Dr. Kim Yi Dionne is a political scientist with expertise on Malawi who helped me pull the kinks out of Bush League. The film isn’t about HIV/AIDS but it does touch on it and other complex subjects so it was great to have a real pro look the film over in case there was an error. Among the many interesting things I learned while reading her research was a survey she did among rural Malawians about their development priorities. Here are the results of the survey:

In a survey of 1259 rural villagers in Rumphi district, villagers ranked their preferences with respect to development and health in the following order:

1. Clean Water

2. Agricultural Development

3. Education

4. Health Services

5. HIV/AIDS services

The reason this interests me so much is because I think most of our policy makers would presume that HIV/AIDS is at the top. We’ve got our hearts in the right place and the money too, but I really wonder about the data that guides the whole thing.

Dr. Kim Yi Dionne, A Survey of Rural Malawians, 1 of 5 from Cy Kuckenbaker on Vimeo.

‘You people?’ What does that mean?