FAMINE IN AFRICA Television joins World Vision in new ‘live-to-air’ study

Press, 7 September 1984, Page 20

FAMINE IN AFRICA Television joins World Vision in new ‘live-to-air’ study

Recent 8.8. C. television news footage has brought the plight of children in Africa into the living rooms of New Zealand. It is not easy to digest, either before or after the evening meal. Grossly distended young bellies are a grim counterweight to the beer-gutted excess of our world. Stork-thin legs that cannot be trusted to keep the children upright; arms that cannot save them as they fall. Skin shrunkwrapped over ribs; eyes whose gaze is etched on the mind long after the pictures have faded. Don Hutchings, the man who has masterminded five of Television

New Zealand’s seven Telethons, has been forced to sift screeds of this stark material as he produces a programme for TV Two, to be screened on Sunday. “It makes you realise how horrendous the situation is right now in Africa,” Mr Hutchings says. “I can’t watch some of this material without the tears rolling down my cheeks.” The former executive producer for TVNZ has had to cast emotions aside and bring a detached professionalism to his task. His mandate is to prepare a two-hour “live to air” programme to be screened

outside normal TV Two transmission time for World Vision of New Zealand. For the first time, Television New Zealand is making time available for a charity to screen its own direct-response programme. Don Hutchings knows he must preserve a balance to give such a programme viewing appeal. “Our aim,” he says, ‘’is to bring the public a really good show while at the same time getting the message through about the horror in Africa.”

To that end he has rounded up a bevy of New Zealand talent, including Suzanne Lee, Patsy Riggir,

Billy T. James, and Herb McQuaid. They will be given a helping hand by international celebrities Julie Andrews and William Shatner, who have recorded material for World Vision. Other international performers will include the Muppets, Ricardo Montalban (of “Fantasy Island”), and the Korean Children’s Choir.

The newsreader Tom Bradley will anchor the programme, along with regional TV presenters, Judy Bailey and John Hawkesby.

Don Hutchings salutes his former workmates at TVNZ for the enthusiastic support they have given the show, offering facilities and services to the cause.

“I think it is a great step forwards for TVNZ to allow access to television time for such a project,” he says. TVNZ’s Director-General, Mr Allan Martin, says he has been convinced of the need by New Zealander Russ Kerr’s recent experiences in Africa. “After hearing what he had to say, we felt thee least we could do was to offer television time.” 7

Russ Kerr, bom and raised in Gore and a Lincoln College graduate, is World Vision’s associate director of relief and rehabilitation, and is flying direct from Africa to appear on the programme. “I saw more starving children in a greater degree than ever before in my life,” he says. . An eight-year veteran of faminestricken areas, Mr Kerr has recently been in Ethiopia, where, for the first time in his life, he saw people die. “Once you’ve seen starving people gathered around, waiting for food, you just can’t forget the sight ... You can’t help but ask why you were born in a land of milk and honey.” In the 1972-74 famine in Ethiopia, at least 200,000 Ethiopians died. Now the famine has

spread to areas never before affected. The Ethiopian Government says that five million people are starving. World Vision believes the true figure is seven million. Mr Kerr says that something new has to be done or thousands, maybe millions, will die. “We need rain but we need ideas too. We need something creative, something miraculous to help these people, because to give food is not the answer in the long run. ■ ; “But when I look into the eyes of a malnourished child and see his life about to be extinguished

through a total lack of food and medical care, I have to do something immediately.” “Children in Crisis,” produced for World Vision by Don Hutchings, and directed by Michael Hockley, will be screened on TV Two on Sunday from 10 a.m. to midday. Viewers can respond by telephone to centres ;■ throughout the country. The nunjber for Christchurch, on Sunday only, is 381-999. The number for Amberley is 8500, Ashburton 4500, and Rangidra 8155. The Nelson number is 82-199, and ip Blenheim 81-094.