Home > Blog

For Mother’s Day this year, we wanted to do something a little different.

As you may know, we’re creating a film focusing on 10 phenomenal girls and the barriers they face to education.

What you may not know is that we’re taking 3 different trips to 10 different countries to meet with hundreds of inspiring communities, teachers, organizations, and girls. That’s 30 trips.

And that’s a lot of stories.

We’ve gone through our digital stack of photos and pages of conversations to choose the most beautiful visuals and moving quotes, gathered from the inspiring mothers and children we’ve had the pleasure to meet along the way.

This Mother’s Day card is a combination of our favorites. And you can customize it and send it to a mother you love, at no cost, as we hope to spread the word about the 10×10 campaign. We love these stories, and we hope you, your friends and the fantastic mothers you all know might, too.

Happy Mother’s Day from 10×10. Send a card now >

May 2, 2012

Girls With Courage: From Kenya to Tennessee

Bailey Frost with local school girls, in Lwala, Kenya.

I’m starting to learn that when it comes down to it, girls are girls, no matter where you are.

My name is Bailey Frost and I am a member of the class of 2012 at the Harpeth Hall School in Nashville, Tennessee, an independent girls’ school deeply committed to making education accessible to women and girls all over the world. We recently created a partnership with the Lwala Community Alliance, a non-profit organization helping the people of Lwala, Kenya through girls’ education initiatives.

Marculate Akinyi lives in Lwala, and she wants to be a highly educated woman. She cooks and cleans for five younger siblings, but always manages to finish the homework she is assigned. At the end of her 7th grade year, Marculate’s uniform was too small and torn for her to continue attending school, so she began to sell vegetables by the road to earn money to purchase a new uniform. Fortunately, she was able to get help from an organization called Got Your Back, and continue on to the 8th grade. Marculate plans to go to high school and university in order to become a lawyer. When asked why she wants to be a lawyer, she replied, “So I can judge people fairly and help them have better lives.” Her comments reveal not only a remarkable maturity and wisdom, but also the perseverance and courage that keep her from dropping out of school.

Marculate is a great example for young women all over the world. She, and girls just like her are making a difference in the Lwala community. However, their education risks being compromised by illness, lack of sanitary towels, chores, early marriage, and countless other obstacles. But despite all, she holds tight to her ambition.

Harpeth Hall students are trying to help by hosting two fundraisers raising more than $3,000 to fund mentoring programs and provide scholarships for girls to attend Lwala High School. I was fortunate to travel to Lwala this past January to distribute new school uniforms to 6^th- 8th grade girls. On one particular day, I was assigned to interview a group of girls from Kadianga Primary School. As I sat on the grass, hands folded, trying to think of what to say, 15 girls stared back at me, watching my every move and waiting for me to speak. Interviewing the girls about their lives and hardships seemed so simple, but I didn’t realize they would end up shifting my views.

Looking around, I asked who would like to go first. All the girls were silent for a moment, but then simultaneously raised their arms to point at the girl sitting directly across from me. Another student nudged her and said, “She is the brave one.” “The Brave One” was Marculate.

As I said, I’ve learned that when it comes down to it, girls are girls, no matter where you are. Our ethnicities, cultures, and economic backgrounds don’t make us different from one another.

What makes one stand out from the rest is that some girls like Marculate are courageous enough to pursue their education and better their lives, even when they face great odds. We’re doing what we can to help, and I think you should too.

April 28, 2012

Director’s Notebook

10×10 Director, Richard Robbins sent us his thoughts from the field while filming 10×10 in Peru.

I haven’t made it up to La Rinconada yet – still trying to acclimate to 13,000 feet before heading up to 17,000. I have now been to eight of our 10 countries. I figure I’ve now seen enough to offer some general observations about the world. Mostly the not very profound things that have occurred to me over the last two years, from a tired American traveler’s perspective.

So here, in no particular order, are 10 thoughts about the planet and traveling it.

