Post Tagged with: "women"
Celebrating International Women’s Day
I produced this dance-inducing video for the marking of International Women’s Day by ChildFund at an advocacy event in Washington, DC, promoting the Girls LEAD Act – a bill that recognizes and promotes girls’ civic and political leadership as a priority for U.S. foreign assistance efforts. Following a “call for entries” to ChildFund’s 23 offices around the world, I chose the most thought-provoking soundbites to incorporate with some existing high-intensity dance footage. Herein, also, are some shots celebrating women and girls from recent assignments in Morocco, India, Nepal and Uganda.
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She Feeds the World
Here are some stills from a recent whirlwind assignment with CARE in Peru, where I had the chance to document the lives of some of the women participating in PepsiCo Foundation’s She Feeds the World Initiative. In just four days, we visited women and their families who are working in the agriculture sector across the country from the scrub-desert far north of the country, to the tropical savannas of Sullana, to Lima’s chilly suburbs built along the dunes lining the Pacific. The village of Salitral is a farming hub for the banana industry. The women at the Association of Women Entrepreneurs of Salitral spotted a business opportunity when they saw cartons of over-ripe bananas being discarded by the farms each day. These too-ripe-to-eat bananas are perfect for making banana jam, a delectable jelly that’s usually spread on toast, cakes or cookies. The She Feeds the World initiative gave these ladies[…]
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Escaping Child Marriage in Kenya
I’m always astonished at the enthusiasm that exists for education among students in the developing world, especially when compared to my native USA. I was reminded of this during a recent assignment in Kenya, where I spent a day at the Sapashe girls’ dormitory at a remote primary school in Samburu County. The dorm, one of many constructed by ChildFund in sub-Sahran Africa, provides a safe place for school-age girls to live on campus while they focus on their education. Girls face a number of challenges in rural Kenya including FGM, child marriage, and, more often, the hurdle that when at home they’re expected to perform domestic chores like fetching water and herding livestock, rather than to concentrate on academics. The ability to live on campus helps bypass many of these obstacles. In the above video piece I present the story of Rehema, a resident of the Sapashe dorm, who[…]
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Breaking gender barriers in Jordan
My latest video for the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a US international aid agency , tells the story of Ra’eda, who is one of the first female plumbers in Jordan. Here Ra’eda explains how she went from being ridiculed for her chosen profession to becoming an in-demand professional.
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Ghana’s haute couture handbags
The straw basket and handbag makers of northern Ghana are drawing a lot of attention lately– enough, in fact, that two of my clients have each sent me to the region on separate occasions in recent months to get a close up glimpse of these fashionable totes. The groups that make them have banded together in cooperatives in order to buy supplies in bulk and save and lend amongst each other. Some groups have even managed to find financial backing and gain certified Fair Trade status, which would explain why Shared Interest, a fair trade investment firm, sent me there to capture these entrepreneurs at work. The colorful hand bags and baskets are crafted by groups of women using straw that is first rolled and split with their teeth, then dyed in vibrant colors before being woven into intricate patterns by hand. It’s a tradition that’s long been passed down through the[…]
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Change in the Air
I feel like I’m getting spoiled taking all these helicopter rides. Aerial footage is definitely worth the effort if you can take the wind burn and the pilot’s bill that comes along with it. Drones work well too, yes – just not when you have 200 square kilometers to cover. Here I document the Millennium Challenge Corporation‘s Senegal Compact, which has rehabilitated highways and markets in the north and south and brought renewed farming abilities to the Senegal River Valley through an irrigation infrastructure overhaul. MCC is a foreign aid agency established by the US Congress that applies new philosophies to the implementation of development assistance with the aim of increasing economic growth. Rogue states and kleptocracies need not apply. Countries must pass a number of indicators including control of corruption, civil liberties, and trade policy to be eligible for a compact. Senegal, being one of Africa’s most stable democracies, had[…]
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This App Saves Lives
“You need a medium to tell people. When I show pictures and video, a client understands the information so much better. Mere verbal information does not have credibility and authority.” These words are not lifted from one of my recent sales pitches to potential clients. Rather, they were said by a community health worker named Sunita in India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh. Sunita now uses a phone app to facilitate her work from house to house among pregnant and nursing women. Uttar Pradesh currently has some of the worst maternal and newborn mortality rates in all of India. When the government launched their ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) program in 2005, the goal was to place one such community health worker in every village in the country in order to reduce maternal and newborn deaths associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Today, with nearly 900,000 ASHAs, India has more[…]
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With All of My Passion
Passion fruit, that is. Mabel is breaking Uganda’s gender barriers as a small business owner and passion fruit farmer.
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Coffee with Atandi
Take a tour of the coffee process as it occurs before it reaches your machine. Your guide, Atandi, is a small farmer in Kenya who tells of the lucrativeness of her new cash crop. Above, boys fish at sunset off the shores of Lake Victoria in Kisumu. Other stills from my time among the coffee growers of Western Kenya:
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