Displaced

Data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that one person is forcibly displaced every two seconds.

Salvation Army officers speak to a family in Brazil

There are more than 70 million forcibly displaced people around the world. About 41 million people are displaced within their own country, and called Internally Displaced Persons. This is a global crisis.

The Salvation Army has a long history of providing practical, emotional and spiritual assistance to displaced people. Displaced is a film looking at the work of a wide range of non-governmental organisations – and particularly The Salvation Army – in working with displaced peoples around the world. The film uses Brazil as a case study.

Displaced

Displaced is a 50-minute documentary filmed on location in Roraima, Santa Catarina and São Paulo states in Brazil, and incorporates experiences of migrants from around the world.

Much of the programme concentrates on the journey undertaken by Venezuelan migrants leaving behind economic and political turmoil in search of a better life in Brazil. The film includes footage from the Venezuelan border and the military-led multi-agency reception centre on the Brazilian side in Pacaraima – appropriately named Operação Acolida (Project Welcome). Passing across the border, viewers are able hear the stories of migrants from all sectors of society – their reasons for leaving their own country and their hopes and dreams for the future.

The documentary also follows the story of one Venezuelan family encountered by the film crew on the arduous 200 kilometre journey, on foot, through tracts of Amazonian rainforest from the border post to the first sizable city, Boa Vista. With four children, including one with a disability, how will they fare in their first few days in a new country?