Blessing, the Mongoose & the Cages of Misfortune
Blessing & the Mongoose: follows the journey of Blessing via her diary (journal) who after her parents pass away is then kidnapped from the streets and put to work as a street beggar and in a factory by the kidnapping child trafficking gangs, and the journey of an orphan mongoose (via flash scenes) whose parents have been killed that befriends Blessing when the animal saves her from a snake who she then shares her meagre food at nights. When Blessing reaches ten years of age, she is sold and shipped out to a neighbouring country and forced to become a house girl by the begging street gang leader and the mongoose is captured, put in a cage and then traded on the exotic pet trader market but her young cousin, who drops out of school to work untying fishing nets, is trying to to save enough money to travel and find her and the film follows parts of his journey to do so too. However, when Blessing discovers that the family she lives with are planning to buy and then demolish a local wildlife sanctuary, she has to try and convince the children around her to help her obstruct their plans and nature can be an asset to human society. Written by Jill Thrussell (child trafficking film)
Symbolic references: in this film the cage represents the trapped state of Blessing who is trapped in a begging gang then a forced child marriage and traded much like the mongoose then kept like an exotic pet.