Credits to Emmanuel LUYET
Little Big Steve
Voted “Best resilience doc” at the Indie doc pro film festival 2022
Synopsis
Nairobi, a slum with a population of one million two hundred thousand. In the midst, six-year-old Steve decides to go to school against the will of his family. This decision cost him eight years on the streets. His schoolteachers and a priest paid his school fees. His parents sank into alcohol, and his brothers and sisters plunged into drugs, theft and prostitution. Twenty years later, with a degree in psychology, he returned to help children who had been left behind, physically and sexually abused as he had been. According to statistics, 50% of children in the slums are abused. Steve has built a children’s school in Mathare to teach children their rights, including the right not to be beaten or sexually abused, as well as the right to education and food. These notions give them a chance of getting out of the situation. Those who exploit children don’t like Steve’s activities, but the people of Mathare support him.
The story
Tiziana Caminada, Alice Denyse and Yves Matthey met Steve in western Kenya in 2014 during a solidarity trip with the Solferino association. Tiziana and Yves were filming a documentary on the Rafiki Wa Maendeleo Trust for the association.
At the time, Steve was doing his practical training at Rafiki as part of his studies in psychology at the University of Nairobi. He was looking after vulnerable children in the community around Rafiki. Tiziana, Alice and Yves were impressed by his communication skills and his work with the children and their families. They decided to interview him for the documentary on Rafiki.
In 2017, Yves and Tiziana returned to Rafiki looking for Steve. They found out that he had returned to Mathare to open a school for the abandoned and vulnerable children of the slum.
The aim was to teach them their rights, so that they would no longer be abused, to give them a quality education, to feed them and look after their health. At the time, around 220 children were attending “Happy Star”.
Yves and Tiziana made a documentary film on the subject. During the 4-day shoot, they met gang leaders, former colleagues, teachers, children and Steve’s family. Back in Geneva, Tiziana spent 6 months editing and directing the film. It was the start of an intense and exciting adventure.
Huge success and four awards
Everyone who attended the projection was touched by Steve’s resilience and determination.
In 2019, Tiziana sent the film to Jean Zermatten, a former juvenile court judge and founder of the Centre for the Study of Children’s Rights attached to the Faculty of Law at the University of Geneva. This was followed by a screening to mark the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The University of Geneva then invited Steve to a special screening at the Arditi auditorium in the presence of Jean Zermatten and Philippe Jaffé, a doctor in child psychiatry. Both are members of the UN International Commission on the Rights of the Child.
The UN also invited Steve and Tiziana to take part in a 3-day symposium to mark the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, organised in conjunction with the OHCHR. Several screenings followed at Cinélux in Geneva, L’ECAL in Lausanne, Chambésy and the Grand-Saconnex leisure centre. The most recent screening, organised in October 2022 with Ciné ONU and graced by the presence of Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Extreme Poverty, was a resounding success.
The documentary won The IndieFEST film award in 2021, The Indie Doc Pro award in 2022, the Beyond Earth film festival award in 2022 and the My Hero film festival award in 2022.
The children of Mathare need your help
We need qualified teachers and appropriate school materials. We also need food for the children. What they eat at school is often all they have for the day.
The children of Mathare need your help
We need qualified teachers and appropriate school materials. We also need food for the children. What they eat at school is often all they have for the day.
Credits to Emmanuel LUYET