Product Description: This documentary follows several young and courageous boys through three crucial years of their youth joining them in their journey across the ocean and towards opportunity.System Requirements:Running Time 84 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. Rating: NR UPC: 821575548052 Manufacturer No: TF-54805
Amazon.com: If everyone in high government office saw The Boys of Baraka, who knows what kind of positive change it might inspire? From this remarkable documentary about hope and second chances, the message is clear: The poorest, most violent, undesirable neighborhoods in America are a breeding ground for hopelessness and despair, and there's a solution if only we'd give it a good fighting chance. The scene is Baltimore, Maryland, in 2002, where 76% of all African American boys living in the inner-city ghetto will never earn a high school diploma. As one adult tells the kids at a Baltimore school, they have three choices: jail, an early death, or graduating high school--and you know she's telling the cold, hard truth. That's when we learn of the Baraka School in Kenya, East Africa, where 20 African American boys (ages 12 and 13) are chosen each year to enter a transformative two-year course of schooling, away from their families in Baltimore. The purpose of the school, in part, is to demonstrate that the toxic environment of Baltimore, and its negative impact on the self-esteem of ghetto residents, can be reversed by removing these boys to Baraka, where a strict regimen of classes and responsibilities has an immediate, if not always permanent, beneficial effect.
We follow several boys on this fascinating journey toward growth and renewal. Devon is an aspiring preacher with musical talent; Montrey is a troublemaker with a bad attitude, who dreams of a career in science; brother Richard and Romesh are both accepted into Baraka, and despite setbacks both flourish in the program. Codirectors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady capture their gradual awakening to a new way of living and a new outlook on life, and then comes bad news: Due to security concerns and regional politics, the Baraka program is suspended, and the boys must return to the bleakness of Baltimore. Have they changed for good? Will they find a way to earn their diplomas and have hope for their futures? The Boys of Baraka offers no easy answers, but in showing us a glimmer of hope against all odds, the film gains depth and power with a conditional happy ending. Uncertainty remains, but so does a palpable sense of achievement and self-improvement that could, on a grander scale of government and societal support, lead to a positive revolution in our school system, which currently offers a depressing shortage of options for our most underprivileged citizens. Without forcing its uplifting message, this exceptional documentary offers proof of a better way, if only enough people would step up and support it. --Jeff Shannon
Why has this idea not been given more attention? Perhaps I'm biased as I work with at-risk teens, plus I lived in Kenya for a year myself... but this documentary encapsulates an incredible idea that I believe could easily be replicated if people truly caught the potential behind such an idea. While sending a group of teens to Africa is on a very large scale, this could be done on a smaller scale and produce a very similar result. Taking ourselves out of our comfort zones tends to produce in us fertile ground for breaking through rock and stretching out new roots to produce new fruit.
Since I didn't hear about this film in a conventional way, but rather accidentally, I am not expecting this idea to suddenly catch and become the trend that environmentalism has become. However, I hope to replicate this idea one day. I guess we'll see what happens.
While this film is disappointing in that the whole story was not able to be completed (due to unforeseen circumstances, not due to the documentarian's fault), the story is inspiring and brings hope to a grim future for so many young people who are a victim of their surroundings/circumstances.
Watch this DVD! I had the wonderful opportunity of going to the premiere of this movie. In attendance were the director and several of the young men who were in the documentary. The film itself was both heart breaking and frustrating, and hearth warming and inspirational. Having the opportunity to talk with these young men after the movie was life-altering. They are amazing and I hope they have all gone on to achieve their dreams! The experience has touched me deeply and I have given this DVD as a gift to everyone I know.
Heart Wrenching This film is amazing and heart wrenching. I teach high school and I am going to show it to my Peer Counseling kids. It is very interesting and thought provoking.
The Boys of Baraka Film-makers Ewing and Grady offer an intelligent, insightful look at the devastating realities of life in the crime-ridden ghettoes of Baltimore, a city where only one-quarter of young black men will ever graduate high school--and most, as one counselor grimly reminds prospective applicants, will wind up in jail or dead. "Baraka" takes us into the school hallways and homes of its three principal subjects, and features poignant one-on-one interviews with teachers, family members, and the boys themselves, whose honesty about the circumstances of their lives butt against their hopes and dreams. The Baraka School may be a safe haven from the streets, but it has its own hardships, too. Join these "Boys" on a compelling and inspirational journey.
Inspirational Inspirational movie about the inner strength all of us have. Everybody deserves a chance! and this movie reflects that belief
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
