CSM students take home grand prize for video exploring challenges facing traditional village life in India
Silver Spring, MD – The Sisters of Mercy of the Americas announced the winners of the third annual “Make Mercy Real” video contest today, with first place going to a group of four students at College of Saint Mary in Omaha, Nebraska.
Grace Wettengel, Morgan Lee, Michelle Delgado and Nina Bennett submitted Injustice in India’s Villages, a video chronicling the four students’ visit to a rural Indian village and the struggle of the inhabitants to maintain a traditional and sustainable way of life in the face of encroaching technology and sometimes hostile government policies.
The winning team announced they will donate their prize, $500.00, to the Indian village in which the video was filmed. “We are going to give it back to the community to help build a community center and bring new bathrooms to them for all of the villagers to use.”
“It was a once in a life-time experience,” said Michelle Delgado. We had the opportunity to visit a village within India and we got to see how the people there were living and their different ways of life. When we came back, we decided that we should make a video to try and express to others what we saw.”
One of their “ah ha” moments was meeting a farmer who was convinced by an outsider that he needed a backhoe and that it would make his life better. “Once he purchased it, it made everything worse,” said Nina. “He had to pay money for it that he didn’t have. He ended up having to spend extra work, extra time and pay money to fix it. He never needed it in the first place. We’re trying to spread the message that nothing is wrong with the way they are doing it and we don’t need to put what we have on them.”
Grace agreed. “We buy all of these things, we have new technology and we think it’s really good, it works really well. But they do it very simply, without any waste, without anything else,” she said. “We just think of them as poor. They might be poor financially compared to us, we have 9-5 jobs, but when it comes to the spirituality and happiness, I’d argue they were 10 times richer than any of us there.”
Dr. Ganesh Naik, professor of chemistry, planned this trip with a goal of showing the students another way of living. He felt it was important to have them experiences, such as having food that goes directly from farm to table. “The first time they were served the students became emotional,” said Dr. Naik. “Grace almost cried because she made the connection that the food they were eating also was involved in the sweat and the blood of the farmer. When you think about it that way, it’s very difficult to throw that food away.” Dr. Naik said he believes the food wasted in the U.S. is because “we don’t have that connection with our food, and we don’t have a connection with the people who produce the food.”
The second- and third-place entries were created by students at the Academy of Our Lady of Mercy in Louisville, Kentucky; in a tie for third place was a video created by a student at Gwynedd Mercy University in Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylvania.
“We had 66 inspiring and moving videos submitted from students across the United States,” said Mike Poulin, director of justice outreach, mission and ministry for the Sisters of Mercy, West-Midwest Community “The judges of this year’s contest appreciated “Injustice in India’s Villages” for the depth in which it explored sustainability as relates to lifestyle, and for the stunning original footage used to tell the story.”
The video contest was launched in 2016 as a way to connect high school and college students at Sisters of Mercy-sponsored schools with the five Critical Concerns of the Congregation: care for the Earth, nonviolence, the elimination of racism, just treatment for migrants and attention to the education, health and spirituality of women. Each video creatively explores one or more of the Critical Concerns.
View Full List of Winning Entries
Photo Caption: (From L-R) Mike Poulin, director of justice outreach, mission and ministry for the Sisters of Mercy, West Midwest Community; Dr. Maryanne Stevens, RSM, president of College of St. Mary; Nina Bennett; Michelle Delgado; Grace Wettengel; Morgan Lee; Dr. Ganesh Naik, professor of chemistry and program director; Sister Peg Maloney, RSM, member, Sisters of Mercy, West Midwest Community Leadership Team.
About the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas
The Sisters of Mercy–an international community of Roman Catholic Women–dedicate their lives to God through vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and service. For more than 180 years, motivated by the Gospel of Jesus and inspired by the spirit of their founder, Catherine McAuley, the Sisters of Mercy have responded to the changing needs of the times.
Through prayer and service, the sisters address the causes and effects of violence, racism, degradation of Earth and injustice to women and immigrants. The sisters serve in more than 200 organizations that work with those in need in the U.S., Central and South America, Jamaica, Guam and the Philippines. www.sistersofmercy.org.
