Film
by Jonathan Harwell
SONS OF LWALA
Screens March 27 at TPAC
Most filmmakers measure their success by box office grosses. Former NewsChannel 5 reporter turned documentarian Barry Simmons counts patients treated. Simmons is the producer, director and writer of Sons of Lwala, a film about two Vanderbilt Medical School students who have built a clinic in their remote Kenyan hometown. Since opening its doors in May of last year, this clinic in Lwala—a village of just 1,500 people, two-and-a-half hours by foot from the nearest hospital—has treated more than 12,000 patients. Not your typical Michael Moore healthcare story.
In 2005, Simmons was an up-and-coming on-camera newsman. His reporting on stories as diverse as the Sundquist-era budget stalemate/government shutdown and a one-legged Appalachian Trail hiker had won him accolades. Try eight regional Emmys, two Edward R. Murrow Awards, and two-time recognition as Tennessee Writer of the Year by the Associated Press. But he was looking for something more.
“I didn’t want to explain to my son someday the work I had done in my early career by pointing to a trophy case,” Simmons says. That’s when he met Milton Ochieng’ (the apostrophe is part of the spelling of his name) in December 2005. By February, Simmons had quit his job at Channel 5, and he was doing research in Lwala with Milton.
It’s easy to see why Milton’s story sparked Simmons’ interest. A boy of humble origins from halfway around the Third World gets a scholarship offer from Dartmouth, but he doesn’t have the $900 for travel to New Hampshire. So the people of Lwala sell chickens, goats and cows to raise the money. In return for their gift, his village neighbors have a simple request: “Don’t forget us.”
Milton doesn’t forget Lwala. He can’t. While he tackles the Ivy League as the hope of his village, his parents both contract and eventually lose their battles against HIV/AIDS, the disease infecting more than 30 percent of their village. It was Milton’s father’s dream to someday have a clinic in Lwala, to treat AIDS and myriad other African health issues. Milton decides to build the clinic. He draws up plans, applies to Vanderbilt Medical School, and starts fund-raising.
The story doesn’t end there. Milton’s younger brother, Fred, follows him to Dartmouth and then Vanderbilt. Their older brother Omondi sacrifices his own education to care for their ailing parents and then oversee the clinic’s construction. A plucky foundation worker, Jena Lee Nardella, cheers them on and brings a crucial influx of cash. And then the cause starts to snowball. Vandy undergrads host fashion-show fundraisers for the cause. The kids Milton and Fred coach in soccer break their piggy banks to donate $45. When the time comes to build the clinic, the Lwalan villagers mix the mortar and lay the bricks themselves.
The participation of former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and rockers Jars of Clay and even Bruce Springsteen may bring marquee value to the documentary. But in this saga, the non-celebrities are clearly the stars.
That includes director Simmons. Since he began making Sons of Lwala, volunteers have been rushing to become a part of the story faster than he can tell it. Friends of the Ochieng’s who have spread out from Dartmouth and Vandy are asking to screen the film across the country to help raise money. Nashville banker Larry Trabue had a chance meeting with Simmons, and now he has organized a gala preview for Thursday, March 27, at TPAC. Already, tickets for next week’s event have raised more than $90,000 for the Ochieng’ Memorial Lwala Community Health Center. The movie will also show next month at the Nashville Film Festival.
But Simmons hopes his film will do more than just fund the center’s immediate needs. “I want it to empower people,” he says. “I’d like to raise enough money to build an endowment for the clinic, but I also want people to understand that this isn’t a story of the West coming to save the day. They built the clinic themselves.”
Perhaps Simmons’ most important goal is giving kids in Lwala the opportunity to “see their place in the world differently.” According to Jena Lee Nardella, this may already have happened. “The kids in Lwala used to want to be soccer stars when they grew up,” Nardella says. “Now they want to be Milton and Fred.”
For more information about tickets, the clinic and/or contributions, see sonsoflwala.com.
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