Positive change is challenging—both to engineer and to maintain. For the systems we have in place today, some gratitude is certainly in order. But anyone paying attention can see that there are important and parallel crises that need to be addressed.
The Zain Jaffer Foundation is a non-profit founded to amplify those problems still unsolved—climate change, poverty, exploitation, discrimination—and accelerate our global progress. The foundation seeks to support important and imperative film and documentary programs that tackle urgent global issues for a worldwide audience. Through funding and mentorship, the foundation is designed to bring more of those projects to the big screen.
Supporting a diverse array of initiatives, most of the funding is concentrated on projects addressing serious environmental and social challenges around the world, many of which have only increased in their urgency throughout the pandemic-era. A picture is supposedly worth a thousand words; empowering frontier directors, film crews, and documentary projects is our attempt to get those pictures out to the world.
Announcing an Investment in The Weight of Water: The Human Cost of Climate Crisis
The Zain Jaffer Foundation will concentrate its next round of funding on a mind-changing documentary: Deej Phillips’ ‘The Weight of Water: The Human Cost of Climate Crisis.’
The film makes a powerful impact weaving between three emotional stories. Set in Nepal, viewers are introduced to communities that are already being impacted by out-of-season flooding and climate-change related droughts. The ramifications of those natural disasters to the community are evident and made worse by the existing injustice; climate change and increasingly extreme weather events are compounding in their impact to prevent economic advancement and to reverse the advancement that already stood in place.
The feature length documentary will offer viewers intimate and resonant access to communities of Nepali people and climate experts who tell a concise, impossible to forget story in their own words.
Seeing even one minute of the footage, it feels both imperative and urgent that those words are offered to a global audience—anything less could put us many years back in what might be the fight of our generation.
Deej Phillips is a talented British documentary filmmaker with more than eight years of image-making experience. He’s known for his unique tact in capturing moving cinematic footage in live-time, and telling important stories from the inside out—preserving the community’s understanding as it stands and compelling the global stage to take interest, listen, and have their minds expanded in the process.
Phillips’ work aims to shine a light on environmental and humanitarian issues all over the world, and The Weight of Water furthers that aim. The film’s trailer has been screen at a virtual United National Development Programme (UNDP) event, and having been incredibly well received, the project is scheduled for a far-reaching release in late Q1 of 2022.
More details will be available soon. Until then, the trailer is available here:
Investing in WIPHAS ‘Give Water To The Thirsty’
The Zain Jaffer Foundation is supporting the Tanzanian non-profit WIPAHS in their efforts to ensure access to potable water for an area of the world where unclean water and poor sanitation are among the largest threats to humankind. The availability of safe drinking water is one of humanity’s biggest problems, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only made the needs more dire.
Tanzania is one of Africa’s largest countries, and the scarcity of clean drinking water has been a consistent reality for one in every six people. Women and children are particularly burdened, having to journey to natural streams that could be 10km away and lug back heavy containers of 25+ litres. This is a heavy burden and takes time away from school, economy, and family.
Looking Forward
The Zain Jaffer Foundation is a non-profit founded to amplify those problems still unsolved—climate change, poverty, exploitation, discrimination—and accelerate our global progress. The foundation seeks to support important and imperative film and documentary programs that tackle urgent global issues for a worldwide audience. Through funding and mentorship, the foundation is designed to bring more of those projects to the big screen.