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R E S TA U R A N T S , G A L L E R I E S & E N T E R TA I N M E N T • M A R C H 2 1 — 2 7, 2 0 1 9
Children who live at Bal Ashram in Rajasthan, India, enjoy fresh air and the freedom to run and play. COURTESY PETRA LENT MCCARRON
Island documentary filmmakers bring ‘Children of Bal Ashram’ to the MVFF. By Connie Berry
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here were two Nobel Peace prizewinners in 2014 when recipient and activist Malala Yousafzai, the young woman from Pakistan, grabbed the world’s attention with her campaign to make sure every girl around the globe has the opportunity to go to school. The other recipient was Kailash Satyarthi, a man who’s rescued 87,000 children from child labor in India over the past four decades. Satyarthi and his wife Sumedha founded Bal Ashram, a refuge for these children. But more than a haven for them, it’s a place where they regain their dignity and learn how to advocate for themselves and for the rights of all children. It’s somewhat like the old proverb: If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish you feed him for a lifetime. Bal Ashram is a place of hope for the future as well as a place for rescued children.
Window into the world
about success or failure.” His wife Sumedha appears just as driven in the documentary. She stands toe to toe with a politician during a community gathering, and takes him to task for not speaking out against child labor with the urgency that is needed. At one point she says to him, “You work for us.” Bachpan Bachao Andolan coordinates with law enforcement in organizing raids on businesses, where the children are sometimes rescued. Sometimes, though, by the time the raid takes place, the business owners have already gotten wind of it, and the children are hidden from the authorities. According to “Children of Bal Ashram,” there are 28 million child laborers in India. They stack tobacco leaves, run sewing Continued on Page C5
Petra Lent McCarron, Christopher Mara, and Barbara Dupree — it’s an opening for the hometown audience. This is the film company’s fourth film on children’s rights since 1996. It’s a slow process documenting the exploitation of children around the world, according to producer and director Len Morris. Len and his wife Georgia have known Kailash and Sumedha for more than 20 years, and they’ve filmed their efforts for just as long. “This film is really 20 years in the making,” Len said. “I think the best part of the story are the children and the resilience of those children, their power and their capacity to come back and get an education and form a family among themselves and share the love they missed. It’s a remarkable and humbling thing to see, and quite wonderful.” In the film’s opening moments, you see a parade of young people in India chanting for human rights as they march through the streets. They’re part of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, the Save the Childhood movement founded in 1980 by Kailash. So besides Galen Films, based in Vineyard Haven, a physical space, Bal Ashram, he’s also produced the documentary “Children of Bal created a movement that identifies, releases, Ashram,” which makes its world premiere rehabilitates, and educates children who have at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival on Thursday, March 21, at 5 pm at the Chilmark been in servitude. The goal is to create a childfriendly society where all children are free Community Center, and screens again on Saturday, March 23, at 3:30 pm at Pathways at from exploitation. “If you want to do something, just start the the Chilmark Tavern. For the people behind Director Len Morris and co-producer Petra Lent McCarron. work,” Kailash says in the film. “Don’t think Galen Films — Len and Georgia Morris,
“I think the best part of the story are the children and the resilience of those children, their power and their capacity to come back and get an education and form a family among themselves and share the love they missed.“
COURTESY PETRA LENT MCCARRON
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March 21, 2019
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Yoga for your face
Try something new for a more radiant complexion. By Abby Remer
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he simple poses in Fumiko Takatsu’s video tutorial “Face Yoga Method” are fun to do, and will definitely put a smile on your face. However, there is nothing flippant about Takatsu’s dedication to developing exercises that target the over 43 facial muscles. I joined the class at the Oak Bluffs library this past Saturday, sitting with a group as Takatsu led us through a set of exercises aimed at toning the muscles to increase circulation and blood flow, which should result in a more youthful and radiant complexion. Her exercises involve the muscles in our brow, cheeks, chin, neck, and shoulders, and while it may take a few weeks to see the outward results, the
relaxation I felt was immediate. One of the first exercises helped open up my back and neck muscles. We essentially hugged ourselves with arms crossed and hands resting on our opposite shoulders and then made figure eights with our elbows. Try doing it yourself 10 times, remembering to breathe and to keep your shoulders down, and see if you feel an expansion across your back. One of the group’s favorites were the Wows. Here you open your mouth as wide as possible and thrust your arms out to your sides as you say, with expression, “Wow, wow, wow, wow” 10 times. Sound silly? Try it and see how good it feels. There were sequences where you made a
PHOTOS: GABRIELLE MANNINO
Robyn Reilly does exercises during the face yoga class.
