Documenting recovery

At a time when Kenyan native and Springfield filmmaker Patrick Mureithi searched for silence, he found a cause. Mureithi was after quiet reflection when he attended a Quaker worship service in St. Quaker services are silent unless someone is moved to speak.

When David Zarembka stood up, he talked about a workshop in Rwanda that helped rebuild trust after the 1994 genocide. It was a workshop that was changing lives. That conversation planted a seed in Mureithi, Zarembka said.

Now the 30-year-old filmmaker is trying to raise enough money to visit Rwanda this month to shoot a documentary to chronicle the recovery. This process is about conflict, resolution and forgiveness, something everyone can learn from, he said. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda lasted 100 days and left 800,000 dead.

The majority of the victims were Tutsis. The workshop Mureithi wants to document is offered through the African Great Lakes Initiative of the Friends Peace Teams, a nonprofit group that promotes peace activities at the grass-roots level in the Great Lakes region of Africa: Burundi, Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. During the Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities workshops in Rwanda, 10 Tutsi survivors meet with 10 family members of the Hutu perpetrators or perpetrators themselves for three days in an effort to restore normal relationships.

They learn listening skills, share their stories and began to see their enemies as human beings. "When it starts, people will not talk to each other, not look at each other, not sit near each other and (by the end) they are eating together. I hope this can show reconciliation is possible even after genocide," said Zarembka, who has attended many workshops and works with African Great Lakes Initiative.

On the last day they are blindfolded and led through a maze by their former enemy. HROC is based on several premises: - There is good in every person and every person has the capacity to heal. - Victims and perpetrators experience trauma and its after-effects.

- The violence was experienced at a personal and community level and efforts to heal must happen at both the individual and community level. When they leave, participants share their experiences with their families, friends and villages. Little by little there is a ripple effect of hope, and peace is restored in the community, Mureithi said.

If people don't talk about the massacre, it will happen again. "When you don't address violence and anger, it erupts," Mureithi said. "There is a little bit of calm and it erupts again.

All it needs is a tipping point." Rwanda has a high rate of domestic violence, which he attributes to not dealing with anger, fear and the fact many are grappling with post-traumatic stress disorder. Once complete, Mureithi would like to see the documentary distributed in the United States in history and sociology departments, libraries, churches, nonprofits and any organization dealing with conflict resolution.

The neighboring country of Burundi has expressed an interest in airing a video of the workshop on television for its Tutsi and Hutu citizens. Mureithi has raised about one-fifth of the $20,000 needed for his venture. "I am waiting for my money from heaven," he half-joked and looked up.

Mureithi graduated from Missouri State University in 2001 with a mass media degree. After a class with Mark Biggs, Mureithi fell in love with documentary filmmaking. "I fell in love with the fact I can tell a story about the human experience and the viewer can empathize," he said.

"A good documentary is like a good conversation, very engaging and moving." While in college he produced a documentary, "Many Steps," that explored the origin and evolution of African American collegiate stepping. "He traveled throughout the state and then produced a film of high enough quality it was picked up for national distribution," said Biggs, associate professor and acting head of the theater and dance department at MSU.

"That set him head and shoulders above most students. Not many people are willing to take that extra effort on. He is very serious about what the does.

" Mureithi has the qualities of a good documentary filmmaker: perseverance, creativity and passion, Biggs said. After graduation, Mureithi worked as a cameraman at KY3 and in 2003 left to start his own business, See-Saw productions. While documentaries are his passion, small films are his bread and butter.

He crafts films for businesses, churches and organizations. Jim Van Dillen worked with Mureithi at KY3 and said he stood out right away, not just as a cameraman, but a person. "The thing about Patrick is I've seen him play guitar, do photography you can show him something one time and he will take it and make it his own.

He'll make it his own and 10 times better. Aside from filmmaking, Mureithi sings, writes and plays music, and is an avid bike rider. Father Moses Berry, a priest at Unexpected Joy Theotokos Orthodox Church in Ash Grove, met Mureithi at a conference on Christianity years ago and the two have collaborated over the years.

"He feels it's so important he will take time off from his wife and children," Berry said. Mureithi has four children. While Rwanda is far from the Ozarks, Mureithi believes everyone can learn from this workshop: soldiers returning from Iraq, abuse victims, those studying conflict resolution and everyday people.

Aside from spurring healing in Rwanda, he hopes it inspires people to look at their own lives, their own grudges, and heal. "I always felt my calling is to teach," Mureithi said. "I chose media because I feel like the media are the unacknowledged educators in our society.

Through documentaries I feel I am doing what I was called to do." This article does not have any comments associated with it News-Leader.com is pleased to be able to offer its users the opportunity to make comments and hold conversations online.

However, the interactive nature of the Internet makes it impracticable for our staff to monitor each and every posting. Since News-Leader.com does not control user-submitted statements, we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted on our site.

In addition, we remind anyone interested in making an online comment that responsibility for statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not News-Leader.com. All comments posted should comply with the News-Leader.

com Terms of Service. Patrick Mureithi is raising money for a trip to Rwanda to document a workshop offered through the African Great Lakes Initiative of the Friends Peace Team, a nonprofit group that works in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Patrick Mureithi films a farmers market booth for a short film he is producing for the Discovery Center through his business, See-Saw Productions.

Patrick Mureithi films an interview for a short film for the Discovery Center. At a time when Kenyan native and Springfield filmmaker Patrick Mureithi searched for silence, he found a cause.