Embassy of the United States

Start with teaching natural science, as Matheson did for nearly seven years.  Then add in the law license that Matheson, who is also an attorney, has.  Include a new career as a documentary filmmaker, and add up the total.

“I believe education, media and law are three of the four most powerful ways to bring change to the world,” said Matheson, who arrived in Congo in February.  (The fourth is economics, which Matheson doesn’t include among her strengths.)

Thanks to her Fulbright scholarship, Matheson will spend the next year studying how to use video as a tool for social change.  She is working with the environmental, conservation and educational groups CARPE (Programme Regional de l’Afrique Centrale Pour l’Environnment et le Partenariat pour les Forets du Bassin du Congo), and INCEF (International Conservation and Education Fund).

At a recent talk with members of Embassy Brazzaville’s Villa Washington English Club, Matheson explained the keys principles behind her Fulbright project.

Video advocacy, the primary focus of Matheson’s research, is the use of film to change practices, policies and law – with change as the ultimate goal.  Often, the films are targeted at broad social problems and seek to influence governments or organizations to alter laws and regulations.

Matheson is also working on the question of video-centered outreach education, which is INCEF’s specialty.  Though the two forms sound similar, video-centered outreach education targets individual behaviors and attitudes, not laws or policies.  Sharing information, in and of itself, is as important as what someone does with that information.

Villa Washington English Club members watch an educational outreach video about Ebola virus in Congo

“Education and change are both on equal footing,” in video-centered outreach, Matheson explained to the English Club members. “They are both equally important.”
One film Matheson is working on seeks to show the results of INCEF education teams as they travel across villages presenting films on such topics as halting the spread of the Ebola virus by educating people about the consequences of poaching and avoiding human-wildlife conflicts.  Films are taken to remote, rural areas and shown to villagers who otherwise do not have the opportunity to watch videos; in 2007, the campaign reached 45,000 Congolese people.

Matheson recently spent one month traveling in northern Congo, visiting and shooting film in a dozen or so villages south of Ouesso.  Her Fulbright project will take her across most of the Congo during the course of the year.  That’s hardly unusual for a person described in her Fulbright recommendation letters “both a tornado of activity and a calm and effective teacher and advocate.”

This is Matheson’s first experience in Central Africa, but she lived and worked in Tanzania in 1999.  She was introduced to Congo by friends who traveled in the region. “I got intrigued by how off the well-traveled path the Congo is,” said Matheson, who also has traveled extensively throughout South and Central America, Asia and Europe.

She is also serving as a wealth of information for Congolese students interested in applying for Fulbright scholarships.  Matheson holds a business degree from Drake University, a law degree from the University of Oregon and is working on a Master’s in Fine Arts degree from Montana State University’s school of science and natural history filmmaking.  The Fulbright selection committee rated Matheson as “exceptional,” its highest rating, and noted that the Montana State film program is one of the most selective and prestigious in the U.S.

The Fulbright Scholar Program is administered by the U.S. Department of State, through the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, with assistance from the Council for International Exchange of Scholars.

More than 279,000 people across the world have been awarded Fulbright scholarships since the program began in 1946.  The grants are awarded to U.S. citizens but also to citizens of other countries – including Republic of the Congo.  Since 2005, five Congolese students and researchers have been awarded Fulbright scholarships and gone to study in the U.S., while three American Fulbright researchers-students have come to the Congo.