Afghanistan is one of the few countries in the world where women are not allowed to ride bicycles. How did Shannon Galpin become the first to do it? Watch as she mountain bikes across the Panjshir Valley, a mountainous region in northeastern Afghanistan.
Somewhere between City of God and Blue Crush, Otelo Burning is a coming of age story in South Africa set against the backdrop of Nelson Mandela's release from prison. It's an emotional story of kids in the township learning to surf. It's a story of the explosive potential for change at the time of apartheid's end.
In this Video Volunteers film, the IndiaUnheard correspondent, Varsha Jawalgekar, exposes the acid attack on Chanchal Paswan, 19, and her sister, 15, while they were asleep on their terrace. The attack was a result of their opposition to previous sexual harassment by the men. In the West, horrific attacks as such would be covered by major news media. However, in India, Video Volunteers is doing immensely important work getting information about this out and accessible.
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Untouchability in India (prejudice against what are considered the lowest caste, the Dailts), though technically illegal since 1950, still affects 167 million people, or 16% of the population. Members of the lowest rank of Indian society face discrimination at every level, access to education and medical facilities, restrictions on where they can live and what jobs they can have. This trailer for Article 17, the campaign launched by Video Volunteers in 2012, to empower the Dalits to tell their own stories through video, to achieve the goal, in the words of Stalin K, Managing Trustee of Video Volunteers, "the end of the 2000-year-old atrocity of untouchability in all its forms."
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Wilbur is a musician, creator of a new genre called Indo-World Fusion. He is a tireless ambassador for cultural intelligence and has a passion for humanitarian and social justice issues. He loves to make the common extraordinary. Here... the Poverty Song, and his message... "stop the shopping spree, end poverty."
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The Lineage Project has its roots in San Francisco, when Soren Gordhamer and Andrew Getz, took their meditation into the juvenile halls in 1997. The idea hit the east coast when Gordhamer moved to New York City and brought the practice with him, starting the Lineage Project East in 1999. Now, more than a decade later, his weekly hour-long classes have helped hundreds of adolescents control their emotions, relieve stress, and bring awareness to their mental state of mind through yoga and meditation.
A documentary gonzo odyssey into the darkness of a nation held in fear and torn apart by corruption. Beginning in South Africa, a disillusioned photojournalist is employed to document a charity trying to organise the transportation of women’s sanitary aid into Zimbabwe. Frustrated by the complications; packing a million tampons, a camera and a romantic notion of being able to alter this reality, he decides to head off alone and undercover into Zimbabwe hell-bent on trying to document the unseen horrors.
Have you seen the First World Problems video? Well, the developing world gets their chance to retort here in the First World Problems Anthem. It's actually a commercial sponsored by WATERisLIFE.com.
Daredevil outlaws. The Mexican drug war. All night trips on small fishing boats called "pangas" that smuggle migrant workers & marijuana into the United States. This is Baja Smugglers. A new documentary created by Jesse Aizenstat, author of Surfing the Middle East.
Read MoreGIRL RISING—the innovative feature film about the power of education to change a girl —and the world. The film spotlights unforgettable girls like Sokha, an orphan who rises from the dumps of Cambodia to become a star student and an accomplished dancer; Suma, who composes music to help her endure forced servitude in Nepal and today crusades to free others; and Ruksana, an Indian "pavement-dweller" whose father sacrifices his own basic needs for his daughter's dreams. Each girl is paired with a renowned writer from her native country. Edwidge Danticat, Sooni Taraporevala Aminatta Forna and others tell the girls' stories, each in it's style, and all with profound resonance. These girls are each unique, but the obstacles they faced are ubiquitous. Like the 66 million girls around the world who dream of going to school, what Sokha, Suma, Ruksana and the rest want most is to be students: to learn. And now, And now, by sharing their personal journeys, they have become teachers. Watch Girl Rising, and you will see: One girl with courage is a revolution.
Healthcare is neither easily accessible nor affordable for many Tanzanians living in rural villages and poor urban areas. Anika Jeppesen traveled to Arusha, Tanzania to work as a medical volunteer through International Volunteer HQ’s medical placement program. Here is her experience.
In 1996 the Taliban banned photography in Afghanistan. In 2014 as foreign troops pull out, international media will follow and the future of local afghan journalism is unknown. Frame by Frame is a documentary that explores the revolution of local photojournalism in Afghanistan.
In India, China and many other parts of the world today, girls are killed, aborted and abandoned simply because they are girls. The United Nations estimates as many as 200 million girls are missing in the world today because of this so-called gendercide" Add your voice to raise awareness of this and bring It's A Girl film to an area near you.
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In a country where more than half of the younger population was born during the HIV/AIDS epidemic, Ethiopia is in dire need of education for its youth on practicing safe sex. To address this issue, a young dance troupe by the name of Addis Beza are utilizing their talents and passion for music and dance to educate community members about HIV prevention. During their public performances, the 15-20 member crew hands out informational pamphlets about HIV and encourages their spectators to get tested.
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Back in 2009, Taylor Conroy took a trip to Kenya and Uganda in pursuit of a vacation and means of getting himself involved. Little did he know that this decision would cause for him to start a movement; Change Heroes -a friend-funding platform which gives anyone the tools they need to raise $10,000 and build a school, library, or water well anywhere in the developing world. In this video, Taylor talks about that initial, innocent trip, which caused his life, and the lives of thousands of others, to change for the better, forever.
Listen to Daniela Papi in her TEDx talk, she spent six years living in Cambodia and founded her own travel organization, PEPY TOURS, originally "voluntourism" and now shifted to learning travel. She brings to light the flaws in the efforts to do good on the international front, such as in Cambodia where the popularity of orphanage volunteering has led to the phenomenon that 3 out of 4 Cambodian "orphans" have 1 or more live parents. Here's her story.
It has been close to 20 years since South Africa abolished its oppressive regime of apartheid. With this came a new constitution and a promise to provide all citizens living in squatter towns, and townships with adequate housing and equal rights. Unfortunately, in the eyes of many South Africans, this promise has not yet been fulfilled. This award-winnng documentary depicts the story of the first post-apartheid generation and their struggle towards attaining what they were promised two decades ago.
This past summer, The Millennial Trains Project (MTP) embarked on its inaugural cross-country journey - visiting six cities in ten days; traveling by train the entire way. With a mission to awaken the entrepreneurial amongst a group of 25 crowdfunded Millennials, the trip exposed them to the uncharted territories of America; showing the promise, and room for growth the country has. This video - narrated by Keith Bellows, Editor-in-Chief of National Geograhpic Traveler and MTP on-train mentor shares his insights on the Millennial Generation, travel, and the need for all of us to fight complacency in order to break the status-quo.
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We have all heard about the more than 1 billion people that live on less than $1/day. But could you do it? Four friends set out to do so for 56 days in Guatemala and this film, Living on One Dollar, is the result. "Living on One Dollar is a must-watch film that provides a unique look into the hardship and hope of life in extreme poverty." — Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Laureate.
The film, The Expedition to the End of World, is a snapshot of the participating artists and scientists or their projects on the schooner Activ in northeast Greenland. A snapshot representing the filmmakers’ use of this unusual opportunity, the film explores what life is like in the arctic Greenland. Artists and activists were involved in the film. No obligations or performance contracts, the film shows just pure exploration of the worlds of nature, science and art.