Doctor Mehret

Those of you who have been following my blog know all about David the Piano Player, the film project I have been working on the past two years. Well, I was able to do this as a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar which is a program in the human capital portfolio of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The RWJF is the America’s largest philanthropic organization dedicated to improving health and healthcare.  They invest in many great projects but they also invest in people, hence the term human capital.

I am incredibly thankful to the RWJF for allowing me time and space to think, dream, and be creative about health. Not having to worry abou a salary for two years and have protected time to continue to do ethnographic work has been critical for my career and for stregthening TruthAIDS.  I am sure my upcoming Washington D.C. move would not have been possible without their support.

That said, RWJF just posted an article about me and David the Piano Player for their website. Click here to read.

I have been working on a new film project for the past month and a half that has me very excited. I literally feel like the film found me.  I was minding my own business at a Health and Human Rights conference in Los Angeles when it happened.

Truth be told, the story actually start in Washington, D.C.  I was attending my cousin’s film premiere Guzo when the cinematographer on the film, Zeresenay Mehari, started to tell me about his own project Oblivion.  The film is about the story of a legal precedent setting case against the abudction of girls into marriage in Ethiopia. My ears immediately perked up because I recognized it was a story of women’s rights and justice.

Fast forward, a few weeks later, I am in L.A. for a conference and I connect with Zeresenay, who happens to live out there.  He gives me a copy of the screenplay and I am literally blown away by the story. I had to be a part of it. More importantly I had to help! TruthAIDS is currently designing the outreach plan for the film and helping out in any way possible to get the project done.

The production of this film will mean big things for women’s rights in Ethiopia. So thankful that it found me!