Our flagship initiative, The Genius of Caring, engages issues of aging, aging in place, caregiving, and end-of-life. We have created and continue to work on a set of media assets, art projects and engagement strategies designed to connect the public within this issue space. These projects include: The Genius of Marian, a feature documentary; Heaven Through The Backdoor, a multiplatform art project and documentary; and GeniusOfCaring.com our interactive website that features documentary portraits of those whose lives have been touched by Alzheimer’s and other caregiving intensive diseases. The site also allows users to contribute to our story archive, called the Care Gallery. These programs offer a uniquely intimate glimpse into the caregiving experience and the dying process while creating a powerful and intimate portrait of a community connected through compassion.

In 2009 we launched WeOwnTV, a collaborative media project that promotes self-expression and supports filmmakers and artists through media education, mentorship, and direct grants. In 2010, we co-founded the WeOwnTV Freetown Media Centre, an important educational and creative hub in the heart of the capital city in Sierra Leone. We have expanded our reach by launching the WeOwnTV Filmmaker Fellowship: a film fund and professional development program supporting the production of independent documentaries directed by West African filmmakers. The program is open to filmmakers working in Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

Our documentary film Survivors grew out of this long-standing collaboration with a core group of media makers from Sierra Leone. The film was recently nominated for a Peabody and Emmy Award in 2019. Survivors chronicle the stories of three Sierra Leoneans during what is now widely regarded as the most acute public health crisis of the modern era and profoundly wrestles with what it means to be Sierra Leonean at this critical juncture in the country’s history.