The journey is the destination movie Continue © 1996-2014, Amazon.com, Inc. or its Los Angeles affiliates (CNN)In what can often be a divided world full of bitter political battles, social and economic injustice, racial and religious persecution - it's easy to get lost in everything. So how do you find your way? Your purpose? Dan Eldon found his early days, and risked his life -- ultimately losing -- to document and help those struggling with war and famine in Africa. He died when he reported on the civil war in Somalia in 1993. Now, his story is a Netflix feature film.Writer and director Bronwen Hughes came across Dan's story by reading the book titled The Journey is the Destination -- compiled by Dan's mother, Kathy, based on the dozens of magazines he left behind. When the pages of this book open, it's like going down some kind of rabbit hole - so many witty observations and ideas, Hughes told CNN. It was almost as if he had left a visual map of how to see the world through his eyes. Dan Eldon was born in England in 1970. When she was 7, she moved with her parents and younger sister Amy to Nairobi. Kenya's color and chaos was ideal for this dyslexic child with wild ideas.'One of the most exciting people I've ever met'Dan tracked down his mother, Kathy, a newspaper journalist who championed activists and nation builders in her columns. His young mind was captivated by these social pioneers. These people didn't necessarily ask for permission and didn't necessarily get licenses, but they solved whatever the problem was and I have to write about it, said Kathy Eldon on CNN. As a teenager, Dan was already earning photo credits in the newspaper and Kathy encouraged him to find his own important stories. When he was 14, it was very logical for him to find a solution to a girl who needed a heart operation, Kathy said. He designed boxer shorts and T-shirts and created bakery sales and dance parties to raise money to pay for the surgery. She then helped support a Maasai mother by buying and selling her handmade jewellery to put her children to school and later arranged a dangerous hike through five East African countries to bring desperately needed aid to a Mozambican refugee camp in Malawi. Jeffrey Gettleman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and south Asia bureau chief for the New York Times, was part of malawi's convoy. Gettleman credits Dan with changing his life and appears prominently in his new book: Love, Africa. Dan was one of the most exciting people I've ever met, Gettleman told CNN. He was funny, creepy, charming as hell and had special capacity to instill trust in others. Every time he came up with an idea - to make a parody film, to run a mission to a local bakery, to ride through a rough part of town and try to befriend the hardest people - he didn't present it as his idea; it was our idea. Eldon led by Eldon Eldon young activists raised thousands of dollars to pay for two wells, tools and blankets for refugees. Kathy describes Dan's constantly evolving sense of mission: He went from one individual to a family in a country. Therefore, it was a very logical trajectory of the power of one. He ran into life'Dan believed we can all create positive change. This message was stamped on his DNA. He bled for his work, found freedom in adventure and lived life as a safari. He was an activist. He was a humanitarian. He had a lot of fun doing good in the world. It was bold. She ran into life, sister Amy Eldon told CNN. With each excursion, Dan filled the pages of his diaries with words of wisdom and richly textured works of art that addressed the good against evil, the role of violence in society and the effect of war on humanity. Within these pages, Dan tracked down a mission statement. This was part of it: Exploring the unknown and the familiar, distant and close, and recording, in detail with a child's eyes, and the beauty of flesh or otherwise, horror, irony, traces of utopia or hell. His work in Somalia exposed him to all of these and more. Acting on a rumor about hunger in the city of Baidoa, Dan did what he had always done. When Dan arrived, he was horrified by what he saw: scores of dead babies, skeletal children and hungry adults. Dan's images were published in newspapers around the world and were the first to expose this growing humanitarian crisis. Reuters' younger correspondent Famine turned into civil war, Reuters spotted Dan's work and hired him to document the increasingly dangerous situation on the ground in Somalia, becoming the organization's youngest correspondent. Amid the tanks, bullet holes, fire and fury of the war were images of fatigued soldiers who were extending compassionate hands to cheerful children and villagers in fleeting moments of peace. Even in a war zone, Dan found ways to connect. The locals referred to him as the mayor of Mogadishu. He wore a monkey mask and danced to break the ice with children who had seen too much. They trusted him. He was one of them. But then, on July 12, 1993, US helicopter ships headed to a compound they believed was a meeting place for General Mohamed Farrah Aidid and other war lords. The bombs killed dozens of people, but Aidid was not among them. Dan was at his hotel at the time of the attack. Their bags were full. He was scheduled to go to Nairobi that same day. But when several witnesses came to his door asking him to photograph the carnage, Dan and four other colleagues headed to the scene. I knew the But Dan knew these people and felt safe. Once they entered the venue and started taking photos, an angry crowd turned on them. His cameras were found with stones, knives and As the angry locals drew their ire at Dan and his friends. Dan and three other journalists were killed. She was only 22.'I knew I had to make a movie'Kathy promised that her son's death would not be in vaan. When I heard the news, honestly within minutes, I knew I had to make a film that could ignite a movement of people to believe they had a role to play in changing the world around them. This sounds terribly grandiose and out of sight, but somehow, I knew this is what I had to do. For more than two decades, Kathy persevered through many rounds of financial supports and cast changes before finally realizing her dream. The Journey is the Destination, starring Ben Schnetzer as Dan, Maria Bello as Kathy and Ella Purnell as Amy, premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival and earlier this month began airing on Netflix. It was an extraordinarily humbling and inspiring experience to play a role in telling the story of Dan and Kathy, Schnetzer told CNN. I hope the film presents a new audience to Dan's art and writings. Maria Bello told CNN that she actually met Kathy several years before she was chosen to play her, which helped bring authenticity to the role. Her book, 'In the Heart of Life', really shows the complexity of being a mother brave enough to have given her children roots and wings. I tried to embody that in acting, he said. In a world full of 'us against them' mentality, Dan's story is a lesson of 'there is only one us'. Most everyone in the world wants peace and happiness for their children and to be accepted. Somali and Mozambican refugees took part in the film Filmed in South Africa, Hughes worked with Somali and Mozambican refugees who had actually experienced the conflict in order to make the film as authentic as possible. Ultimately, I hope dan's ability to connect, the kind of idea that no matter where he traveled, would find some way to find something in common with you – this ability to find the best in people is what he did as well as a journalist and told the stories of the people behind the headlines of war/conflict zone. There are people in the real world, not just geopolitical strategies, Hughes said. His work left lasting impressions on several international correspondents, including AC360 anchor Anderson Cooper and CNN international correspondent Christiane Amanpour. Dan's story is inspiring because he embodied the war correspondent of the old war despite his young age, Amanpour said. It went to an important but very dangerous place to recover stories that really mattered. that no one can ever forget, as he paid for them with his life. In addition to the film, Dan's legacy as a global activist lives on in an organization called Creative Visions. Founded by Kathy and Amy, the non-profit organization aims to through means of impact, the arts and technology. We received hundreds of letters from people who were so inspired by Dan that they were literally ripping off their ties and leaving their daily jobs and going out to make a change in the world. He set people on fire, Amy recounted. We started this organization to help people tell stories about issues that need to be solved in the world. So far, Creative Visions has reached more than 100 million people through 260 projects and productions focused on social, humanitarian and environmental issues, and through its Rock Your World Youth Empowerment Program that teaches students about the Declaration of Human Rights and gives them the tools and resources to defend the issues that matter to them.