Kickstart This! THE HELPER - A Hong Kong Documentary
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Most often hailing from Indonesia and the Philippines, these live-in housemaids-cum-nannies, dubbed "domestic helpers", exist in such numbers that they have created their own underclass in Hong Kong. Currently there are around 330,000 helpers living in the city, working for as little US$530 per month. Many are wives and mothers themselves, who have left their families to come and look after somebody else's children in order to earn money to send back home. Sadly, some of these young women are vulnerable to abuse - mental and physical - at the hands of their employers.
The Helper, from Hong Kong based filmmaker Joanna Bowers, will follow a group of these women, who have formed a women's choir "The Unsung Heroes" as they prepare for the performance of their lives, on the main stage of Hong Kong's largest annual music festival, Clockenflap. It is their hope that they can raise awareness about their plight, while also sending a heartfelt message to their own loved ones back home. In The Helper, Bowers will focus on all areas of these women's experience living in Hong Kong, from the valuable service they provide to career-driven parents in the city, to the horrifying headline-grabbing crimes that they have been subjected to.
For more information about the project, filmmakers and rewards for those able to contribute, head over to The Helper's official Kickstarter page here. In the meantime, check out the official campaign video below, which details precisely why this kind of documentary is absolutely vital to the wellbeing of these women.
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