My most recent video production was shot near Exxon’s oil fields in southern Chad. For women, Chad is one of the most challenging nations in which to live. But in the communities around the southern town of Doba, women are defying the status quo by becoming the leading business people of the area. Thanks to the successes of Africare‘s Initiative for Economic Empowerment of Women Entrepreneurs Program (IEEWEP), women are improving the livelihoods of their families and using their excess capital to begin new ventures.
Above, women participate in literacy classes outside Doba. While I look back on my time in Chad fondly, there was no shortage of difficulties associated with the making of this video. Chad is the epitome of what most westerners think of Africa: hot, humid, hard to find a good meal, and truckloads of men with big guns that I couldn’t film lest I run the risk of cutting short my assignment. I should have known what I was in for when, after stepping off the plane, the immigration line was actually much more of a huddle.
And now for something completely different: the party I recently stumbled into at my hotel in Addis Ababa.