Maggie Dubris

On September 11, 2001, the members of Ground Zero For Peace were at the World Trade Center, working as EMTs, medics, firefighters, or police officers. In May of 2004, GZFP’s founder, EMT Megan Bartlett, was in Kabul, Afghanistan, talking with the Kabul paramedics and firemen. In “Worlds Apart,” documentary film-maker Tom Jackson examines the journey of Ground Zero For Peace, a small group of New York City rescue workers who responded to the trauma of the trade center attacks not with a desire for revenge, but with a yearning for peace and connection. In interviews with the few GZFP members who are willing to speak publicly, he opens a window into a world where to speak out is to risk being shunned as a traitor to comrades who have died. Yet, among these rescue workers, there is a sense of connection to the world-wide human family that is far stronger and more prevalent than is portrayed in the mainstream media. This sense of connection drove Bartlett to contact the Kabul medics, and, ultimately, to travel to Afghanistan to find out, “how different they could really be from us.” Jackson went to Afghanistan with her, and, as they travel outside the green zone, into the places where the medics work and live, he films the stories that unfold.

Ground Zero for Peace (GZFP) – 9/11 Rescue Workers Against War, is an advocacy and action organization founded by firemen, EMTs, paramedics and police officers who assisted in the rescue and recovery efforts at the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001, and have united to turn their experience into an impetus for peace and justice. One of the major missions of the organization is to create a world community of rescue workers, born of common experiences that all rescue workers have: constant exposure to the human toll taken by poverty, illness, and violence, and a dedication to the goal of alleviating human suffering.

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