World Literacy Foundation andVizrt Group launch internationalpartnership

says Rassool. “I’ve found that people don’t know anything about the justice system until they have to engage with it. And when they do, ineffective service delivery and misinformation often provides secondary trauma to women who are already battling and broken from abuse.”

The Womxn Show, which airs on Fridays at 8am and Tuesdays at 7pm, aims to make court processes and the justice system more transparent so that women are more aware of their rights, the correct procedures that should be followed and are empowered to hold stakeholders accountable when those processes are not followed.

The documentary film Women Hold Up the Sky joins the list of womenfocused features coming to CTV. Subtitled ‘African women rise for climate justice’, the film tells the stories of women affected by coal, oil and megainfrastructure projects in South Africa, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Women Hold Up the Sky explores stories of resistance and communities in active struggle to take back control of their land, their rights, their bodies and their lives.

In South Africa, the women of adjacent communities in KwaZulu-Natal, Somkhele and Fuleni, fight against the encroachments of a coal mine. The mine uses vast water resources to wash coal in preparation for export whilst women walk up to 25 kilometres per day to access drinking water. “Can you see the dust we drink? What are we supposed to do? Imagine what our insides must be like? No good comes from the mine,” says local resident Khiphile Msweli. In Uganda, land-grabbings and forced removal of thousands of people to make way for oil exploration has left communities in despair yet determined to rise up to defend their land and livelihoods. And the Democratic Republic of Congo’s US$80 billion Inga hydropower megadam project has already displaced many people. The Grand Inga, the world’s largest hydropower scheme, promises a power grid across Africa that will fuel the continent’s industrial economic development vision, all at the expense of poor communities.

CTV viewers will get to follow the journeys of these activist women as they fight for voice, build inspiring solidarity and take action in the face of violent repression. Women Hold Up the Sky will air on CTV in April.

The Scars Behind My Make-up is a talk show aiming to raise awareness about women abuse by creating a platform for abuse survivors to voice what they have experienced and conquered to empower other women out there who might be enduring any form of abuse.

“Women both young and old fall victim to abuse and many find themselves hiding their tears, hurt, anger and insecurities. Sometimes such women carry themselves with so much grace and beauty that no one can even tell what they carry beyond how they look, creating a facade in order to blend-in with the those around them while underneath are the cries of a bruised soul,” said the show’s producer.

The aim of the show is to inspire, motivate and encourage women who suffer any form of abuse and are too afraid to open up about the issues they are facing. The series, produced by an NGO called Women Inspired, will help raise awareness not only for victims but also to send a strong warning to perpetrators or potential perpetrators. It advocates for a change of attitude towards women in our societies and communities.

The Scars Behind my Makeup starts airing on Monday, 18 May at 6.30pm, and repeats on Sundays at 9pm.

– Mike Aldridge

“The Womxn Show aims to draw on a large body of NGOs, activists, experts and stakeholders to give a deeper and more accurate view of the systemic issues that both drive genderbased violence and hamper effective prevention and responses to violence against women and children.” – Lenina Rassool

WORLD LITERACY FOUNDATION AND VIZRT GROUP LAUNCH INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIP TO TACKLE ILLITERACY RATES AMONG DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN

The World Literacy Foundation and the Vizrt Group have announced an international charity partnership for 2020 to bring literacy skills to 500,000 highly disadvantaged children who can’t read or write.

The collaborative partnership will allow the World Literacy Foundation to harness the technology and expertise of the Vizrt Group in order to help reach their objective to give children from disadvantaged backgrounds access to books and learning resources. The Vizrt Group has pledged to make a $250,000 donation encompassing technology, resources, expertise and cash.

Petter Ole Jakobsen, founder and chief innovation officer at the Vizrt Group, says, “We believe at the Vizrt Group that storytelling is one of the keys to a better-informed world. By making reading skills a priority for disadvantaged children we can stimulate their curiosity helping them to gain the skills that can change their world.”

In 2020, 770 million people in the world are illiterate and a further 2 billion people struggle to read a single sentence. According to CEO of the World Literacy Foundation (WLF), Andrew Kay, this is an international disgrace and much more needs to be done.

“We must provide every child a chance to learn to read. At the WLF we estimate the social and economic cost of illiteracy is hundreds of billions each year. If a child struggles to read, they often become an adult who struggles with issues related to unemployment, welfare, crime and health. Research tells us every $1 spent on quality literacy development, returns back $7 to the economy.”

Jakobsen states that: “Video is the most effective form of digital communication out there today – and we happen to be experts in it. If we can utilise this expertise to help the WLF reach their goals in 2020 then we will be living and breathing our purpose as an organisation.”

“We hope that the partnership with the Vizrt Group can help us with several projects across the year including our Sun Books initiative. This initiative provides classrooms in Africa a new, innovative solar panel tablet device that will lift the reading skills of children in 1200 remote and significantly under-resourced classrooms, and mainly in places where there is limited internet connection and electricity,” Kay concludes.