Peru: Documentary on Rural Education Competes for Prize · Global Voices
David Sasaki

The following post was originally written in Spanish at Cinencuentro.
“Camino a la Escuela” (“The Road to School”) competes in the Seed of Tolerance contest of Current TV
The director Humberto Saco writes us to let us know that a 6 minute short version of his documentary, Camino a la Escuela, will be shown on Current TV as part of the Seed of Tolerance contest; a competition directed at journalists and filmmakers who have made some type of audiovisual work about the themes of tolerance and diversity.
The five semi-finalist films will be chosen by a renowned jury. They are: M. Night Shyamalan, Jeffrey Wright, Edward Norton, Paul Haggis, Morgan Spurlock, Melissa Etheridge and Margaret Cho. The final winner will be decided by public vote.
Here you can watch Camino a la Escuela. It's important that, additionally, we vote for the movie (give it the “green light”) so that it can achieve some of the awards of the competition. Good luck Humberto!
The following is a description of the film, which you can watch below:
We have produced an edited version of a documentary we made on the struggles of a group of rural children of Puna, Peru and their teacher. The Puna is the region of mountain range of the Andes between the 4.0 and 4.8 Km of altitude, arid tableland and the climate is cold, with very little precipitation. Everyday the children have to travel for more than two hours on foot through mountainous terrain and rivers just to get to school Their teacher also has to travel a long distance to the school on a bus that sometimes doesn't reach it's destination. When the bus is not available she hitches a ride on a truck. She is separated from her husband and children, she stays along in a cold classroom with no electricity and her only source of water comes from an outside well with freezing water. Both the children and the teacher make a daily effort to get to the school. Nevertheless they lack the indispensable learning materials. Their educational situation is typical of what children face in the rural areas of Peru. The purpose of this video is to make people who live in cities aware of the reality that exists. Children and adults all over the world should analyze the educational system in the Third World.