HAND-HELD: HEALTH AND HOMELESSNESS
A DOCUMENTARY ANTHOLOGY DVD

How do you take care of your health when you don't have a home?

The people best able to answer that question - and to challenge the circumstances that have led to it - are given the tools of digital media-making to document their stories and to create extraordinary photographs, audio narratives and short videos.

These works were created through the ground-breaking NFB Filmmaker-in-Residence project at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, led by documentary filmmaker Katerina Cizek. Young women, pregnant or parenting, were brought together to explore the tools of photography and personal expression through new media in the I WAS HERE project, in cooperation with Young Parents No Fixed Address network.

Their powerful images led to a city-wide tour of their work. An eye-opening personal exchange of views with the Mayor. A collective public declaration of their rights and needs, and those of other young women they brought together. And their participation as respected and trusted chroniclers of the lives of more than two dozen homeless people, as part of one of the most comprehensive scientific studies of life on the streets.

This anthology brings together their evocative photographs and personal testimonies, the short film STREET HEALTH STORIES and 20 video portraits, as well as short documentaries and interviews with some of the filmmaking and health care professional who worked closely with them. This is a frank and invaluable resource for nurses, doctors, social workers, policy decision-makers, social activists, and patient advocacy organizations. And anyone interested in how media and medicine can work together to change lives.

Please check back here for updates on the anticipated launch date.