Shaunelle Holyoak was the person of interest in
Brittany and I’s concerned citizen documentary.
She works as a night manager at the Provo women’s shelter, interacting
with homeless women and children. In
addition to that, she just recently got accepted into UVU’s social work
program. She honestly cares about people
and their well-being. Not only the women
and children that she works with, but her friends and family, roommates, ward
members, basically anyone she comes in contact with. Because of the caring characteristics she
exemplifies through her life, often putting others before herself, I figured
she would be a wise choice for the Concerned Citizen project.
Unfortunately for us,
as budding documentary filmmakers, Shaunelle is unable to disclose the location
of the shelter to anyone. Let alone
allow people to film her while she’s there.
So we were addressed with the problem of having to find some other way
to visually fill the time then just with her interview, since we couldn’t show
her in the work environment she was talking about. We decided to focus a little more on the
social work program that she was doing at school, and what she had learned from working in a
social work setting. This was so that we could show her doing school work and
have it make sense with what was being addressed through the dialogue. I think ultimately this helped us focus the
documentary on her, and her beliefs. If
we had been able to show her at work, I know I would have been tempted to
include all her dialogue about her duties and jobs as the night manager, and
left out the stuff that makes her story unique.
Arlene
Goldbar, author of Human Rights and
Culture: From Datastan to Storyland says,”Culture is key to creating the
conditions that enable human rights and therefore security rooted in caring
rather than correction.” The women that Shaunelle works with, who sometimes identify
strongly with a culture, don’t have the means to express it. This is because they are working to just to
satisfy their basic human needs of shelter and food. Their kids sometimes, don’t even have all the
materials they need to do well in school, and find it hard to participate there
as well. Shaunelle’s work tries to give these women a leg up, so that they can
get a footing in the work force, or at least be able to provide for their kids.
Once these women have their most basic needs fulfilled, they can share their
experiences and culture with others.
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