Link TV Celebrates the UN's International Day of the Girl Child with Special Programming on Friday, October 11
San Francisco,
Calif.
- Oct. 1, 2013 - Inhonor of International Day of the Girl Child, a UN observance that promotes
girls' rights and highlights gender inequalities, Link TV will air a special
three-hour block of inspiring documentaries and shorts on Friday, October 11
starting at 11 a.m. PST / 2 p.m. EST.
The programming block will repeat at 7 p.m. PST/ 10 p.m. EST.
With poignant themes ranging from education to economic
empowerment, each film, also streaming online, will showcase the trials and triumphs of girls from
around the world.
To commemorate the International Day of the Girl Child,
Link TV will feature the following films that take viewers from rural
Bangladesh to Zambia to war-torn Afghanistan to discover the enduring spirit of
young women.
(11 a.m. PST / 2 p.m. EST)
Filmmakers Frederick Rendina and Oren Rudavsky travel to
Nepal and Uganda, two countries emerging from conflict and struggling with
poverty, to find the answer to one question: What does it take to educate a
girl?
(Noon PST / 3 p.m EST)
Kakenya Ntaiya had a dream: to become a teacher. On the
way to achieving it, she has had to overcome obstacles and make tough
compromises. But, after becoming the first girl from her Maasai village to
attend college, she has opened a path for other young girls achieve their
dreams.
(12:15 p.m. PST / 3:15 p.m. EST)
Winner of the 2009 Academy Award® for Best Documentary
(Short Subject), Smile Pinki tells the uplifting story of two young
children in India born with cleft lips. Thanks to the efforts of Smile Train,
an organization that pays for surgeries to fix clefts, thousands of children
around the world are given a second lease on life every single day.
Shilpi's Story: Proving the Value of Girls in Bangladesh
(12:55 p.m. PST/ 3:55 p.m. EST)
In rural Bangladesh,
sons are considered a blessing, while girls are seen as a burden. They are
often married off young -- ending their education and putting them and their
babies at greater risk of death from complications at birth or during
pregnancy. But what happens when you give girls a voice? Shilpi gained the
confidence to find an alternative -- even though women in her culture are
expected to stay at home. Thanks to support from the Nike Foundation, Save the
Children's Girls' Voices project has given 42,000 girls in Bangladesh a chance
to raise their voices.
(1 p.m. PST / 4 p.m. EST)
Florence, Esnart, Ng'andwe and Precious all come from
backgrounds of extreme poverty in rural Zambia. They've embarked on five months
of intensive training in leadership and enterprise. With courage and
determination, these young women defy the odds and establish their own
successful businesses, proving that anything is possible.
(1:50 p.m. PST / 4:50 p.m. EST)
This documentary film follows Skateistan,
Afghanistan's first co-educational skateboard school and its founders, and
their daily struggle to break down social, gender and ethnic barriers between
the children of a war-torn country. As the foreign skaters quickly discover,
local custom will only allow girls to skate in public up to the age of 12 -
after that there must be no boys or men around. The solution: build something
new that will provide space to hold all-girl skate classes with experienced
female teachers.
About Link TV
Link TV is a viewer-supported
501(c)(3) organization, distributed nationally via satellite on DIRECTV
channel 375 and DISH Network channel 9410 - reaching more than 33 million US
households. Link TV is a service of KCETLink, the
national independent public transmedia organization formed by the merger
between KCET and Link Media. Select Link TV programming also
airs on 220 cable outlets, including in New York, Los Angeles and San
Francisco, reaching an additional 22 million homes. Link also streams
much of its content online at LinkTV.org. For complete background information,
program schedule and Internet streaming, go to LinkTV.org.
Follow on Twitter @linktv, and
on Facebook at www.facebook.com/linktv.
