P-O-V-E-R-T-Y

I am inlove with www.mediastorm.org!

This site is both beautiful and powerful, educating it’s viewers on the most human level of situations on our earth. There are about twenty different documentaries, all including audio, video and still photography to educate us of the issues and the human soul.

Here are some of the issues I learned about, while hearing people’s true, raw stories.

I watched a documentary on a man named James Blake Miller, a Marine in the Iraq War. He came home from War to try and return to his life previous to his time in Iraq, but that did not go as he planned. I learned of the struggles that James Blake Miller had trying to lead a normal life, but in the way were the haunting images that ran through is head, alongside all of the memories. War had severly changed James, for the worst, and I had a firsthand look at exactly how.

Secondly, I watched a documentary on about 20 drug addicts from New York. There exact names were not disclosed, but that did not matter while watching this documentary. This site has given me the chance to see the cold hard truth on being an addict, with no one to love you. I learned exactly why those 20 people had turned to heroin. This documentary was very, very eye opening for me.

I learned alot about the small town of Iowa. I heard from about 10 different people, and listened carefully to all of their life stories. The people varied from young to old, alcoholics, strippers to butchers and elderly.    I learned why all of them are where they are today and how living in a small town of about 2,000 people basically destroyed them.

I watched a documentary on a family whose legacy has been carried out for centuries of farming. I learned the struggles of being a famer and how dramatically low the population of young people farming today is.

I watched a documentary on the Rwandan Genocide, and this would have had to be the most powerful, moving documentary I watched on this site, as well as anywhere else, ever. I learned that nearly a million Tuzi people died within one year. A Hutu leader said at the beginning of the Genocide, “We will kill them all like rats.” I learned the most powerful tool of the Rwandan Genocide was rape. Rape gave all of the Hutu men power over all of the Tuzi women. Today, thousands of women have children from the rape that they received in 1994.

I watched a documentary of about 6 Hurricane Katrina victims and listened carefully to all of their stories of their hardships/struggles. I learned that over 80% of New Orleans was flooded, and nearly 10,000 people died.

A really interesting documentary that I watched was called Evidence of My Existence, by Jim lo Sealzo. He is a photojournalist that was literally addicted to traveling. He left his family to travel for years, missing the birth of his son. Over his travels he contracted many illnesses, but that didn’t stop him. He was determined to continue traveling, and documenting, to teach people of the issues our planet was facing. Throughout this documentary I learned many things, but the most shocking thing I learned was of the disease called Leprosy. Mycobacterium leprae is responsible for the disease. This bacteria grow very slowly and mainly affect the skin, nerves, and mucous membranes. When a person becomes infected with Mycobacterium leprae, the bacteria begin to multiply within the body. Symptoms often begin after three to five years. Even in severe cases, damage is limited and generally affects feet, hands, and peripheral nerves.

I watched a documentary on Bihar, India and learned a lot of surprising things. Bihar has the highest poverty rate in all of India. There are about 82 million people in Bihar. Bihar has the lowest rate of literacy in all of India, it being at about 40%.

I watched a documentary on Ivory Wars, in Zakouma.  The Zakouma’s National Park is one of the last remaining concentrations of elephants. The guards at the front of the gates of the park face poachers, daily, trying to hunt the animals for the black market. Over 300,000 elephants have been hunted since 1970.

The final documentary that I am going to tell about is the documentary called the Black Market. The wild life trade is the third largest illegal trade in the world, rivaled by guns and drugs. Every year, up to 30,000 primates, 2 to 5 million birds and 10 million retile skins are traded.