Rescuing Emmanuel

0 votes and 0 Reviews

Documentary

Setting out to make a film about street children, filmmakers Len and Georgia Morris are hijacked by a 13-year-old street boy in Nairobi, Kenya. Belligerently stoned on shoe glue, Emmanuel grabs us. "I want to go to school right now!" He will not be ignored.

He is running from hunger, police, his mother's death and a horrific life in Nairobi's most notorious slum. Alone, undocumented, a nobody, he stinks, eats garbage, is raped by the big boys, swept off the streets by police and sent to adult jail cells. Who will notice if this kid's life is snuffed out?

And ironically, his name, Emmanuel, means "God among us." After managing to get hidden camera footage out of Nairobi jail cells where little boys are locked up with hardened criminals, and night clubs where little girls are selling their bodies for "a piece of chicken," the filmmakers find a remarkable woman.

Mama Zipporah has taken in 150 abandoned children as her own and built a school. Could this be the answer for Emmanuel? But, when they return to Nairobi, he is nowhere to be found. A search, a rescue, a home, a school all follow, with continually unexpected turns, in a true story that saddens, triumphs and inspires.