Fight for Change is a collection of global documentaries, from the Guardian channel, about people or communities trying to change the world and make a difference. From those getting involved in organised politics, to those standing up to injustice on a more local level, meet the people working towards making the world a better place, even if they don’t always succeed.
After Windrush
A letter from the British government classifying Paulette Wilson as an illegal immigrant shook her sense of identity and belonging to the core. ‘Hostile environment’ policies years in the making meant that Wilson and other victims of the Windrush scandal had their right to residency in the UK called into question. She had been detained for a week pending imminent deportation though she had done nothing wrong. It was devastating, but luckily, she was released before she was deported. Here we follow Wilson as she returns to Jamaica for the first time in 50 years, trying to make sense of her place in the world and rebuild a sense of security and belonging.
The Breadmaker
In the midst of Venezuela’s spiraling economic crisis, Natalia and fellow members of a Chavista collective have stepped in to take over production at a local bakery, La Minka. Authorities had suspended operations when the owners were accused of overpricing their loaves and hoarding flour. In March 2017, with the tacit support of the government, the collective began selling affordable bread. This is the story of their fight to safeguard the bakery’s future and keep the Chavista dream alive.
Climate and the Cross
Evangelicals have traditionally been the bedrock of conservative politics in the US, including on climate change. But a heated debate is taking pace across the country, with some Christians protesting in the name of protecting the Earth, seeing it as a duty to be done in God’s name. One group has even built a chapel in the way of a pipeline and a radical pastor has encouraged his congregation to put themselves in the way of the diggers. Meanwhile, a firm supporter of Donald Trump crisscrosses the country promoting solar power.
Marielle and Monica
The LGBT activists resisting Bolsonaro’s Brazil. Marielle Franco, a Brazilian LGBT and human rights activist, was killed in March 2018. Her widow, Monica Benicio, continued her fight for better treatment of the poor, the LGBT community and black Brazilians. The case of her murder has still not been solved and, as the police investigation drifts, Monica is a plunged into a new crisis: the probable election of Jair Bolsonaro.
White Fright
In 2015, the community of Islamberg discovered that a Tennessee minister was plotting the deadliest attack on US soil since 9/11 against their village. Why have Americans heard nothing about him, and why has the safety of this community been ignored? On 10 April 2015, the FBI quietly arrested Robert Doggart, a white, 63-year-old Christian minister, after they discovered he was plotting an attack against Islamberg, a small African American Muslim community in upstate New York. Inspired by claims on Fox News that the community was a terrorist training camp, Doggart discussed firebombing a mosque and a school in the village, and using assault rifles and a machete to murder the residents.
