Archive - May 9, 2013

[I caught this program tonight, Thursday, May 9, 2013, on the PBS News Hour….if you can, catch it. And, read this account. Now here is an RPCV still at work in her host country. She is amazing, and she is making amazing progress.] Changing Minds in Senegal to Protect Girls From Genital Cutting] By: Fred de Sam Lazaro  NewsHour special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro asks Molly Melching about her efforts to educate Senegalese women about the harms of genital cutting. Molly Melching didn’t think she had much more than curiosity — and a love of the French language — when she ventured off soon after college for Senegal. It turns out that this product of a conservative Midwestern Lutheran upbringing may have brought exactly the qualities and experiences needed to help engineer one of the most sweeping shifts in social norms and behavior in history. Her organization, Tostan, has . . .

[This documentary film was shown the other evening at the Asian Film Festival in New York City. The film was done by a good friend, Mirra Bank, and my wife, the Executive Editor of MORE magazine, later interviewed Mirra for the MORE website. I thought that the RPCV Community, especially PCV who served in India, would like to know about the film, and would enjoy reading the interview.] One Woman’s Power of Persistence Award-winning director Mirra Bank heard about the plight of a people halfway around the world and decided she wanted to help-but it took six years. Here, the story of what she did, the film she made (“The Only Real Game”), the obstacles she overcame…and how you can help now by Judith Coyne Devika, a mother in Manipur, India, hopes to support her family by becoming a baseball coach.Photograph: Axel Baumann for Baseball Dreams, LLC More: The film, The Only . . .