Bearing Our Souls: Our Reel
I’ll never forget when I realized the power of storytelling. I was twelve. I watched The Deep End of the Ocean, a movie about a woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) whose son is kidnapped during her class reunion. Ironically and devastatingly, she realizes when he is a teenager that he has been living a few streets down from her for the past ten years. I remember sobbing, internalizing the weight of her pain- and my three sisters mocking me for being a crybaby. That night I couldn’t sleep. Michelle’s agonizing loss was incomprehensible more »
I am brave and I am not a coward.
From across the courtyard I saw ten or so students huddled around in a circle. Curious, I approached them to get a glimpse of what they were looking at and saw them all gravitating towards the small screen on one of the flip cams that they had been shooting with. It was the end of a phenomenal afternoon of creative activism with the members of the West Africa AIDS Foundation Passion Squad (peer educators)- RAAM worked with half the students on creating t-shirt designs and storybooks while Ethan, Branson and more »
Arriving in Accra, Ghana with Of Rags
All of my nervousness about arriving in Ghana, about taking my turn to be the Other, melted away on the plane. Throughout the course the flight we made friends with the three Ghanaians sitting next to us and their warmth and openness reminded me of all the kindness I had experienced my first time here. After three hours of sleep, we arrived at 7:30am and deliriously attempted to make it through the day (7 hour time difference), while taking in our new surroundings. Raam, the co-founder of Of Rags, greeted more »
Introducing Of Rags Collaboration
I am thrilled to announce our collaboration with Of Rags, a sustainable fashion company co-founded by my good friend Branson Skinner, who is driven by the belief that we need to change the way we think about consumption, so that our purchases work for good and build connections between communities and people. His partner Raam, the head designer for Of Rag, is an artist from Labadi town in Accra, Ghana who was a fashion entrepreneur selling his hand painted shirts before he met Branson. Together, they are building a movement which more »
Poor People’s Freedom Club
Today is the launch of the final video in the Courage in the Heart storytelling series which shows how BRAC is creating cataclysmic change in Bangladesh by empowering women to be aware of their rights and organize to address social issues. Our final story is Selena’s. Her father wanted her to get married when she was 13 but her mother enlisted the support of the BRAC Citizen Action Group. A group of twelve women approached her husband and informed him that if he tried to go through with the marriage, more »
