Welcome!

Welcome to Hope In The Fight’s new website! As we move forward with a revitalized vision and mission for our organization, we felt it was time for a new look as well. While still under development, this website is intended to act as a content base for materials developed by Hope In The Fight, which will all appear under The Feed. Our content aims to ask challenging questions, create dialogue amongst youth regarding global development, as well as make it possible for youth to reach out to others. At our core is a firm hope in the global fight against HIV and AIDS.

On this website, you can browse through the work that we have done in the past, learn about our organization, as well as check out content that we have developed. We are also excited to use this website as a method to communicate our current work and progress, through status pages for each active project. We are also excited to provide our viewers insight into the organization’s work through our Behind The Scenes blog.

Right now, we have three active projects: an educational web-documentary that we are developing in partnership with the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research, a web-series of videos regarding issues of HIV and AIDS in Cambodia, as well as the distribution of our flagship film, “Start With Us”.

If you have any feedback, questions, concerns, or are interested in joining an innovative and motivated team, please contact us!

Status: Pre-Production

In December of 2011, Hope In The Fight premiered “Start With Us” at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. That day, many Toronto based organizations were invited to the event and provided feedback to us. One of those organizations was the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR).

CANFAR is a 25-year-old Canadian charitable foundation whose goal is to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS to increase funds for research. All of CANFAR’s fundraising efforts are geared towards raising money to fund Canadian HIV and AIDS research. CANFAR is the only privately funded, national charity dedicated solely to advancing research in the area of HIV and AIDS. Their funding has resulted in some of the greatest progressions made in the medical realm of HIV and AIDS, impacting the entire world’s ability to combat the disease.

As of April of 2012, CANFAR and Hope In The Fight have partnered to develop an educational film for web-release on September 1st, specifically focused on the issue of HIV and AIDS. Currently, we are scheduling interviews and developing the storyboards.

Educational Web-Doc: The Team

Much like any film, the team that will make this educational documentary come together is quite large and growing each and every day. Leading the pre-production stages of the film are Jennifer D’Andrea, the National Programs Officer at CANFAR, and Abid Virani.

Status: Post-Production

Connect Cambodia is the second major film project for Hope in the Fight. This initiative aims to build on experience in 2010 while James Stephens visited with Cambodian NGOs as part of Global Youth Volunteer Network, a charity aimed at relationship building between Canadian youth and people in the developing world.

Specifically, Connect Cambodia has two primary components:

1. To develop a series of educational videos for Canadian students exploring the following issues and how these issues are being addressed in Cambodia by local organizations:

• HIV and AIDS
• Sex trade and human trafficking
• Education

In addition, it is our plan to provide a background on Cambodian history and the contemporary lifestyle of Cambodian youth.

2. Partner with Raise and Support the Poor to finish construction of a library servicing twelve villages outside Phnom Penh.

By exploring the nature of HIV, education, and the sex trade in one of South-East Asia’s poorest countries, we aim to reveal the success and challenges of local organizations working for these causes. In fulfilling Hope in the Fight’s mandate of HIV education among Canadian youth, we hope to bring together two cultures in a unique and meaningful way while giving back to the youth of Cambodia.

Connect Cambodia: The Team

On the ground in Cambodia were James Stephens, Johnny Touch, and Jake Chirico.

Johnny’s parents and extended family are Cambodian and this project marks the first time he has been to Cambodia to visit and experience his family’s history and culture. With his language skills, energy, and invaluable family network, Johnny played a key role in Connect Cambodia successfully capturing Cambodia in film. Jake Chirico co-directed Hope in the Fight’s flagship film “Start With Us” and rejoined for this initiative in Cambodia. Jake’s talent in film has provided him with many successes and we are fortunate to have him involved. James Stephens is Hope in the Fight’s CPO and sits on the Board of Directors. James first joined Hope in the Fight in 2011 for the Reach Lesotho project and continues to play an essential role.

Status: Film Festival Circuit, Pre-Distribution

Through 2010 and 2011, Hope In The Fight (then known as Student Reach International) developed and managed a project called Reach Lesotho. One of the products of the Reach Lesotho project was Hope In The Fight’s first film, titled “Start With Us”. I Have Hope test screened the film on World AIDS Day, December 1st, 2011, at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. Since then, we have also test screened in Kingston and Ottawa.

Synopsis: Start With Us is a film about young people living in Lesotho, where everybody is either infected or affected by AIDS. While their culture may be different, this film follows the friendships developed by pairs of Canadian and Basotho youth. Unfortunately, the trials and tribulations the Basotho face show a stark uniqueness to their lives. Even still, the Basotho youth are determined to follow their dreams and have hope in being the first generation free of AIDS.

The film’s post-production and distribution is being managed by Turn and Punch Productions Inc. Currently, the film is not available for sale though if you are interested in hosting a test-screening, please contact us via the Contact Page. At the moment, the film has been submitted to various film festivals for consideration. Hope In The Fight and Turn and Punch have a collective goal of partnering with an educational distributor so that the film can reach as many young individuals as possible.

Start With Us: The Team

The team that brought Start With Us to life was nearly seventy people strong. Most importantly, the footage used in Start With Us was captured by following twenty-four students (twelve Canadian, twelve Basotho) in the Kingdom of Lesotho, as they developed relationships and participated in volunteering activities.

The film was Produced by Prionnsias James Murphy, Directed and Written by Abid Virani, and Co-Directed by Jake Chirico, who also doubled as Director of Photography. The 44 minute piece was brilliantly edited together by Tenille Tasker. To learn more about the project, visit the Reach Lesotho page.