fist and used your knuckles to relax your face by applying pressure while drawing your hands over your brows starting at the nose and move outward to your temples, and then down either side of your face. “I’d heard of face yoga about five years ago,” said Robyn Reilly, one of the participants. ”I’ve never done body yoga. And she [Takatsu] has such a lovely personality that you leave and you’re happy and you feel good. I enjoy coming and I enjoy the instructor. It’s a positive thing you’re doing for yourself.” There seem to be countless opportunities to practice yoga across the Island, but in this program, you get the opportunity to focus entirely on the 43 muscles in your face. It’s a
Caroline Cooney, Oak Bluffs library programming coordinator, follows along with the video class.
great way to laugh and practice with others. You can take the exercises home with you. You can do it with your morning coffee, in the car, or while washing your face. You can’t say that about a lot of other forms of exercise. MVT Face Yoga Boot Camp runs Tuesday and Thursdays from 4 pm to about 4:30 pm at the Oak Bluffs library, and Saturday from 3 pm to 3:30 pm. You can drop in or come to all of them. Contact Carolina Cooney at ccooney@ clamsnet.org or 508-693-9433, ext. 408, for more information. To learn more about Takatsu’s method, visit faceyogamethod.com/ courses/.
Window into the world Continued from Page C1
Emmanuel,” a documentary about a 13-year-old boy machines, lug heavy mounds living on the streets in Nairobi, Kenya; and “The of clay and mud and mold Same Heart,” an essay on the them into bricks, they work effects of extreme poverty on in quarries inhaling dust all day, and they decorate pretty the world’s children. “All the movies are little gift boxes that tourists connected,” Len said. “I like love to buy, all when they to say we’ve been making one should be going to school, movie for 23 years.” playing with friends, and The films provide a enjoying their childhood. window into the world of Instead, they are bought global poverty and how it and sold like cattle, in some impacts the lives of children. cases their parents are lied Len said despite the scope to and their families are of the challenges the films left dealing with guilt and document, he remains grief. The parents living in poverty are duped by people hopeful. “Things are a lot better who take their children with than they were when we promises of jobs and decent started,” he said. “There are wages in the city. Instead, 100 million fewer children children work for no wages, sometimes for 15 to 20 hours working in child labor, there a day. Some parents receive a are tens of millions of girls small payment or two before getting their education. Children and adults are realizing they’ve lost all aware that the products we contact with their children. “It’s a criminal enterprise,” use have children involved Len told The Times last week. in their production. Many “The offer of work and pay is global brands like Disney, used as an inducement. Once General Motors, or Coke now have HR people who they’re removed from their village, their parents have no try to keep the company on way of contacting them, and the right side of these issues, keeping the use of children the children have no escape. out of the supply chains.” This is an enabling thing; Along with Galen Films, traffickers prey on families the filmmakers created a because they can’t feed the children they have, and often nonprofit, Media Voices the children want to go. They for Children, an online community that fights for end up utterly betrayed and children’s rights all over the used.” world. Len has produced Galen films has short films for MVC on also produced “Stolen topics such as human Childhoods,” which took trafficking, domestic labor, seven years to make and covered child poverty across child labor in agriculture, access to education, and eight countries; “Rescuing
In a still from the film, boys greet Sumedha.
Cameraman Jatin Makkar shows Ismile what he’s been shooting.
COURTESY PETRA LENT MCCARRON
gender equality. The team at MVC has been together for 30 years, focusing on human rights. Their work continues to grow with each experience they commit to, Len said. He said he was surprised by a few aspects of making “Children of Bal Ashram,” since it was his first time filming in India. “I had a partner who generally did shooting in India, but he passed away in 2013, and this was the film that took me to India,” Len said. “India was a surprise. I wish I’d gone 30 years before, it’s a remarkable country and a tremendous melting pot. “At the northern border, I was struck by how much happier so many people are with so much less than what we have, and how conscious people are of the gifts they
“I hope people come to see the film,” Len said. “These are tough subjects, and I hope we got out of the way enough to let the children tell their story. After all of this, I remain optimistic that we can all but eliminate child labor. I’d like to make myself Island via the M.V. Film have. As they learn and obsolete, and all the people Festival is something they improve themselves, they all look forward to, Len said: I work with feel the same want nothing more than to “Our plans are that you spend way.” MVT go back to their village and be the doctor, the teacher, the a few years making a film and you’re going to spend a few environmentalist. I was just “Children of Bal Ashram” lifted up by the whole thing.” years getting it to audiences. plays at 5 pm on Thursday, This is a very special and very March 21, at the Chilmark Working with a team of important audience; this is people that has grown into Community Center, and our community.” an extended family is one of on Saturday, March 23, The Chilmark festival the benefits of Galen Films at 3:30 pm at Pathways at and MVC, he said: “It’s a very will launch “Children of Bal the Chilmark Tavern. Visit Ashram,” and after that there mediavoicesforchildren.org special thing to have such a huge life experience and have will be trips to Washington, and galenfilms.com for more D.C., a panel discussion at it with people you’ve known information. Visit tmvff. the U.N., and creation of a for so long.” org for the schedule of films classroom version of the film playing during the Martha’s Bringing the work back and a study guide. home to the people on the Vineyard Film Festival.