A 2005-06 Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship has given Alissa Nicole Creamer and others a close-up look at how people recover from the ravages of war.

While studying documentary filmmaking in Spain at the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, the 35-year-old U.S. scholar also participated in a project supported by 60 Spanish Rotary clubs to fund the rehabilitation of child victims of land mine explosions. Nearly every day for three months, Creamer visited with two Angolan children at a local hospital -- Romeo, 10, and Cassinda, 6 -- who had undergone surgery and received prosthetics. In the process, she got to know their life stories.

“I am directing a documentary film about [them], their time in Barcelona, and their fate that follows,” says Creamer, who was sponsored by the Rotary clubs of Southeast Portland and Portland Metropolitan, both in Oregon, USA. “It is about the human capacity to maintain hope and the courage to build dreams in the most extraordinary of circumstances.”

Creamer undertook the project as part of her master’s degree studies, which she will complete in February 2007. She is continuing to work on the film in Angola and Spain. When she first arrived in Angola, she found the children had inadequate access to food, water, and shelter. She worked with the Castellers de Barcelona, an organization dedicated to preserving traditional Catalan culture, to assist the children. The Castellers donated funds for Creamer to oversee the construction of a house and well for Romeo’s family and purchase land for Cassinda’s family to grow vegetables for sale. Creamer is now seeking funding to provide an education for the children.

While in Angola, Creamer attended a Rotary conference that joined Rotarians and Rotaractors from seven Portuguese-speaking nations. She will present her experiences with the children and the challenges they face in postwar Angola to Rotarians in her host and sponsor districts -- 2210 (Spain) and 5100 (parts of Oregon and Washington, USA) -- as well as schoolchildren in Spain and the United States.

“I am confident that I am demonstrating a commitment to Rotary ideals -- furthering peace and cultural tolerance -- through the work that I produce,” Creamer says.

This story appears in the April 2007 issue of Rotary World.