Making A World of Difference

Jetstar magazine, The Word:

Written by a New York-born filmmaker who’s also trying to make a difference through his fi lms on social issues, Miles Roston has focused on individuals the world over who are bringing about change for the better. The six Australians featured include Ronni Kahn, the founder of OzHarvest, which distributes surplus food to charities in Sydney.

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Making a World of Difference
Miles Roston
Exisle Publishing, $34.99
TRUE stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things in their corners of the globe can motivate a reader to move their world for the better, or at least want to.
Making a World of Difference is a collection of stories like that from people scattered around the world. None is famous, but all have changed the lives of those around them.
Among the featured profiles are an Aboriginal nurse who makes sure Aboriginal people run their own medical clinics; a man in Kenya who has helped glue sniffers on the streets turn their attentions to achieving their dreams; the first sex worker to be the keynote speaker at a major human rights conference in Poland; and a rebel leader from Darfur who learnt he had to listen to his own people.
Author Miles Roston delivers these stories in a kind of journalistic style – there is little romanticising and no flowery description.
Their stories have a kind of news-feature tone which is strong, objective and human focused.
These stories deliver on the blurb’s promise: Making a World of Difference is inspiring and does contain reminders of the wonderful elements that are the best parts of the best people around the world. For that, Roston should be proud.
But these wonderful profiles are topped and tailed with a kind of preaching from Roston himself about the need for more people like these.
He outlines his belief that we can’t wait for governments to make the changes we need and why individual actions can make a collective difference for the greater good.
These pages in some ways detract from the interesting, moving profiles.
Roston would have been best to let the stories of the extraordinary people he combed the world to find speak for themselves and let them move people to act.
Jane Fynes-Clinton