by Kimberly N. Chase
- USA -

• Steam rises from a fumarole at The Geysers, the
30-square-mile steam field about 70 miles north of San Francisco. Photograph by Kimberly N. Chase. •

These well-hidden hot springs offer an excellent way to comprehend the massive strength of the energy that lies just below the Earth’s surface. Located on the Pacific’s Ring of Fire and over the fault between the Pacific and North American tectonic plates, here the Earth’s latent heat bubbles up from beneath California’s earthly crust - a perfect place for a power plant.

by Jessica Mosby
- USA -

Rebel was the theme of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. The message was everywhere: On screen before every film; on the front cover of the film schedule, which read “This Is Your Guide to Cinematic Rebellion”; and in the originality and creativity of almost every film selected by Sundance Institute President and Founder Robert Redford and Festival Director John Cooper for this year’s festival. Rebellion meant great films, particularly documentaries.

In addition to established competitive categories (U.S. Documentary, U.S. Dramatic Competition, World Cinema Documentary Competition, World Cinema Dramatic Competition, and Shorts) and non-competitive categories (Premieres, Spotlight, New Frontier, and Park City at Midnight), there was a new category for low-budget independent films appropriately titled Next. In every category, there were films whose themes seem particularly relevant for our time – films about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the recession and resulting unemployment, political revolutions, the search for environmental alternatives, and the incredible resilience of people when faced with extreme adversity.

by Priyanka Bhardwaj
- India -

Education remains an emotional subject in a poor and developing country like India, where it is seen as the primary means for social and economic mobility. Indian families are known to sell land and spend their life’s savings to educate their children, especially males. Such desperation means that any change in the sector is a highly debated subject.

by Rachel Meyer
- USA -

As I sit and write this, a young man sits in County Jail awaiting his sentence. Three years ago he was involved in a fight while in juvenile hall for drug related charges. This fight made him eligible for Division of Juvenile Justice, formerly known as California Youth Authority (I prefer to call it Gladiator School). However, it‘s not the fight that will likely send him to DJJ - it’s the two drug tests he failed in a row.

My client is a drug addict; he has not committed another violent offense. Since his time with me, he has enrolled in adult school, has set his sights on college, and has survived circumstances that would make most of us lie down in the fetal position and give up. And yet this young man can still be sent to prison or spend extended time in County Jail for smoking marijuana. Since the beginning of my employment in the California Juvenile Justice System as a Social Worker, I’ve come to accept that most of the adolescents I work with are entrenched in a system that trains them to become better prisoners rather than productive citizens. I often find myself asking, “Is this justice?”

by Wazhmah Osman
- Afghanistan -

While reports of systemic corruption and fraud are just beginning to surface in the international press as Western governments are becoming aware of it, this is old news to local Afghans. They know that every interaction with the government - even applying for an Afghan identity card or trying to access documents at the national archives and libraries as I have - requires navigating a dense labyrinth of bureaucracy which fosters nothing but bribery and corruption.

by Mandy Van Deven
- India -

Anyone who has ever sat through the frequent and painstakingly choreographed musical numbers in a Bollywood film can tell you that dance is an integral part of Indian culture. From Bhangra in the Punjab province to Kathakali in Kerala, each part of the country has its own distinctive combination of body movement, facial expressions, and hand positions which form the regional style. But nowadays in urban India, dance is not simply used as a form of cultural expression. Women of means are being seduced by a type of dance that is a little more, shall we say, exotic.

by Michelle Chen
- USA -

A typical suburban supermarket aisle today will feature free-range turkeys and grass-fed steak glistening in shrink wrap—a sign, perhaps, that Americans are growing more conscious of the connection between tonight's dinner and the environment. But while organics and natural products are trendier than ever, old habits loom large over the American appetite: despite evidence that carnivorous diets drive ecological destruction, milk, eggs and meat remain staples of the Western diet.

Still, while most Americans are not about to swear off cheeseburgers, concerns about climate change and environmental sustainability are raising public consciousness about the treatment of farm animals and the ethics of food production.

by Jessica Mosby
- USA -

Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. is living the dream. After discovering his love of letterpress, Kennedy left his comfortable corporate job and devoted his life to his art. Today the self-described “humble negro printer” lives in rural Alabama and sells his socially relevant and politically charged letterpress posters for $15 each.

by Moira Birss
- Colombia -

“I would be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid,” Jorge tells me. “Your right to freedom disappears - you have to limit your movements and activities.”