The bicycle is a staggeringly important invention. Most of us don’t realize how this simple piece of technology transforms many millions of lives. The world would not function without it.
It doesn’t take too much travel to realize that we Americans coddle our children, very often to their detriment. Children are truly capable, and basic responsibility is not a burden to them.
When in doubt, don’t eat it. A little hungry is a lot more manageable than a little sick. And honestly there is rarely such a thing as “a little sick.” Oh, and you do not want to try the local delicacy. I promise.
Dignity is the most precious human commodity. More than health, money, power or even education.
Long-term planning is not a skill or a lifestyle or a cultural phenomenon. It’s a luxury afforded those of us with a somewhat certain future.
The joy of children is universal. And there is no creature on the earth more adorable than a little girl. Little boys can be cute too but they have a nasty habit of throwing rocks at things they find interesting. Like me.
The world has an extraordinary shortage of trash cans and a lot a lot of trash. Also, in most of the world there is really no such thing as clean, just degrees of dirty.
When taking care of business, a careless squat (for those of us without a lifetime of practice) can be catastrophic. A mistake you will only make once (sober).
There is more kindness and more cruelty in the world than you can ever get your head around.
There is no national or cultural dominance when it comes to annoying ringtones. They are everywhere.

April 25, 2012

Life and Production in La Rinconada, Peru

The 10×10 film team is in production in La Rinconada, Peru, considered by some to be the highest city in the world. It’s also one of the harshest, most lawless, desolate places on earth.

Senior Producer Martha Adams walks us down the muddy roads of La Rinconada in this audio slideshow, a tough place to film if there ever was one.

April 23, 2012

New Slideshow: Behind the Scenes in Cambodia

From a sweltering trash dump to a placid riverside, our film crew recently wrapped production on the Cambodia segment of the 10×10 film.

View these behind-the-scenes photos from our Cambodia production:

Cambodia Trip 3 Slideshow – Images by 10×10.

There are thousands of people struggling for survival in Cambodia’s trash dumps. You can provide shelter, food, and an education to Cambodia’s garbage dump scavenger children through our partner, A New Day Cambodia.

April 22, 2012

5 Green Tips That Might Surprise You

: Every day is a green day for these students in Kolkata, India. Photo by Martha Adams of 10x10

From the first celebration in 1970, Earth Day has steadily grown and is now celebrated by over 1 billion people in over 175 countries. And in recent years, the trend of “going green” has been so brightly spotlighted, with a compact florescent light bulb of course, that most of us are tired of that ubiquitous question: paper or plastic (for the record, the answer is neither – BYOBag is best). In honor of Earth Day 2012, here are 5 simple green tips that just might surprise you.

Trim your margins. Even if you’re seasoned at avoiding it, printing out documents is sometimes inevitable. Next time, try reducing your print margins. The simplicity is brilliant – the more words you put on a page, the less paper you’ll use.
End passive-aggressive appliances. Many home appliances enter “passive standby” mode when they are turned off, aiding a quicker start-up. But they continue to use energy, sometimes up to 40 percent of the energy amount when “on.” Unplugging your appliances when not in use is the easiest way to reduce energy waste. Try using a power strip with a surge protector to make this action convenient.
Compost with the most. What do dryer lint, eggshells, coffee grounds, and even clippings from your hair trim have in common? They all can be added to the backyard compost heap, keeping waste out of the landfill while enriching your garden soil. Yard-less? The trend to compost indoors using a handful of worms is easier (and less wiggly) than you might think.
Educate Girls. You were wondering when we were going to get to this. The truth is, while tiny changes in your daily life do add up to a big impact on the environment, educating more girls around the world is one of the biggest ways to have a positive impact on our planet, including the way we use our global resources. As we know, educating girls slows population growth: girls who stay in school for 7 or more years have between 2-3 fewer children. And women – 43% of the world’s agricultural workforce – have been shown to increase crop yields by 10% while utilizing same land space as a man when they are educated. The more girls that have access to education, the further we will come in keeping our population under control and eradicating poverty. Fewer people and more food? That sounds like a winning formula!
Remember that it’s all connected. 884 million people in the world lack access to clean water, and in one day, women spend 200 million work hours collecting water for their families. Every hour spent finding clean water is one less hour spent in school. Things like removing your name from a junk mail list (28 billion gallons of water used to produce unwanted paper) or going meatless once a week (1,857 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef) all have a positive impacton the world’s water supply.

Bonus tip: if you believe in something, share it. The green movement has been progressed immensely, thanks to the help of digital tools to pass around tips and ideas. Our dream is that the importance of girls’ education soon makes a similar mark. Take Pinterest for example: if everyone shared one image about educating girls, there would 12 million more tips being passed around. Need ideas on what to post? Check out our Pinterest page for some inspiration.

Happy Earth Day from 10×10.