Half The Sky

Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women World Wide Multimedia Initiative

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the FHI 360-managed Communication for Change (C-Change) project has supported the development of 18 short educational and advocacy videos aimed at increasing global awareness and bringing about social change for critical health and gender equality and empowerment topics.

The videos were developed as part of Half the Sky Movement: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, a multi-donor, multimedia initiative inspired by and in collaboration with Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, authors of the best-selling book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. The centerpiece of the multimedia initiative is a four-hour PBS television series, which will be premiered on October 1^st and 2^nd.

The 18 Half the Sky Movement videos produced by Show of Force were filmed in India, Kenya, Somaliland, and Liberia for use by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), governments, and other groups that advocate for and work to bring about community-level change on issues such as family planning/reproductive health, maternal and child health, girl’s education, sex trafficking, women’s economic empowerment, and domestic violence. The videos were filmed in partnership with a cadre of NGOs working in health and development, including CEDPA, Deworm the World, CARE, IRC, SEWA, Girl Child Network, Pathfinder, and others that will engage these products in their existing programming. Videos without English subtitles and in additional formats can be found at http://www.halftheskymovement.org/ngotools.

Through C-Change, USAID has also supported the development of three mobile phone games on health and gender equity, developed by Show of Force partner, Games for Change, which will be launched in the early fall for use in East Africa and India.