Hero for her work founding the Girl Child Network of Zimbabwe. Makoni told her that Flashcards had been shown to girls at one of the GCN homes for victims of sexual abuse.
“She told me that seeing that women in America had experienced the same horror was a revelation for them,” Risley said. “It helped them open up and speak about what they’d gone through. And she insisted that I go and see them.”
Risley went to Zimbabwe and with Makoni visited with the youngsters sheltered at a girls’ club compound, where with gentle encouragement, they are helped to regain a sense of their own worth. But the government of President Robert Mugabe found the American’s interest intolerable. Risley was arrested, jailed for three nightmare days, and then released on condition that she leave the country.
Her film, Tapestry of Hope, was made after just 20 hours of filming.
At the screening of the film in the Lange family’s Short Hills home, Risley said that if her security could be assured, she would jump at the chance to go back. Olivia Lange, her teenage friend and fellow campaigner, said she would love to go one day too.
— ELAINE DURBACH
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