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International Development and Service Agencies (11)
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55,000 for BreakfastLawrence Cherry & Evelyn Cherry 1949 11 minThis short documentary profiles a 1949 meeting of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers in Guelph, Ontario. The IFAP plans to help solve the dire problem of world hunger—a problem sharpened by the birth of 55,000 more human beings, arriving "for breakfast," each day. Delegates emphasize the plight of the many nations who face starvation while others have a surplus of food. The conference challenges the world to succeed at implementing a proposed plan for the fair distribution of food. -
AzzelGuy L. Coté 1979 28 minThis short documentary looks at Azzel, one of the Niger Department of National Education’s first schools for nomads. The film describes the traditional nomadic lifestyle of the Tuareg and the changes brought about by these government-run boarding schools.
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Blue VanguardIan MacNeill 1957 1 h 0 minA film made for the United Nations to chronicle its role in restoring peace in the Middle East after the Suez Crisis of October 1956.
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Chair of GoldThomas Farley 1956 30 minIn this film, Jack Scott, a Vancouver newspaper columnist, visits Bolivia, South America, to bring us a report on conditions in that country and on the technical assistance program undertaken in the late 1950s by member countries of the United Nations, including Canada. We hear from Canada's Dr. Hugh Keenleyside, who headed a U.N. Commission, and from specialists from other countries who are helping to create a new economy for Bolivia.
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A Drop in the OceanLise Éthier 2002 48 minWhen Doctors without Borders, the humanitarian medical aid agency, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999, Dr. Claudette Picard was in Liberia. Her first mission with the agency had begun in this small country of West Africa six years before. In the meantime, she had practised medicine in other wartorn countries such as Zaire and Afghanistan, always in extremely hazardous conditions.
What impels women and men like Dr. Picard to leave their easy lives behind and go off to do what little they can to alleviate human suffering? Whatever the motivation, the doctors are in the field, providing medical care and helping to draw attention to distant places often forgotten by the world's media. Places like Harper, a small town in Liberia devastated by a decade of civil war. This is where we follow Dr. Picard on her rounds. With her halting English, her comforting presence and a few scarce drugs, she sometimes manages to do the impossible. But not always...
Some subtitles. -
Eye Witness No. 58Ronald Weyman & Grant McLean 1953 11 min
Eye Witness was a series of short monthly newsreels produced by the NFB during the post-war period. Each installment included several short reports on issues of interest to Canadians. Episode No. 58 includes Canadian Works with U.N.’s Problem Refugees, in which Dr. Robert Westwater, an Ottawa educator, helps UNESCO deal with problems precipitated by the dislocation of Arab populations following the 1948 war in Palestine, and Tractor Train Pushes through Northern Wilderness, which shows how supplies needed to build the Ungava railway and hydro project are transported by tractor trains through snow-bound roads and rough country. -
Eye Witness No. 471952 11 minTheir Clinic's the World: Operating from Geneva, Switzerland, the World Health Organization brings improved health and living standards to remote parts of the world. Home on the Campus: Manitoba University's coeds qualify for degrees in home economics as they learn to grapple with the problems of housekeeping and baby care. The Plane that Beats the Bush: The De Havilland Beaver, an aerial pack-horse designed to meet the needs of the bush pilot, demonstrates it versatility.
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Man of AmericaThomas Farley 1956 30 minThis film brings a report from Jack Scott, a Vancouver newspaper columnist, about a United Nations-sponsored migration program in Bolivia in which icampesinos r--tin miners of the Andes mountains--are being moved from the desolate Altiplano to more fertile lowlands. We hear most of the story from one of the miners who describes the skepticism with which his people first met the ideas and what it eventually came to mean to them in terms of new dwellings, land to cultivate, and work to support their families.
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Not Far from BolgatangaMichael Rubbo & Barrie Howells 1982 28 minThis short documentary demonstrates how international aid works, or fails to work, in the transfer of technology from a more to a less industrialized society. In the late 1970s, the government of Ghana, with the help of the Canadian International Development Agency, drilled wells and installed hand-operated pumps in many of the African country’s villages in an effort to provide a clean and convenient water supply. The film explores the relationships between people, environment, technology and nations of varying levels of industrialization from a decidedly Western perspective.
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Triage: Dr. James Orbinski's Humanitarian DilemmaPatrick Reed 2007 1 h 28 minIn this vérité feature documentary, we travel with Dr. James Orbinski from Toronto where he is a father, doctor and teacher, back to Africa where he spent years as a field doctor, as he embarks on writing a personal and controversial book about his humanitarian experiences. Dr. Orbinski accepted the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) as their President, and was a field doctor during the Somali famine and the Rwandan genocide, among other catastrophes. In this film, and through his personal perspective, we look at the act of triage. Racing against time with limited resources, relief workers make split-second decisions: who gets treatment; who gets food; who lives; who dies. By the creative team behind the award-winning documentary Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire.
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You Don't Back DownDon Owen 1965 27 minThis short documentary follows a young Canadian doctor serving in a local mission hospital in Nigeria. Stationed abroad under the Canadian University Service Overseas Plan, Dr. Alex McMahon and his schoolteacher wife encounter new challenges every day throughout their rewarding experience.
