Follow the Water CHAPTER III: Reconnection Part Three
Channel: MetroEast Community Media
Date: 2022-08-01

#followthewater #metroeast  #nativeamerican

The Clean Rivers Coalition hired us to create a video series exploring our collective connection to water for their Follow the Water outreach campaign.  Chapter 3: Reconnection Part Three, is one of three stories featuring uniquely different ways to reconnect to water. In this video we meet Wenix Red Elk and Judy Bluehorse Skelton as they teach us about how repairing a wetland in Yakima county led to the re-emergence of the once extinct wapato potato, a sacred American Indian first food. One of our priorities with this series  was to inspire viewers to think outside the box in terms of ways of reconnecting with water. A lot of time in pre-production was dedicated to finding the right stories to focus on, and we soon learned that there are countless examples of reconnecting to water! After several rounds of pre-interviews we landed on featuring three women of different ages, cultural backgrounds and interests.  Our goal was that watching these stories would enable audiences to reflect on their own lives and how they can reconnect to waters in their own way,  and eventually make changes in the way they live their lives to help preserve our rivers. 

PROJECT:
Our clients had big dreams about creating a new culture surrounding the way we view and connect to our rivers - not a simple feat! The goal was to connect people to their rivers emotionally, spiritually and physically. The hope was that viewers would then be inspired to have more stake in their rivers upon watching this series. We decided to explore these topics by producing three videos and interweaving the perspective of Native Americans, the original safekeepers of our waters and land, throughout. With help from the Intertribal Fish Commission, we incorporated this lens in hopes of inspiring families in Oregon and Southwest Washington to reflect on their own connection to rivers and understand how our collective disconnect happened in the first place. 

There were three main topics we wanted to present: how Native Americans view their connection to water, the ripple effect of being disconnected from our waters and how we can reconnect to our waters.  We decided a three-chapter series would be the best way to tell these stories.. We titled the videos Chapter 1: Connection,  Chapter 2: Disconnection  and Chapter 3: Reconnection. Each video chapter required a significantly different approach. 

RESULTS: 
This film series continues to engage viewers on the Follow the Water website in addition to attracting interest in the campaign from state representatives aides and the Pacific Northwest Social Marketing Association but this quote from one of our clients says it all: 

“The response to the Follow the Water videos has been tremendous. I am so grateful to you for this beautiful film. I feel this is a home run. I love it. It fills my heart. I watched the film three times now, and each time, I got something new and different. My mind is blown by how the storytelling through the interviews makes the full arc across all these cultural dimensions. It's a timeless piece of work that will be the center of our outreach work.” - Roy Iwai, Water Resource Specialist, Multnomah County

Follow the Water Website: 
https://followthewater.info/

#followthewater #followthewaterpnw #cleanriverscoalition #swwashington #oregon  #oregonrivers #water  #oregonwater #MetroEastProductions #MetroEastCommunityMedia #intertribalfishcommission #interconnection #womeninfilm  #umatillaindianreservation #umatilla #ConfederatedTribesofUmatillaIndianreservation #PSU #portlandstate #gresham #wastewater #stormdrain #riverwalk #bipoca #yakima   #yakimacounty #yakimaindianreservation #wapato #wapatopotato #firstfoods #cherokee  #nezperce #nezpercecherokee #nezpercetribe #first_foods_of_the_indigenous_ #firstfoodprogram