Educational Media Reviews Online

Canadian microbiologist, Frank Plummer, arrived in Nairobi, Kenya in 1981, before the onset of the AIDS epidemic. Since that time, approximately 30 million people have been infected with this deadly disease; 70% of whom live in sub-saharan Africa. While providing medical care to the hundreds of women entering his clinic, Plummer noticed a small number of patients who seemed to be immune to the AIDS virus. Among these special women is 37-year-old Hawa Chelangat, a prostitute from the Nairobi shantytown, Pumwanee. Searching for Hawa's Secret follows the essential work of Frank Plummer and his staff as they work together in the hopes of finding the missing link that lies within Hawa's immune system; a link that could possibly lead to a cure for all AIDS patients.

Through a bird's eye view of life in Pumwanee, as illustrated by Kenyan landscapes, traditional music, children playing in the streets, interviews in the inhabitants' native language, the conditions of mud shack housing, and AIDS victims dying, we get a sense of what it's like to live in this shantytown on the outskirts of Nairobi. We find out from this video that the Pumwanee women who sell sex are doing so only out of necessity and have since become the unfortunate victims of the AIDS virus. In many cases, these women have been abandoned by their husbands and left with several children to care for. They have no money and no education and thus turn to prostitution as a way of life. Through medical care and public education on safe sex, the number of new AIDS victims per year is decreasing among these shantytown women.

After witnessing the lives and work of Frank Plummer and Hawa Chelangat, Searching for Hawa's Secret leads the audience to laboratories in Manitoba, Canada where the quest for finding Hawa's secret continues. Such a journey gives the audience a sense of the trials and tribulations associated with this particular project. In the end, Plummer's staff does not receive the amount of funding necessary to continue the project and so the struggle carries on to find more money until there is a cure for AIDS. Until that time, 16,000 more people are infected with HIV everyday; 90% of whom live in sub-saharan Africa.

Searching for Hawa's Secret, winner of the Chris Award (the highest award given to film or video productions in each of the nine professional production divisions) at the 47th Columbus International Film and Video Festival, is an excellent production. With high quality sound, film footage, and lighting, as well as interesting and informative content, Searching for Hawa's Secretis highly recommended not only for studies in AIDS/HIV, Medicine, African Studies, and Sociology but also for any individual concerned with the plight of AIDS victims and hope for a cure.