I would be afraid, too; Jorge and I sit talking after I have spent a good ten minutes trying to convince his bodyguard to let me see him. But I don’t mind the hoops I had to jump through - I actually would have been happy to undergo a bit more security, perhaps a metal detector or something more intimidating. After all, in a country like Colombia, where human rights defenders are targeted by both the judicial system and paramilitary actors, Jorge Molano is a walking target.

by Wazhmah Osman
- Afghanistan/USA -

I was born in Kabul, Afghanistan during the good years, in the early seventies. Among my fondest memories is walking to and from school holding the hand of my stylish mother who was then a French teacher at Lycee Malalai where I was in the first grade. I remember a lively city where men and women, Afghans and non-Afghans, wearing a variety of ethnic and western outfits, all mingled at the busy outdoor bazaars. On Christmas Eve 1979, the world as I knew it was shattered when the Soviets invaded, throwing Afghanistan into a war that has yet to end. It was one of the saddest and darkest days in Afghan history and for my family.

by Katharine Daniels
Executive Editor, The WIP
- USA -

For me and my colleagues, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s new book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide is exhilarating. Already in its 17th printing, Half the Sky pulls no punches in detailing the major abuses women suffer worldwide. Through personal stories, told by the women living them, sex trafficking, forced prostitution, honor killings, mass rape, and maternal mortality become shockingly real. Critics believe Half the Sky will ignite the global women’s movement as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring did the environmental movement in the 1960s. So do I. This remarkable book moves the conversation from women’s issues to human rights; shows change is possible one woman at a time; and, most importantly, inspires hope.

by Sarah McGowan
Features & Photo Editor, The WIP

I was called a prostitute, I was called a thief…I was called all sorts of names, but none of the newspapers came to call me defender of children’s rights. Very ironic in a country when 10 girls are being raped per day. – Betty Makoni

For this final post of 2009, The WIP editors would like to share a podcast from our December 3rd event, co-hosted with Amnesty International’s Ginetta Sagan Fund. This very special screening of the powerful new film Tapestries of Hope was followed by a conversation with Zimbabwean human rights activist Betty Makoni and Tapestries filmmaker Michealene Cristini Risley.

by Kimberly N. Chase
- USA -

Once one of the world’s most notorious prisons, Alcatraz is now home to a new type of visitor – nesting seabirds.

On a bright May morning this year, the sun cast bold shadows on the run-down beige buildings that tower over the dock area and make up the prison complex. A cement path leads up above the shoreline, where small waves lap softly against a steep incline covered with vegetation.

by Brittany Shoot
- Denmark -

Copenhagen is an odd mix of frustrating inertia and vigilant protest as week two of the COP15 UN climate conference at the city’s Bella Center continues in tandem with Klimaforum09, the people’s summit, and the Climate Bottom meetings — the second set of alternative meetings in the hippie outpost of Christiania. The reports out of the Bella Center are consistently underwhelming as G77 countries and smaller island nations have felt ignored. Many were also insulted by documents leaked from Danish authorities earlier this week stating intentions by a powerful bloc including the UK, United States, and Denmark to lock out any agenda from the Global South. Recently, the Obama adminstration drew ire for making dismissive statements about the importance of the Kyoto Protocol, its relevance to the current discussions, and the United States’ intention to work cooperatively with other countries in an effort to retain Western power. This, in combination with rising hostilities, has further aggravated an already tense mood in the city.

by Vera von Kreutzbruck
– Germany -

They were East Germany’s dream couple in the eighties. But shortly after the fall of the Wall, which divided East and West Germany from 1961 until 1989, a scandal would taint the image of actors Jenny Gröllman and Ulrich Mühe.

When East Germany’s state security service’s surveillance files were declassified in 1991, Mühe discovered that his ex-wife had been spying on him and reporting to a secret police officer about his activities during the regime in communist East Germany. Gröllman vehemently denied this accusation until her death from cancer in 2006. That same year, in an ironic twist of fate, Mühe played a secret service agent who monitors a dissident playwright in the Oscar-winning film The Lives of Others. One year later, in the summer of 2007, he also died of the same disease.

by Abigail Wendle
- USA -

According to the Zimbabwe Rape Survivors Association, during last year’s highly contested presidential election an estimated 2,000 women and girls were the targets of politically-motivated sexual violence in Zimbabwe. State-sanctioned groups under President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party, ZANU PF, beat and raped women for participating in the opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and though men were also beaten, women were specifically targeted because they were easier to physically dominate. The violence, which occurred before international election observers arrived in Zimbabwe, was used to intimidate voters opposed to Mugabe’s re-election. According to Marwick Khumalo, head of the Pan-African Parliament, voter turn-out for the 2008 run-off was subsequently “very, very low.”

