Help Individuals from the Documentary
Below, you can learn exactly how you can lend your support to the inspiring individuals who shared their stories in the documentary Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.
International Rescue Committee
Amie Kandeh
Donate your used digital cameras and their battery chargers to the IRC's Crescendo Project, which teaches women and adolescent girls in post-conflict Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast to document their lives and challenges and to use their images to educate their communities and advocate for change. Follow the IRC on Facebook to see upcoming photos from participants.
Buy Rescue Gifts for friends and family members and help meet the needs of vulnerable women and girls in crisis zones.
Room to Read
Start your own campaign for education. To support Room to Read's mission to bring literacy and gender equality in education across Asia and Africa, run a marathon, hold a bake sale, or start a change drive at work. Get creative and create a campaign that’s fun for you and your friends. Do it on your own or through www.thechangeheroes.com/roomtoread.
Take the Room to Read mission local. Join or start a Room to Read chapter in your hometown and promote their mission to create greater access to libraries and schools across Asia and Africa. Organize in your network and community to help Room to Read reach their annual fundraising goal. Or, volunteer with a nearby chapter.
Friends of Edna’s Maternity Hospital
Edna Adan
Pledge to volunteer with Edna at her maternity hospital in Somaliland where she and her fellow midwives have cut the maternal mortality rate of their patients to one-fourth of the national average. Work alongside this pioneering midwife as she aims to train 1,000 new midwifes to send out into communities across Somaliland. This position is for volunteers with medical experience only.
Alternatively, talk to your friends with medical experience, and encourage them to take time to volunteer with Edna's staff in Somaliland. Or, if you'd like to help sponsor or fundraise for a friend to volunteer with Edna, share your pledge to support a friend who wants to take the trip.
New Light
Urmi Basu
Volunteer at New Light, an organization in Kolkata, India that is dedicated to providing educational opportunities, recreational facilities, healthcare and legal aid for the children, girls and women impacted by forced prostitution in the local red light district, Kalighat. Or, sponsor a friend to volunteer. Contribute skill sets in teaching, legal aid, HIV/AIDS care, nursing, research -- you name it.
Send cold medicine, pain relievers, and other over-the-counter drugs to New Light. Urmi and her colleagues need better access to these medicines so they can administer them more effectively to sick members of the Kalighat community.
Umoja Women's Village
Rebecca Lolosoli
Purchase the traditional, beaded jewelry handmade by the women of Umoja, Kenya, a woman-only village founded by Rebecca Lolosoli. The village was established for survivors of violence as a refuge — a place for women to sustain themselves through their traditional beadwork. The funds they raise through their jewelry help support community projects. With money they earned in the past, they bought the land they now live on and built a school for their children and those in surrounding villages. They are currently raising funds for scholarships for the young girls of Umoja, teachers' salaries, a fresh water project, and more.