Documentary on aid worker's African efforts honoured

A documentary following the work of a Dublin-born aid worker’s efforts to fight starvation and disease in Africa has claimed a second prestigious award in the US.

The television programme telling the moving story of Dr Mike Meegan has been presented with a Silver Angel Award by the California-based, Excellence in Media Foundation.

The documentary ‘When You Say Four Thousand Good-Byes’ tells the story of his work in African villages devastated by Aids, malaria and TB.

The foundation presents Angel Awards each year to films and television programmes of outstanding moral, ethical or social impact.

It described the RTE documentary, produced by Caroline Bleahen and presented by Jim Fahy, as “a wonderful and inspirational piece of television programming”.

The 52-minute long documentary, filmed in Kenya by cameraman Michael Lee, has already won a Gold Hugo for the best documentary at the Chicago Film Festival and a World Bronze Medal at the New York Festivals Television Programming Awards Competition.

Dr Meegan, who was awarded an Irish People of the Year International Award in 2003, went to work among Kenya’s Masai people in 1979.

He devoted his life to developing new scientific techniques to fight disease and empower local people in devastated villages to tackle Africa’s problems of disease and famines.

ICROSS, the International Community for the Relief of Suffering and Starvation, was established 25 years ago by a group of Dublin-based doctors, including Dr Meegan. It is involved in providing clinics and medical services to support individuals and families with HIV and Aids in some of the remotest areas of Kenya.

The group also works to train young Kenyans to tackle the country’s social and medical problems.

The documentary was first shown on RTE One in May of last year and since then Irish people have contributed more than €500,000 to Dr Meegan’s aid agency.

The funds raised are being used to complete unfinished clinics and to extend medical services in the Massailand area of southern Kenya where drought and crop failures are currently threatening the lives of thousands of nomadic people.