10×10 Update from India #1: Kolkata

Two members of the 10×10 team touched down in India earlier this week. They landed in Kolkata on the east coast of India (formally Calcutta) at 2 a.m. After calling their hotel and waking up the driver (who should have already been there to meet them!), they arrived safely at their first stop. The next morning they met a 4-year-old girl and her mother who call a little spot of pavement on Jadunath Dey Road their home. Though they live on the street, Pari is still able to attend school and practice her ABCs under her mother’s watchful eye. Like all mothers, she’s eager for her daughter to study and learn.

Pari learning to write in Kolkata from The Documentary Group, shot in the field by Gina Nemirofsky.

10×10 team members Martha and Gina met with 10×10 partner World Vision’s local project. The Snehadeep ( “light of love”) Street Children’s Project caters to families who live on the sidewalks and makes every attempt to keep them safe and in school – giving girls like Pari a chance to learn. The Kolkata Snehadeep street Children’s Project has been set up for prevention and control of child labor and child trafficking. More than 10,000 poor and disadvantaged migrant families live in their area of operation, including 5,000 working and street children. The slums, red light areas and other places where these children and their families live lack basic amenities in life: education and health facilities, safe drinking water, drainage and toilet facilities. The children are often forced to work hazardous jobs to supplement the family income or are trafficked into the sex trade.

These two sisters attend the program; both want to be teachers when they grow up!

Snehadeep focuses on the health and well-being of children with a package of vocational, microcredit, education and health programs. The organization sponsors children’s clubs, child protection committees, girls’ basketball, vocational training in weaving and knitting, school supplies, and nutritional supplements.

10×10 spent a wonderful day with the staff and children at the program. Many thanks to our new friends in Kolkata! Up next: Bengaluru!

March 16, 2011

10×10 at Women in the World

“That last sight – of Sokha Chen dancing – may have been the most moving thing of all ”
Tina Brown in her closing remarks describing the 2011 Women in the World Conference

This video is an excerpt from 10×10′s presentation on stage at Women in the World – the first 5 minutes are a preview of Sokha’s story from our film; in the last few minutes you can watch Sokha dancing live on stage.

10×10 was featured as the finale to Tina Brown’s Women in the World conference at New York City’s Henry Hotel last week. 10×10’s scope and scale inspired the influential audience of women leaders with its combination of creative storytelling, robust partnerships, and global opportunities for action and engagement. 10×10 is the active implementation of the values that inspire Women in the World – that the global community can come together to create meaningful impact on the lives of girls and women. The opportunity for Sokha Chen, one of the girls who will be featured in the 10×10 film, to participate live on stage at the event was incredible –the video piece and live apsara dance performance – visually demonstrating the potential of girls to overcome adversity – was a true highlight of the event.

Sokha and the 10×10 team were able to meet with global leaders from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the new head of UN Women, Michelle Bachelet during the conference. Many 10×10 partners and allies including World Vision,Plan International USA, Room to Read, the UN Foundation, the Intel Corporation, Women for Women International, A New Day Cambodia, Nawal el Sadaawi, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Isobel Coleman, and Juju Chang participated in the event. Women in the World was an amazing opportunity for 10×10 to solidify our existing relationships and make new connections with corporations, philanthropists, and media representatives who will help spread our global message that educating girls will change the world. We talked with women leaders from Egypt to Tanzania, from Italy to Chile, all excited to learn about the project and eager to be involved.

We were thrilled at the opportunity to present a preview of one of the stories that will comprise the 10×10 film to the influential network of women participating and to the global audience for the Women in the World livestream. You can watch the full 10×10 video segment of the conference on the Women in the World livestream site.

February 11, 2011

Ethiopia Update 4- "Her father was…lying…a lot."

Hello all-

I have to start this story by saying that I will not do it justice. I know you have all heard me say it before, but one curse of this job (one of the few) is that the more remarkable the experience, the less likely it is that I can explain it sufficiently.

We were told by WV that there was a great story from a school about 50km out of Bahir Dar in a town called Adet. So we drove there Tuesday morning. We stopped by the school, but the girl was at home, and they told us we should walk to her house to see her. So we walked. And walked and walked. My gear bag weighs in at about 50 lbs and yes, I carried it all the way. The landscape is really stunning, but the idea that this girl walks all that way to school is pretty incredible alone. Of course most of the girls do. And boys. (Here is one of the struggles of telling these stories – communicating scale – but seriously, it was a LONG way).

When we arrived at the home we were looking for, there was a large family waiting. The girl, Banchiayehu, was quite shy, but her parents and older brother welcomed us. So we sat and interviewed the family, and the father told us proudly how he had made his sons and daughters go to school. He told us how he had resisted having them married too young. He told us that he had insisted that his two older daughters wait until they were 18 to marry. He seemed like such a model citizen. A beacon of change in the struggle to prevent early marriage.

Rediet, wise woman that she is, began to wonder why we had walked such a long way to see this family. She took aside the WV Community Development Worker and asked just that. It turned out that the father was, in fact, lying. Not lying a little, but lying a lot. We had been brought there because just this year, his daughter had been nearly married. Twice. If not for the intervention of her older brother, she would have been. CONTINUE READING

February 11, 2011

Ethiopia Field Update 3

by Richard Robbins

A brief note about World Vision.

