Women Empowered

🌐 A short film, from Brazil to Nepal and the African continent.

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🌐 WorldWise View | global perspectives on health, development, planet

Vital work, too often invisible.

This is a special International Women's Day VIEW edition, launching a series of short films co-directed with Minos Papas and his talented team at Cyprian Films New York.

Produced for the r4d programme, an initiative by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Women Empowered: Vital Work Made Visible, and four shorter videos to be released soon, were made using selected footage collected by scientists—many of whom had filmed for the first time—working side by side with communities around the globe in development projects supported by r4d.

When researchers get immersed in communities, from Brazil to Nepal and the African continent, their work helps make women’s work visible.

In Brazil’s Seara region, Inês Gasparin Müller and Claudette Finger were shocked to see their traditional raw-milk cheese thrown away at a regional contest. The problem? It’s considered illegal. Seara’s artisanal cheesemakers are now getting support to claim their right to a long culinary tradition.

Nepali women making a living sorting through landfill waste in Kathmandu get less pay and no recognition for their work. Maya Tamang is treasurer of a cooperative where waste pickers are joining forces to demand acceptance by their government.

Women have little power when it comes to land in rural Kenya. But Beatrice Yamumu, a farmer on a dairy smallholding, begins to see signs of change when a research project helps the community see the value of women’s farmwork.

In West Africa, yam is a staple. But it saps the earth of nutrients, leaving the land too depleted to secure the region’s food supply. Scientists Beatrice Aighew and Chinwe Ifejika Speranza are leading on research to keep soils fertile and grow yam sustainably.

Credits

A FILM BY

Anita Makri & Minos Papas

VIDEOGRAPHY

Adriana Bessa, Sara Baga, Yash Man Karmacharya, CIUD James Mwerea, Damitha Samarakoon, Stephanie Jacquet, Hai Ngyuen, Santiphap Meunmany, Julian Greenwood, Andrea Leuenberger

ASSISTANT EDITORS

Liz Sargent, Hiran Balasuriya & Mike Charalambous

VOICE OVER BY

Shobha Srinivasan / The Voice Realm

MUSIC BY 

Tao Zervas

DIALOG MIX 

Ben Wong

TRANSLATION

Boubacar Aribot, Rodrigo de Oliveira Andrade, Marianna Limas, Davina Leonard, Joyce Chimbi, Smriti Jha / KTM Films Private LTD, Ayushma Regmi

STOCK MEDIA PROVIDED BY 

Aptypkok/Yura Fresh/Pond5

Based on the r4D Digital Storytellers Project, produced by Paititi Lab, Sonja Schenkel, and the Food Systems Caravan Project

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