SOLAR MAMAS

a film by Mona Eldaief and Jehane Noujaim

Welcome to India’s Barefoot College, where rural, poor, and often illiterate women from around the world are offered the rare opportunity to receive an education that teaches them how to make their communities self-reliant and sustainable. Rafea, a beautiful, strong-willed 32-year-old Jordanian mother of four, is traveling outside of her village for the first time ever to attend Barefoot’s solar engineering program. Once there, she will join women from Guatemala, Kenya, Burkina Faso, and Colombia in a life-changing, six-month job training program that will transform her into a solar engineer — and change her life.  

 Guest speaker

Juanita Britton, owner of BZB International and managing director for Africa for Cardinal Resources of Pittsburgh, creator of the Red Bird Solar-Powered Water Purification System.  Juanita delivers the patented Red Bird System, to communities and industrial wastewater treatments facilities. Red Bird is a self-contained, water purification system that is a high-tech solution designed to function in any environment and without any existing infrastructure. Senegal, West Africa is the site of the launch on the African continent with other launch site countries scheduled throughout 2012. 

VIEW "SOLAR MAMAS" TRAILER

ITVS Community Cinema presents several public engagement events as part of Women and Girls Lead, a major public media initiative to support and sustain a growing movement to empower women and girls, their communities, and future generations. Women and Girls Lead is spearheaded by ITVS, the largest provider of independent content to public television. Starting with more than 50 documentary films by the world’s best independent filmmakers—and adding content from media makers and new partners along the way – Women and Girls Lead brings to life extraordinary leaders and citizens on the front lines of economic development, violence prevention, business and governance, education, and health.