Katiba Banat: First Girls | Pitch Video

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

Adhel Arop was born in Kakuma refugee camp, near the border between Kenya and Sudan. Her family moved to Nairobi when her mother Amel Madut got a job interpreting through the United Nations. This work helped her family obtain immigration status to relocate to Canada.

Branded a “refugee”, Adhel felt disconnected from her roots and her identity while she was growing up. When relatives hinted she should dig deeper into her mother’s background, Adhel embarked on a research project that opened the door to a life-changing, trauma-healing conversation about her mother’s childhood as a soldier in the Sudanese civil war.

Adhel captured this poignant conversation in her award-winning Telus Storyhive documentary Who Am I? Now, Adhel plans to travel across Canada and around the world to speak to the other women of her mother’s regiment of child soldiers, known as Katiba Banat, or the First Girls.

Although women and girls are prominently featured as casualties of wartime brutality, the stories of women who fight are often overlooked. As a result, we know very little about their lives, their joys and sorrows, their trauma and healing, or the unique experiences and insights they have drawn from fighting on the front lines. Currently in production, Katiba Banat will shine a light into these shadowy corners.

Katiba Banat: the First Girls celebrates the resilience and determination of women who survived horrific violence as children, then went on to create lives filled with hope, security and opportunity for their own children.

Editor: Maxim Karsh-LeClaire