NPT Visits Our Next Door Neighbors From Rwanda, Haiti and Burma
NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORS: NEW BEGINNINGS, the newest episode of NPT’s Next Door Neighbors series, premieres Friday, November 7 at 7:00 p.m. on NPT. For the past eight years, episodes have highlighted Nashville’s Kurdish, Somali, Hispanic, Bhutanese and Sudanese communities (now available for viewing at ndn.wnpt.org/documentaries), and this time viewers will meet Nashville’s neighbors from Rwanda, Haiti and Burma. These three small countries hold big challenges for their residents. Following the premiere, NPT will also broadcast last year’s installment in the NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORS series, “Community.”
Refugee resettlement to the United States is often the last option displaced people have for a permanent home. The opportunity is available to less than one percent of the world’s refugees. Once in the U.S., in cities like Nashville, refugees are expected to build new lives. But what if a chance to go back to their homeland finally arrives? Which home will they choose? In three segments during the 30-minute documentary, host Danielle Colburn Allen explores why these neighbors of ours left their native countries behind and set out to make a new beginning in Nashville.
The Gatebuke family survived the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. They now live in Nashville and work to help others from the troubled African region. Alice Gatebuke is a columnist for the Huff Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-gatebuke/the-peace-that-wasnt-rwan_b_5183850.html
Phidomise Leveque is president of Tennessee Haitian Voice, a group that works to promote education, recreation and cultural experiences that will benefit Haitians and all cultural groups living in the Nashville area and helps eliminate disparities among Haitian families living in Tennessee with respect and love. She also hosts a weekly Haitian radio show on WFSK 88.1fm called Planet Creole. “Phiphi” shares the plight of the Haitian people and the Nashville Haitian community’s efforts to help the poverty-stricken nation. http://www.tnhv.org/
Executive Chef Lamartine Alvarez, whose mother taught culinary school, has always enjoyed cooking. Now the Owner/Operator of Chez Lama Catering, he prepares delicious Haitian cuisine for weddings, church gatherings and other Nashville-area events. http://www.chezlama.com/Home.html
Regine Pierre, RN, BSN, was crowned Miss Port-au-Prince in 2013 and is now Miss Haiti International 2014. She uses her position to help Haiti eradicate cholera, especially after the 2010 earthquake that devastated the small island nation. https://www.facebook.com/missportauprinceformisshaitiintl2014
The Karen population from Burma saved a Smyrna church from closing its doors. This heartwarming story includes interviews with Father Randy Hoover-Dempsey and other members of All Saints Episcopal church. https://www.facebook.com/pages/All-Saints-Smyrna/100570823333593
NPT’s award-winning NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORS series looks at Nashville’s status as a destination city for refugees and immigrants and explores the rich diversity of people now calling Nashville home. Across the United States, mid-sized cities like Nashville are experiencing unprecedented growth in their international populations. Together these communities are redefining the traditional international city on a smaller local scale.
NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORS is much more than the documentary series – it also includes in-depth web content, public community forums, a televised panel discussion after the premiere of each program and literacy outreach for children and parents of immigrant families.
This extensive effort has played a key role in sharing authentic stories of immigrants and helping build bridges between their communities and Middle Tennessee’s traditional culture. Through this project, NPT has helped grow a welcoming of diversity while focusing on the many ways that new immigrants are contributing to Nashville’s growing economy and vibrant cultural life.
NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORS: NEW BEGINNINGS is made possible by the financial support of The Nissan Foundation, The HCA Foundation on behalf of HCA and the TriStar Family of Hospitals, and a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. A partnership with the Vanderbilt University Center for Nashville Studies provided valuable research and community outreach.
About Nashville Public Television:
Nashville Public Television, Nashville’s PBS station, is available free and over-the-air to nearly 2.4 million people throughout the Middle Tennessee and southern Kentucky viewing area, through its main NPT and secondary NPT2 channels, and to anyone in the world through its stable of NPT Digital services, including wnpt.org, YouTube and the PBS video app. The mission of NPT is to provide, through the power of traditional television and interactive digital communications, high quality educational, cultural and civic experiences that address issues and concerns of the people of the Nashville region, and which thereby help improve the lives of those we serve.
