“Pregnancy is a shared responsibility… she should not carry the burden alone.”
In central Mozambique, pregnancy is not carried by one person alone. It moves through families, through memory, through systems that hold and sometimes fail. It is carried in bodies, in silence, in stories not often spoken.
What We Carry is a collaborative film created with community members in Gorongosa. This film invites us to see pregnancy as a lived experience shaped by relationships, community, and the systems that surround us. Through image, voice, and reflection, community members share what they carry—and what pregnancy asks others to carry alongside them.
It does not seek to explain pregnancy from the outside. Instead, it begins with the people who live it. Through Collaborative Filmmaking, participants shaped the stories, images, and conversations that became this film. The process created space for listening, reflection, and dialogue, allowing experiences that are often unseen or unheard to guide both the film and the conversations that followed.
Participants came together to reflect on pregnancy, care, uncertainty, and strength. What emerged was not a single story, but many—woven together through moments of waiting, hope, fear, resilience, and quiet acts of care.
Some experiences are difficult to capture through words alone. Film makes visible what is often overlooked: the long walk to care, the waiting, the uncertainty, the moments of quiet decision-making, and the relationships that shape every pregnancy. Rather than simply documenting these experiences, Collaborative Filmmaking invites communities to see, reflect on, and share them together.
Improvement is not only about adding more services. It is about strengthening the connections between them.
Care must move closer to where people live and to the realities they navigate every day.
Strong health systems respond to clinical needs and to the conditions that shape whether care can be reached, trusted, and experienced. Distance, relationships, resources, and understanding all influence whether care is available when it matters most.
Change begins with listening.
When women and communities are recognized as partners in shaping care, health systems become more responsive, more trusted, and more likely to endure. Transforming care is not only about building infrastructure—it is about reimagining how care is designed, delivered, and experienced.
What emerged was shaped by a process of listening, reflection, image-making, and dialogue.
Across the stories, certain threads became visible:
Care is relational. It is shaped by trust, by presence, by who shows up in moments that matter.
Barriers are not only logistical. They are felt—in waiting, in uncertainty, in the quiet spaces between need and response.
Pregnancy is deeply contextual. It exists within families, communities, histories, and systems that shape what is possible.
Silence carries weight. What is not said is often as important as what is spoken.
The film was first shared with leaders responsible for shaping the future of health in central Mozambique. Government officials, health professionals, researchers, community partners, and philanthropic leaders came together to explore the next phase of the Central Mozambique Health Initiative. In that space, the stories created by women and health workers in Gorongosa entered directly into conversations about the future of care.
For the project participants, this mattered deeply. Knowing that their experiences, captured in their own voices, traveled beyond their communities and into conversations with researchers, practitioners, and decision-makers brought a sense of pride and recognition. Their stories carried with them the realities of care, the weight of constraint, and the strength of what already exists.
The film continues to bring these voices into conversations about maternal health, health systems strengthening, and the future of care in central Mozambique.
In this way, the stories do not end with the film. They continue to travel, reaching new audiences, shaping dialogue, and informing what comes next.
The stories shared through What We Carry are not stories of deficit. They are stories of strength, resilience, care, and hope. They remind us that stronger health systems are built not only through new resources, but through listening, partnership, and a shared commitment to creating healthier futures together.
Official Film Poster – English & Portuguese Versions
Sponsors and Stakeholders
Gorongosa Restoration Project University of Pittsburgh Community participants and local filmmakers
Layout and page design by Madeline Soule, University of Pittsburgh
