THANK YOU FOR RAIN
“The biggest risk to African growth is climate change” Paul Poulman CEO Unilever. This particular evening, I was among the many who attended the premiere of Thank You For The Rain and while watching, every second of the film brought Paul Poulman’s words to life. Indeed climate change increasingly threatens our farm fields while extreme weather puts our homes and lives at risk. Behold, I present to you a guest post from one of my loyal readers be sure to enjoy the read and follow him on Flickr
Thank You For The Rain: Lessons Learnt
On 29th November 2017 saw one of the biggest documentary launches in the country. Thank You For The Rain was its title and it is a documentary about Kisilu Musya a farmer in Mutomo who noticed something wrong with the weather patterns and sought to learn what was causing it.
4 Lessons Learned from Kisilu
Have a vision. In his quest for climate change and advocacy Kisilu was very singular to his cause and fight. To the point that it brought conflict as he spent his time mobilizing and advocating for tree planting as a means of fighting climate change. Even when he knew the volunteers of his tree planting groups were in the same predicament as he was- that of not earning anything despite having families to feed.
He says in the film, ‘that for one to effect change must be willing to overlook some factual truths and push for his cause’
- Proactive.
During the Q&A session, Julia the documentary film director was asked how she met Kisilu. And she revealed that of all the farmers she met, she met Kisilu last and on the last day. His pro-activity and eagerness to do something to effect the change he desired is what made it easy for her to keep coming back and back.
It was also revealed that Kisilu was so proactive that his only condition for being the film’s subject was that he had to have his own camera. And from the film, quite a chunk of it was what Kisilu shot.
Julia Dahr- Director of Thank You For The Rain
2. Persistence.
From the documentary, it was evident to the 500+ people who watched the film that Kisilu is a very persistent man. And very singular in his pursuits.
The bit that best illustrates this trait was how he pursued Christine- his wife. She confessed that she never liked Kisilu from the start; something she made very clear to him what does he do? She said he kept pursuing her and writing letters one of which he told her that there was no other person for him but her. His persistence is what finally got her to eventually change her mind.
Kisilu and his wife Christine
3. Play your part
Kisilu wasn’t a trained filmmaker and neither was he an environmentalist. He saw a problem and learned about it. Got a solution went out and mobilized his community about the problems they all faced. Inspired and motivated the same community on ways of fighting climate change. Partnered with Julia (someone with a common goal) to journey with him in finding a lasting solution to climate change. And just because of playing his part, he got the chance to represent Kenya and his community at COP 21 (Conference of the Parties) which is under the United Nations Climate Change Conferences in the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC)
Christine, Julia, and Kisilu responding to questions and queries.
The reason for giving the above detail is to show the magnitude of how far his genuine fight for climate change has taken him. The key emphasis of Genuine. He never sought to address the UN or COP he just wanted to find a solution to the climate change issues affecting him and his community. For the simple fact that he needed his farm to provide for his family and that the climate wasn’t letting him prosper.
Written by Firul Maithya Photographer Sum Media
Photos courtesy of Docubox
Photography by April Wambui