WeSurvive: Stories of the Ebola Outbreak

Hey everyone,

This is arthur and I am excited to report that I am in the US. I was selected to be a part of the inaugural International Documentary Association (IDA)  Getting Real fellowship. I spent one week in Los Angeles, and am so grateful to the folks from IDA, Rick and Keisha to name a few, who have been such wonderful supporters and hosts to me. While here in the US I am also researching my new documentary Another Chance in Atlanta, GA (click on hyperlinked title to learn more. 

While in Atlanta, I also had a chance to visit our colleagues at Emory University where we delivered the WeSurvive artchive. I met up with Jonathan and Jon from the Oral Histories department and we had lunch. Jonathan is responsible for setting up the website and materials. after lunch he gave me a brief tour of the campus showing the museum and library etc... It's such a massive library and their archives have a lot of material on Africa. At the library, Professor Scully also joined us in the discussion which was wonderful as she was such an important advisor to the project and the SURVIVORS film.

Jonathan also showed me how the archive will look once it launches. He showed me some of the features, including if you want to see English titles, you can turn it on. At some point, the titles could be done in other languages like French, Spanish, German or any other language that is suited. If you want to get your subtitling in whatever language, then you'd be able to turn that language on while the video is being played. 

We spoke about when the website will launch. Jonathan said he is planning on sometime in March 2023. He thinks then we will be able to organize some kind of a launch program and they want me to attend in person which would be wonderful. So excited about this material being made available to the public and it's value to researches in the US and around the world.

With gratitude, 

Arthur