World Vision is the NGO in Ethiopia. Maybe because they have been here so long and maybe because they are a Christian organization in a predominantly Christian nation. I’m not sure, but over and over again, when we saw some sign of progress, it turned out that it was WV that was responsible. The WV main office planned a nearly perfect trip, and managed every detail flawlessly. Gebre, the head of the communications office made sure our every need was met, and our every question answered. We never had a moment of doubt that he was managing everything with care and professionalism.

In Bahir Dar we worked primarily with two young WV folks, Wondimu and Rediete. Both were the kind of caring, thoughtful, dedicated people we dream about connecting with. They instantly took to our mission for the film, and made it their own. Wondimu and I spent long hours debating religion – he with more good humor and persistence than I ever expected. He speaks fantastic English, and works specifically on gender issues. CONTINUE READING

February 11, 2011

Ethiopia Field Update 2

by Richard Robbins

Hello all-

Apologies for the long silence. We had no internet access in the north so we were communicating sparsely with Martha by text. We were able to see some emails by parking in front of a fancy hotel that had free wi-fi in their lobby, but sending e-mails was somehow impossible. We are finally back in Addis Ababa and have a longish day here before we fly home tonight.

Unfortunately, I didn’t follow my normal routine of writing updates along the way, even knowing they couldn’t get sent. I was frankly just too too tired. Ethiopia wins the prize so far for most grueling travel. The idea of opening my computer at the end of those long days was just too daunting. I think I also finally succumbed to what Martha had suffered from on our last trips–I’m simply so overwhelmed by the experience that the idea of trying to communicate what we have seen in an email seemed totally impossible.

With that said, I will try and give a glimpse.

The area we were in was near the city of Bahir Dar on the shore of Lake Tana. The lake is the second largest in Africa (after Victoria). On the day we arrived there, we did take a little boat ride out onto the lake. We visited a small island that has a 9th Century monastery. There are many small islands on the lake, and numerous monasteries built on them that survived the Muslim invaders in the late middle ages. Legend says that the Holy Grail is actually hidden in one of these monasteries.

A few quick things about the area. First off, it is very beautiful. Much dryer and flatter than the south, and people are dressed precisely as you probably picture them – men in shorts with blankets wrapped around their shoulders. Every man, from about 5 years old, is carrying a stick. Part walking stick, part cow herding tool – the stick is ubiquitous. Very few paved roads. Most people walk very long distances for everything – and almost all the people are subsistence farmers.

Our first day out for interviews we visited a school in Yilmana Densa and met a great group of girls. The highlight by far was the visit we made to the home of a girl named A. (name withheld). She lived a good mile or two from the nearest road, and although our brave driver managed to get us about halfway by driving through fields, we did a fair bit of walking. She is now 14 or 15 (ages, again, are dicey). A. grew up with a single mother – her father had passed when she was quite young. When A. got to be about 12, her mother promised her in marriage. This is well in keeping with local tradition, but A. was not happy about it. We could never quite get an answer from A. about where she got the idea to resist the plan, but that is exactly what she did. She simply told her mother no. CONTINUE READING

February 4, 2011

Ethiopia Field Updates

By Richard Robbins

ETHIOPIA DISPATCH – FEB 3, 2011: “Day 1″

Hello all-

End of a long but fruitful first day of work.

After what seemed like an exceptionally long few days of travel – LA to Paris, long layover, Paris to Addis Ababa, long drive – we have landed in Hawassa (or Awassa, depending). We are a four or five hours drive South and East from Addis Ababa. From here we drove another two hours into the countryside to Hula. As this is my first time here, there is much to say about Ethiopia in general. The beauty of the landscape is exceeded only by the beauty of the people. The roads are quite good, thanks to an explosion of building by the Chinese (if you haven’t seen the Documentary Group’s show for ABC on this subject I highly recommend it). The Chinese infrastructure projects are everywhere. There is so much building going on, that sometimes you wonder if everything has just started, or nothing ever gets finished. Beautiful churches abound. The sky has that high cloud look that I’ve only seen in Africa and Montana. Big big sky.

People here do not like having their pictures taken, which is unfortunate, as we take a lot (and they are very photogenic).

So in the Hula district we stopped at the side of the road where we met some of the local World Vision staff. I hope Room to Read won’t be jealous if we say how great the World Vision staff is. I don’t know why the dedication of all these people is so moving. Perhaps because I live amongst so much jaded self involvement in Los Angeles.

We walked a mile or so through the countryside (no roads) where you could hear our presence being heralded (literally) across the hills by farmers and children unaccustomed to seeing white visitors. I actually caused one toddler to burst into tears at the sight of me. He had never seen a white person. Finally we came to a small, very primitive school where a dozen or so girls were waiting for us. They had come specially for us, as there is no school right now (they are on break).

The girls ranged in age from 9 to 14 – a younger group than we had seen in Nepal or Cambodia – which was fun. These girls are far more shy than any we’ve met before. They do not smile easily, but when they do it feels like the sun has broken through a bank of heavy clouds. They are the children of poor coffee farmers, and none had literate parents. Like Cambodia they all come from very large families. The issue here, and the reason we came, is early marriage. Unless they are very very lucky, all these girls will be married by the time they are 15 or 16. And pregnant soon after. Their education will never progress past 5th or 6th grade. Some are married even younger, at 10 or 11. Several of