by Aditi Bhaduri
- India -

As US President Barack Obama commits a troops increase in Afghanistan and a recognition of the “good Taliban,” and as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paves the way for India’s nuclear energy program, many here anticipate that the US might pressure India to keep its traditional ally in the region, Pakistan, in good humor. Add to that the contentious territorial dispute over Kashmir and the announcement by the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) that it would soon appoint an envoy on the territory, the US’ considerable diplomatic influence could put India in a difficult position.

by Miaad A. Hassan
- USA -

For a long time she resisted, but four years ago Amal started to wear the hijab - her bright and shining youth draped in black. She is a 25-year-old Iraqi woman, and she is sad. Amal remembers when her life was freer, happier, and easier, when she didn’t need to cover her hair whenever she sought to step outdoors.

Amal was once my neighbor in Iraq. My childhood friend is depressed, but she is not the only one since most of her sisters - the women of Iraq - have been forced to wear the hijab and more. Cajoled, shamed and threatened, the women of Iraq have been draped in black. Iraqi men have seen to that.

by Jessica Mosby
- USA -

The most striking element of the new documentary Tapestries of Hope is not the hell that the young rape survivors profiled have lived through, but their unbreakable spirit. The film is a vibrant international call to action and a breathtaking portrait of hope in the face of overwhelming odds.

by Delphine Zulu
- Zambia -

One of the key challenges facing Zambian female journalists is sexual harassment. “There are very few female Zambian journalists who have not experienced sexual harassment at the hands of male counterparts, [but] few [cases] have been reported,” says Pauline Banda, former Gender Editor at Zambia Daily Mail - one of the country’s biggest papers. She says the resulting frustration forces many female journalists to remain in lower positions or abandon the industry altogether.

by Brittany Shoot
- Denmark -

Copenhagen has been buzzing with activity the last two months. After the Olympics committee met here in October with a slough of American cameos from Oprah and the Obamas, the city quickly switched gears to prepare for the upcoming climate conference. Despite its importance, for much of the rest of the world, the upcoming meeting of world leaders is barely a blip on the radar. Only when major media outlets like CNN and The Guardian pull in does the rest of the world realize what the UNFCCC Copenhagen meetings in December could mean.

by Mandy Van Deven
- India -

Known for its bawdy sexual humor, over-the-top characters, and underlying social criticism, Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales set the stage for the satirical theatrics which came to be known as burlesque. During its 700-year metamorphosis, burlesque has utilized various styles of music and performance to poke fun at issues spanning social and political themes, particularly conventional gender roles and sexual scripts. Combining the fundamentals of classical burlesque—parody, double entendre, and risqué sexuality—with elements derived from their own ethnic traditions, New York City’s Brown Girls Burlesque (BGB) is a 21st century incarnation of Chaucer’s magnum opus. Founded two years ago by AuroraBoobRealis, BGB is drawing a new audience to this old art form by blending women of color’s experience and artistic aesthetic with this historically Caucasian craft.

by Dr. Emel Baştürk Akca
- Turkey -

“We mothers, whose hearts are burning, have come together so that there will be no more pain. We do not want our children to die.” These words belong to Nurten Ekinci, a woman who lost her son during his military service. Another woman, Sakine Arat, lost three children after they joined the pro-Kurdish terrorist organization, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). "This war does not benefit anyone,” she says. “It has lasted for years, and it needs to end."

Nurten and Sakine are only two women among many who are aggrieved because of the conflicts between the Turkish Armed Forces and the PKK. They came together on September 1st at a meeting with other military and PKK mothers in the Southeastern province of Diyarbakır to promote peace and support the government’s new Kurdish initiative.

by Jessica Mosby
- USA -

Post-war London is at its most enchanting in director Lone Scherfig’s new film, An Education. Nick Hornby’s clever screenplay, Scherfig’s apt direction and a talented star-studded cast that includes Emma Thompson, Alfred Molina, Peter Sarsgaard, Dominic Cooper, Olivia Williams, and Sally Hawkins make the 95-minute feature one of the best films of 2009.

by Priyanka Bhardwaj
- India -

At the insistence of the United States, India has been granted global “nuclear exception” status despite being a non-signatory on nuclear non-proliferation treaties, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The Indo-US civilian nuclear deal (signed in October of last year), consensus at the Nuclear Supplier’s Group and clearance by the global nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), means that India can now access dual-use nuclear technology to generate electricity.