Niko Nurminen

"The longer you're there, the sicker you get" said our shepherd Michelle Levender, who is the director of the California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships. We were heading to South Central, Watts, and the bus was late. Levender was talking about the health issues in Watts. The longer I was there, the better I got.

We met the Watts health powerhouse, Area Medical Director Maxine E. Liggins . She's in charge of SPA's 5 and 6.  They're not offering brow tinting, electrolysis or ayervedic massages in her spas, the letters stand for Social Planning Areas. She has a room with a view: SPA 5 includes places like Beverly Hills and Santa Monica whereas SPA 6 has Watts.

"If you want to live long, you shouldn't live in this community", says Liggins. That's what the figures are telling. You get a dark outlook when you compare Watts with Beverly Hills, or L.A. county in general, in terms of health care access, infant mortality, overweight children, cancer deaths, teen births and what not. The science is developing and the medicine is improving but the kids born here today won't live as long as their parents. Crazy.

Liggins is deemed to make the things change. One of the dreams is to have a comprehensive care hospital. Watts doesn't have any now. The government cheese could be more when the potential life lost in years is 3,5 times higher here than 20 miles northwest.

And Liggins wants better publicity for Watts. She has a lot to say, but she's forbidden to give a one-on-one interview without an okay from her boss. I should contact the Public Health Department first, or freely quote ABC-interview on YouTube. Can they make it a little bit more insane?

A big player in Watts is WLCAC. The Watts Labor Community Action Committee was founded 1965. The community-based non-profit organization has over 300 employees and judged by their presentation they're instrumental in the future wellbeing of Watts. They've got everything from handyman schooling to theater, from in-home care for seniors to transitional housing for mental health clients. They're the biggest landowner in Watts.

Gaudi is nothing. Zakiya Kyle of WLCAC by the Watts Towers, the pride of the hood.

Great things are happening in Watts every day, says WLCAC. But  what happens in Watts stays in Watts. Mostly negative things get the coverage, not the great stuff. The usual story.

Zakiya Kyle of  the WLCAC has an example of a major article that was not run "because it's not from the spin they want to hear". The backdrop are the unrests of the 60's and and the 90's and the obscure history of the neighborhood formerly known as Mud Town. I guess we should all have the guts to shift the paradigm and walk down the Compton Boulevard with a notebook. It should be even nice and easy. The people I met were nice and the streets were calm. No killers stalking.

Start with the Hall of Shame, a permanent exhibition filled with questionable Americana.  The address is WLCAC Center, 10950 South Central Avenue, Los Angeles.

I got out of my comfort zone on Thursday night and had a walk. I went to see if I could find any homeless people in Santa Monica because I've heard the city is famous for them. Compared to other parts of the county the city has less strict laws against the homeless.

I met Patrick, a man from Midwest. He has lost everything. It's all about food, shelter and clothing nowadays. He's a former office worker who had neurological problems and his doctors never found a cure. Alcohol miraculously eased the back pains and so did marijuana. Patrick filed bankruptcy twice and then realized that he can't survive in his home state.

Patrick has been in Santa Monica for a month and a half now. He walked through four states to get there. It took 21 days to reach his destination. He started from Indiana and then admired the landscapes of Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas. He says he needed to argue with god. In Arkansas he got beaten and robbed. That's where two men bought him a Greyhound ticket and gave him 20 dollars in pocket money. The bus took Patrick to California. The original plan was to reach the Ocean by foot by October.

I haven't had the chance to follow the homeless issues in the United States. I've understood that it is a burning subject but that the news coverage is poor. One thing I know is that in Santa Monica there's a fiery debate going on about how to  deal with the homeless.

In Patrick's opinion the homeless are covered by writers who have no idea what they are talking about. He says nobody really knows what it is like when you're demanded to stay up at night and sleep the days. He challenges the writers to spend 24 hours with him.

Patrick's not complaining too much, though. Not many millionaires have the view he does: Beachfront property 24/7 and fresh air. The shelters don't have space for all the homeless.

It's not easy to create an atmosphere of trust when an outsider bumps into home of someone who is profoundly hurt. It takes a lot of knowledge, human sensibility and luck before an on-camera eyewitness' account can happen, especially on crimes of the highest magnitude.

Four filmmakers told four different stories. Ted Braun spoke about his experiences in Sudan where he gained a rare access to the rebel territories in Darfur. The Darfur crisis is ongoing. Anne Aghion revealed parts of her unique relationship with people of a small village in war-torn Rwanda. Socheata Poeuv was there to tell about how she finally got her nuclear family to talk after the Cambodian Khmer Rouge atrocities. Also James Moll gave his insight on his work with the people scarred and silenced by the Holocaust.

From left: Aghion, Braun, Moll, Poeuv.

Anne Aghion had plenty of special encounters during her 10-year stint in Rwanda. One interview she finds so unique that she lets it run uncut in her latest work "My Neighbor My Killer". In Aghion's point of view the piece and its consequences prove that an interview can help the interviewee to open up and that and interview can make the unspeakable speakable.

Aghion shows her transparency by leaving in the conversation between two ladies who are asking one another "why are these whites asking these strange questions". As a result the women start talking about their neighbors who had murdered many of their loved ones. Aghion says that apparently it was the first time these ladies actually discussed the subject.

Aghion figures that probably it was her presence that is now helping the villagers in their recovering process. When she screened her film in Rwanda she was told that the people in the neighboring village don't talk about the bloodshed and the tragedy like the people in the village where she was filming. Instead they are still keeping their silence. "Now I understand why I spoke" was one comment Aghion received after the village screening.

By the way, Aghion is looking for a home for her Rwanda archives. 350 hours of interviews, unique as these footages always are. There should be a law against wasting the historic testimonials in general, and the news organizations' editing booths shouldn't be waived. Let's show some dignity, like the people who decided to share their afflictions.