Australian Story – Absolute Beginner

Clip 1: A baptism of fire

Taken from the TV program Australian Story – Absolute Beginner (2006)

Original title classification PG – this clip chosen to be PG

This clip contains depictions of implied violence.

Curator’s clip description

Marg’s first placement with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) was in South Sudan where a terrible civil war had been raging for over 20 years. She was thrown into the work from the very first moment she arrived at the village.

Curator’s notes

Australian Story is always stylish and effective, and this clip is a great example. We cut from a domestic interview with Marg’s daughter to the middle of a war zone, and amazingly, the cameras were there to capture Marg’s life and work in her first ever posting with MSF. Her instant rapport with children and her complete absence of fear – which she attributes to her ignorance of what she was getting in to – offer an insight into why she was so successful at her work, moving around from one war-torn corner of Africa to another. The zoom into the beautiful close-up of the wounded chid at the end is extremely moving.

Her daughters, her old friends in Australia and her boss at MSF (Doctors Without Borders), Philippe Tanguy, comment on the context of her new life and work in the effective style of Australian Story, which avoids using an omniscient narrator. The person at the centre of the story tells their own history, backed up with comment from those who know them best. This gives us a real sense of intimacy with the subject.

Janet Bell, curator

Teachers’ notes

provided by The Le@rning Federation

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This clip shows Marg Ward working as a volunteer in southern Sudan in Africa for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The clip opens with Ward’s daughter discussing how she felt when her mother decided to join MSF. An Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) file tape shows images of conflict in southern Sudan. Footage from an MSF file tape shows Ward providing medical treatment to the sick and injured. The music, sombre at the beginning of the clip, takes on an upbeat tempo towards the end. The clip concludes with a close-up of a wounded child.

Educational value points

In this clip, Marg Ward is shown working as a volunteer for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), a humanitarian, non-government organisation (NGO) that provides medical aid to developing countries. Most of its funding is derived from public donations. Its aim is to ‘provide essential medical–humanitarian aid to those who need it most, regardless of race, religion, gender or political affiliation’ (www.msf.org.au).

Ward is one of approximately 3,000 volunteers that MSF sends to work on emergency medical programs each year. MSF recruits general practitioners, specialist doctors and nurses, surgeons, midwives, medical scientists and public health and nutrition experts as well as finance, administration and logistics professionals. There are no age limits – Ward was about 60 at the time of this placement – and placements last for an average of six months.

Médecins Sans Frontières was established on 22 December 1971 by a group of 12 French doctors led by Dr Bernard Kouchner. During the 1967–70 civil war between Nigeria and Biafra the doctors became frustrated by the high level of bureaucracy and government intervention. They wanted to establish a humanitarian aid organisation independent of government agendas.

Footage taken of Ward in the war zone contrasts with the well-lit, static shots of interviews with Ward, her daughter and Philippe Tanguy, Head of Communications for MSF Australia, and this contrast serves to underline the difference between Ward’s secure life in Australia and her decision, which her daughter is shown supporting, to accept the dangerous placement in Sudan. The sound of a slow trumpet effectively links these contrasting aspects of Ward’s life.

Using Ward as the narrator of her own story establishes a sense of intimacy with and empathy for the subject of the clip. Ward is shown talking directly to the camera, promoting a feeling of involvement and connection with the audience. A sense of unease and tension is created when footage of armed conflict is shown and Ward later says ‘I hadn’t realised how dangerous it all was’.

Having achieved independence from the UK in 1956, Sudan has been involved in internal conflict for most of its short history. There have been two civil wars between north and south and a separate conflict in the Darfur region. The conflict shown in this clip is the second civil war, which was fought between 1983 and 2005 and resulted in about 2 million civilian deaths and more than 4 million people becoming civilian refugees or internally displaced persons.

Médecins Sans Frontières has provided humanitarian aid in southern Sudan since 1979. The organisation initially entered the region to provide assistance to civilians affected by drought, starvation, disease and the ongoing civil war. In 1989 two MSF volunteers were killed when the aeroplane they were travelling on was shot down in southern Sudan.

The clip is taken from an episode of Australian Story, which is produced by the ABC and is aired weekly. Each 30-min episode focuses on an individual Australian who narrates their own story. The first program was aired in 1996 and the series has won seven Walkley awards and four TV Week Logie awards.