What We’re Watching: Documentary Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide on PBS
We’re tuning in tonight to PBS to watch the long-awaited documentary, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. (Airing in two parts, tonight and tomorrow, October 1 and 2, at 10 p.m. ET/9 p.m. CT.) With Nicholas Kristof as your guide, as well as Sheryl WuDunn, Hillary Clinton, and activist celebrities America Ferrera, Diane Lane, Eva Mendes, Meg Ryan, Gabrielle Union, and Olivia Wilde, providing insight, emotion and expertise, the documentary promises to introduce you to inspiring individuals in six different countries who are fighting to end some of the harshest conditions for women around the world. This hopeful documentary is a testament to the human capacity for forgiveness, courage and the power to bring about lasting change.
Across the globe, oppression is being confronted, and real meaningful solutions are being fashioned through healthcare, education, and economic empowerment for women and girls. The Half the Sky Movement notes, “Embedded in the linked problems of sex trafficking and forced prostitution, gender-based violence, and maternal mortality, which still needlessly claims one woman every 90 seconds, is the single most vital opportunity of our time and all over the world, women are seizing it.”
Tonight, in Sierra Leone, you’ll meet Amie Kandeh, a fierce advocate for women’s protection from violence, and learn alongside actress Eva Mendes how Amie is rescuing female victims and teaching them their due rights. In Cambodia, Meg Ryan will show how Somaly Mam, an anti-trafficking activist, fights the sex trade and helps rehabilitate thousands of girls who are survivors of trafficking. Then, end Monday night in Vietnam with former Microsoft executive John Wood, founder of Room to Read, an organization that creates libraries and schools across Asia and Africa. Learn with Gabrielle Union how education and literacy can break the cycle of poverty.
“Women are not the problem–they are the solution,” Nicholas and Sheryl remind us. See the transformational work of Amie, Somaly, John and so many others, and you’ll be inspired to take action for women’s rights around the world.
Opportunity is proud to be part of the “Half the Sky Movement” to invest in women. Ninety-three percent of Opportunity International loans go to women, who consistently show resilience and determination to change their world and the future of their children. Though microfinance is available to both men and women entrepreneurs, the gains that women achieve are almost three times more likely to be reinvested in their children, providing a powerful generational multiplier that accelerates economic stability and growth. Visit opportunity.org/halfthesky for more info about our partnership with this powerful movement. Go to opportunity.org/give to support a woman working her way out of poverty.
Half the Sky documentary’s most recent trailer: