Our Destiny

Topics: FAMILY, Growing up in Foster Care
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Funds Needed for Completion: $ 70,000.00
Estimated Completion Date: 03/01/2010

Funds raised: $ 0.00

Synopsis

The Story of My Family’s Journey through the New York City Foster Care System, how fate reunites us, and our continued search for one remaining brother.

This film will document my family's journey through the New York City foster care system. I will clearly illustrate the domestic situation and circumstances leading up to the division of each family member into foster care and our ensuing alienation from each other. The story will open with my distant memories of neglect and subsequent placement of my brother and me into the care of an elderly, abusive couple incapable of raising children by the Bureau of Child Welfare and the Saint Dominic's Home agency. This documentary will reveal my discovery of the many brothers and sisters I was unaware I had from both my mother and father. I will highlight my family's reunification after nearly a decade and I will also show the challenges we grapple with as we continue to meet new members of our family while searching for one remaining brother, Destiny Gittens. Finally, I will use the narrative of my personal story along with interviews with working social professionals to discuss and reveal the history behind the New York City Child Welfare Agency. How the agency transformed from B.C.W. (Bureau of Child Welfare) to A.C.S. (Administration of Children Services). Most importantly, I will cover some of the fundamental flaws within the old agency B.C.W. that have allowed so many children to slip through the cracks. In addition, through my story I will address the issues dealing with the laws of adoption, which prohibit the unsealing of adoption records preventing cases of negligence from ever being investigated. Essentially, I will show that every person has an inalienable right to know the facts surrounding their family's history with foster care agencies and most importantly the right to know and be reunited with their biological siblings at their own discretion.

Budget:

$ 70,000.00

Project's Financial Needs

 

Other financial Support

 

Current stage of production

Production

Estimated Completion Date

03/01/2010

What Your Donation Enables:

Screen Credit as a donor $100.00
Purchase Sound, Images or Footage
$250.00
Group Screening and Discussion
$250.00
Watch dailies or pre-production rough cuts online
$250.00
A box of Digital Video Tapes
$500.00
Private Screening
$500.00

Donors to this project