President and First Lady Obama's Program "Let Girls Learn (LGL)"
Empowering Women to Achieve Full Potential
Source: LGL
President and First Lady Obama's Program "Let Girls Learn (LGL)": "In March 2015, the President and First Lady launched "Let Girls Learn", which brings together the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Peace Corps, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)...[to attain] a quality education that empowers them to reach their full potential...to create lasting change...to change the perception of the value of girls...to improve the lives of adolescent girls worldwide" - LGL > About.
CNN Films documented LGL's progress in the film "'We Will Rise'...Michelle Obama's Mission to Educate Girls Around the World", which features Liberia President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Princess Lalla Salma of Morocco, activist actresses Meryl Streep & Freida Pinto, with CNN Correspondent Isha Sesay, all of whom "meet young women overcoming incredible odds to change their lives". Film highlights include a visit to Peace Corps LGL teamed up with partner NGO "Project Soar" in Morocco.
To set the context for girl's struggles, CNN earlier produced the film "'Girl Rising'…the stories of nine girls from different parts of the world who face arranged marriages, child slavery, and other heartbreaking injustices. Despite these obstacles, the brave girls offer hope and inspiration. By getting an education, they're able to break barriers and create change" - IMDB. The film also features actresses Meryl Streep & Freida Pinto as segment narrators, along with actresses Cate Blanchett, Selena Gomez, Anne Hathaway & Salma Hayek, joined by documentary narrator actor Liam Neeson. Both films were produced by Founding Partners The Documentary Group & Microsoft Cofounder Vulcan Ventures CEO Paul Allan's Vulcan Productions.
Also of interest is the Public Broadcasting Network (PBS) film "What Tomorrow Brings…Inside the very first girls' school in a small Afghan village, education goes far beyond the classroom as the students discover the differences between the lives they were born into and the lives they dream of leading", a film documenting Razia's Ray of Hope Foundation Zabuli Education Center
Web
● Let Girls Learn (LGL) / About / Progress
●● The White House / USAID / Peace Corps
● Girl Rising / About / LGL
● Razia's Ray of Hope Foundation / Zabuli Education Center
Film
● We Will Rise: CNN Films / The Documentary Group
● Girl Rising: CNN Films / The Documentary Group / Vulcan Productions / IMDB
● What Tomorrow Brings: PBS
View (Streaming / DVD)
●● Girl Rising: Amazon Prime / YouTube / DVD
●● What Tomorrow Brings: PBS
Related:
"The Genius Kids Behind Obama’s Favorite Science Projects"
(Note: for a pop-up description of each girl's project, at the bottom of each picture, on the left side of the slide counter & partial caption, click the upward-pointing arrowhead (^))
Projects
● "Kimberly Yeung, 9…Rebecca Yeung, 11: Loki Lego [Rocket] Launcher"
● "Hannah Herbst, 16: Beacon hydroelectric generator"
● "Augusta Uwamanzu-Nna, 18: Undersea cement mixture"
● "Olivia Hallisey, 18: Ebola Assay Card"
● "Payton Kaar, 21...Kiona Elliott, 21: Bike-powered water sanitation station"
Source: "'Generation Excellent' … 'Wired Frontiers…A Special Issue Guest-Edited By President Barack Obama' -- Wired, November 2016
And from the World of Sport
● 11-year-old surfer gives adorably honest interview, melts hearts online...she's the youngest ever surfer to compete in the upcoming Sydney International Women's Pro competition event
Films
● Hidden Figures: "a forthcoming film that tells the astonishing true story of female African-American mathematicians who were invaluable to NASA’s space program in the Jim Crow South in the early 1960s" - NY Times (Trailer/Release (Xmas 2016))
● Good Girls Revolt: In the '60's, "when gender roles were being questioned and women began coming into their own. The Good Girls Revolt is inspired by the book of the same name by Lynn Povich, one of the main organizers behind the legal challenges brought against Newsweek for gender discrimination, beginning in March 1970…The late, great Nora Ephron, fresh out of Wellesley, was a researcher at Newsweek...at Newsweek...the female researchers were handmaidens to the male writers, functioning much like office wives, getting the men their coffee, sharpening their pencils, and bolstering their egos when deadlines loomed. When the women bicker over who’s assigned to which story to help which writer, Ephron’s character reminds them of what’s at stake in a system that’s all about making the men look good. “You guys are fighting about the lower bunk bed in jail,” she says…Ephron left Newsweek to write for the New York Post, and to launch a brilliant career that encompassed Hollywood and Broadway" -- "I Was There For 'Good Girls Revolt'", The Daily Beast. View series on Amazon
● Everything is Copy…Nora Ephron: Scripted & Unscripted: "Nora Ephron…American journalist, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, novelist, producer, director" - Wiki. View documentary on HBO (About)
● Agora: "The biopic stars...Hypatia, a female mathematician, philosopher and astronomer in late 4th-century Roman Egypt, who investigates the flaws of the geocentric Ptolemaic system and the heliocentric model that challenges it...In 391 AD, Alexandria is part of the Roman Empire, and Greek philosopher Hypatia is a teacher at the Platonic school, where future leaders are educated. Hypatia is the daughter of Theon, the director of the Musaeum [aka Serapeum] of Alexandria" - Wiki Agora. "The Musaeum...at Alexandria...included the famous Library of Alexandria" - Wiki Musaeum. "The Serapeum of Alexandria in the Ptolemaic Kingdom was a ancient Greek temple built by Ptolemy III Euergetes " - Wiki Serapeum Alexandria. View film on Amazon / YouTube