Documentary tells plight of AIDS Orphans

by DREW DAVIS
The Press-Sentinel

Mark Stokes has two great personal passions: making films and helping people. His upcoming trip to Ethiopia will allow him to do both. Stokes, a former reporter for The Press-Sentinel, will be leaving tonight (Saturday) for an 11-day trip during which he will both work with relief for AIDS orphans and shoot footage for a documentary about that relief effort.

'We're laying a foundation for interdenominational aid," he explained Wednesday. Stokes, who now lives in Savannah with his wife, Kasey, and their 1-year-old son, Ben, will be taking time off from his "day job" as a writer and editor in the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) communications office. Kasey will be joining him on the trip while her mother looks after Ben. Also with Stokes will be his longtime documentary partner James Kicklighter. The two have previously collaborated on That Guy: The Legacy of Dub Taylor (which Stokes directed), about prolific character actor Dub Taylor, and Di Passaggio (which Stokes produced), about the impact of a summer abroad on college students studying in Italy--and on Kicklighter, the director, as well.

The trio will be traveling with what Stokes calls a "huge" group of volunteers from five states and several religious backgrounds. Leading the group will be 75-year-old Linnie Darden, a longtime Third World mission volunteer who established a deaf school in Ethiopia 45 years ago, and his son and grandson.

"Basically, this came about as a direct result of hearing this 75-year-old black man speak in my church," Stokes said. The resulting trip will have three components: educational opportunities, from teaching reading skills and sign language to conducting Bible studies, for the orphans; business meetings to determine long-term needs and how those might be met; and, of course, the gathering of footage for Land of Higher Peace.

Stokes is trying to put together a documentary that will stand on its own while also chronicling both the heart-rending need of African children and the hope that continuing relief efforts are producing. Though Stokes will be gone 11 days, plane flights and layovers will leave him in Ethiopia for only seven days. Five of those days will be spent in Gondar, where the group he's filming will be working with children at We Saw the Light Children's Village.

Formerly the Morning Star Children's Village, the orphanage was begun by Magdalena and Timotheus Augstburger of Bridge to Israel. The other two days will be spent in Addis Ababa, where Stokes plans to visit Artists for Charity (an orphanage founded by former SCAD student Abezash Tamerat) and Mercy Ministry Happy Children Home. "The thing that's really exciting me is that there's so much going on already," Stokes said. "People of all walks of life are completely giving themselves to the destitute children of Ethiopia. If there could be one entity that could put aside all personal preference and ideological prejudices to partner the numerous humanitarian organizations with one another for the specific needs that we assess, the potential for change would be unfathomable!"

Stokes is trying to establish that entity while filming a documentary about the effort. His work is being funded by donors who are being offered creative premiums, such as autographed DVDs and associate-producer credits.

More information about the project is available at www.landofhigherpeace.com.

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