The Curious Autodidact

Another movie that details this issues of women’s health, this in Afghanistan is “Motherland Afghanistan” by Sedika Mojadidi’s, a young woman, who follows her OB/GYN father and general practice mother back to the country of their birth, to serve women with substandard healthcare and train medical staff. The first mission they went on was frustrating but he later became involved with Shuhada, to a hospital in the Ghazni region, and this experience was more satisfying. You can see how much Sedika’s parents want to help to rebuild a life for those they left behind in Afghanistan when they immigrated to the US in 1972. To see what these women endure when it comes to child birth and health care is something, many arriving on foot and days away from home. Afghanistan has the second highest rate of infant mortality.

You also gain a sense of what all this poor country has lost in thirty years of war as the Doctors Mojadidi go back to see where the filmmaker’s father used to worship and live, their family’s compound having been bombed into dust. One wonders after watching this film what things are like for these women five years after this film was shot.

Don’t miss this amazing movie, and A Walk to Beautiful, both about people making a difference and the issue of women’s health and education in the developing world.