David Osit

I am a filmmaker and undergraduate student at the University of Michigan. Over the course of several months in the summer of 2008, I will be traveling throughout East Africa where I will work with FilmAid International, a non-profit organization dedicated to harnessing the power of film for education and social change in refugee populations worldwide.

I will monitor and evaluate services and communications in FilmAid offices in Nairobi, Kenya for several weeks while also working with the refugee population through interviews and volunteer work within Kenyan refugee camps.

Specifically, I will be traveling to the Kakuma and Dadaab refugee camps within Kenya, which house primarily Sudanese and Somali refugees respectively.

Additionally, with the help of the Wallenberg Travel Award, I will be traveling to refugee communities in Rwanda and Uganda to meet with camp coordinators with regard to extending FilmAid programs, while drafting a preliminary handbook for gauging infrastructural needs for future operations along with a report monitoring communication between the field offices.

Raised in New York, I am a senior in the Department of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Michigan and I plan to ultimately make a career of directing and producing documentary film geared towards social issues while pursuing a graduate degree in visual anthropology or comparative media.