Storytelling for Change

Physician, television producer, writer and humanitarian Dr. Neal Baer exemplifies how one compassionate and committed individual can be an agent of change, generously garnering his resources—friends, professional networks, and funds—to support multiple causes locally, nationally, and internationally, related to health access and the needs of youth.

But one project, in particular, has been the beneficiary not just of his money, but also of his time and tremendous creativity: The House is Small but the Welcome is Big, a photo documentary project exploring the impact of HIV/AIDS on women and children in South Africa and Mozambique. Unique to this project: The storytellers are the women and kids themselves, taught photography so that they might tell their own stories by documenting their lives and communities.

Theirs are stories that are at once personal and universal. Stories that speak to fundamental human needs: to live in dignity with sufficient food to feed one’s children, shelter to keep them warm, schools to educate them, and basic health care to help assure their survival.

The project's best hope? To positively influence policy makers, whose decisions about funding, programs, and social policy directly affect the quality and, in some cases, very viability, of African women and children affected by HIV/AIDS

Neal is tireless in his efforts to promote the stories that make up The House is Small, and he is limitless in his ideas of how: a book, a film, exhibits, University presentations—anything that might inspire, stimulate, and move people to action and help them to understand that they, too, regardless of their personal resources, can make choices that make change.