Girl Rising

Last week I attended a premiere at my university for the film Girl Rising, a narrative infused documentary that tells the inspirational stories of nine girls and how they have battled living as females in developing countries. The girl's stories were written by celebrated writers from each country, and the stories are narrated by famous actresses including Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Kerry Washington, Cate Blanchett, among a few others. The film was directed by Richard E. Robbins. He places an large emphasis on the importance of education for young girls and how significant going to school is for girls especially those living in developing countries as it helps them stay out of violent and dangerous situations and drastically improves their futures.

I really appreciated all of the data and statistics that the film provided, I learned a lot about how an education can drastically improve a girl's life and just how ridiculous some education systems are in developing countries. The segments of the documentary with the girl's stories feature a combination of performers and the real-life girls. I was disappointed that these segments included actors. I anticipated the film being more documentary like, but instead it felt like many of the stories were staged. Overall though, I thought Girl Rising had a good message and getting to see it was a good way to celebrate the Women in the World Summit, part of the Women in the World Foundation that is dedicated to driving solutions that advance women and girls.

So fit some time into your lives over the next few weeks and attend a showing of Girl Rising, if anything hopefully the nine stories of the girls and their individual battles for education will shock you and make you all the more thankful for your own education...