Summary
The film's concept grew out of a casual conversation between [Jane Gillooly] and friend/co-producer Tracey Kaplan, who was considering adopting a child from South Africa. The conversation spurred interest in AIDS orphans in Africa and the growing number of grandmothers who are raising grandchildren in the absence of deceased parents. Gillooly got in touch with a number of contacts engaged in this issue, including Pat Daoust, a fellow Bostonian who founded the "Gogo Project," an initiative to support grandmothers in tiative to support grandmothers in Swaziland.
The documentary's title is a metaphor - gogos are the "hawks" that must take on the burden of caring for their grandchildren ("chicks") in the absence of parents. In one arresting scene, one of [Gogo Maria Shongwe]'s grandsons tells her that he will die before she does, because it seems to-him that grandparents don't die.Albertina Skoshana, one of three grandmothers whose story is told in Today the Hawk Takes One Chick," walks with two of her grandchildren. In Swaziland, which has the world's highest prevalence of HIV infection and the world's lowest life expectancy, the burden for raising a generation of children orphaned by the ravages of HIV increasingly falls to "gogos" like Skoshana. (Photo courtesy of Jane Gillooly Films)See the full content of this document
Extract
'Hawk' Doc Looks at Aids' Impact On Swazi Grandmas
For many people, the transition into retirement presents an opportunity to start a new chapter in life. Free from the rigors of an everyday job, retirees can start enjoying the fruits of their lifelong labors-taking on new hobbies, maybe traveling, and scratching items off their lo...
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