Educational Media Reviews Online

The Great Granny Revolution documents the story of how one 80 year old Canadian grandmother’s simple idea is transforming two continents. Norma Geggie would be the last one to take credit for the remarkable granny revolution but that is just what happened when she asked nine of her grandmother friends to partner with South African grandmothers who were raising their grandchildren orphaned by AIDS. The idea has spread from friend to friend into the United States and other African countries as grandmothers join together to bring support to the growing number of grandmother caretakers. Support comes by way of befriending through letter writing.

This film documents the experience of the African gogos (granny in Zulu) and the Canadian grannies in a parallel story of community building for both groups. In Canada the grandmothers write letters to women friends in Africa, read the return letters to each other and raise money to send to the clinic where the gogos meet with Rose Letwaba, a psychiatric nurse. Ms. Letwaba counsels the women who are raising grandchildren orphaned by AIDS and has organized a support group where the gogos can meet and talk about their experiences. AIDS information is sadly lacking throughout much of Africa where a National AIDS survey estimates that 10.9% of all South Africans over 2 years old were living with AIDS in 2008.

The lives of the grandmother caretakers are chronicled through interviews with individual women and footage of the gogo’s support group. One woman tells how friends and relatives run away from you when they find out that there is AIDS in the family. Of course many of the orphaned children are also diagnosed with AIDS and need to take antiviral drugs which are also discussed as an issue for the gogos. Interspersed with the difficult disclosures of the gogos are many scenes of them dancing and singing together.

Ms Letwaba also facilitates the exchange of letters from the Canadian women in Wakefield, Quebec who engage their community to help with fund raising. Through a Participatory Development Initiative one hundred African gogos visited Canada, met their pen pal friends, and participated in a march to increase awareness of the program. The women who make up the Canadian grannies compared their experience of career choices and family planning to their counterparts from South Africa describing their lives as very fortunate. While some of their peers are spending their retirement playing golf they are joining the increasing numbers who want to set the social agenda.

For all of the excellent content, the film has some flaws. The accent of the Ms Letwaba, who is interviewed periodically throughout the film, as well as some of the African grandmothers’, makes it difficult to understand what they are saying. Subtitles would be useful. Additionally, the sound is not uniform throughout the film and at times has the look and feel of a home movie. That said, it would be a good addition to an academic library that supports African Studies, social responsibility, social justice, or community health.