INDIA LAUNCH OF 'WHY WOMEN COUNT'

INDIA LAUNCH OF ‘WHY WOMEN COUNT’

Tuesday March 18, 2008: The most ambitious TV series yet on the lives of women around the world will be launched today in India before an audience of over 200 invited guests in New Delhi.

DFID India, the UK Department for International Development, together with TVE South Asia, will host the India launch of Why Women Count, the powerful new series from The Broadcasting for Change Network, at the British Council/British High Commission Auditorium.  This follows other launch events around the world – including in London, hosted by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office with Human Rights Watch and Al Jazeera English, and in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, with support from UNDP Caribbean, in November 2007.

Fiona Lappin, Deputy Head, DFID India, Jenny Richards, Deputy Director, TVE, and Poojita Chowdhury, Producer, will introduce the evening, followed by a screening of seven of the Why Women Count films from Lebanon, Pakistan, Kosovo, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Bolivia and India.

After the screening, addresses will be given by Manjula Krishnan, Economic Advisor, Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India; Ena Singh, Assistant Representative UNFPA, India; Rukmini Rao, TVE Trustee and finally the Chief Guest, Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar, Honourable Union Minister for Panchayati Raj and Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports.  

Why Women Count is the groundbreaking new series of 41 short films, made in 41 countries by the global Broadcasting for Change Network - a unique group of international broadcasters and producers founded by TVE in 1995, and committed to producing and airing programmes on women's rights and equality worldwide.

Fiona Lappin, Deputy Head, DFID India says: "there is a strong link between women's empowerment and progress against other development targets. Empowering women brings many positive, knock-on effects including better child health and economic growth. Mothers who have been to school are more likely to have children who survive and are healthy, and women who are educated are more able to claim their rights and contribute to development. We are happy to host the launch of the film series Why Women Count in India. We are sure that these stories from different parts of the globe will bring hope and inspiration for the fight against gender inequality."

Highlights of the films to be screened include Mai Masri’s profile of journalist Fadia Bazzeh’s report on the bombing of Lebanon in July 2006, awarded an honorary mention in the prestigious IAWRT awards in September, Nepalese champion Lily Thapa’s campaign to overturn stigmatization and discrimination against widows in Nepal, and Poojita Chowdhury’s story on women sarpanches, Panchayat leaders, entitled ‘Queens of the Grassroots’, which will be the focus of the Chief Guest’s address.

Broadcasts of the Why Women Count films worldwide are already taking place in countries across the world and new launch events and debates are planned over the next few months.

“We are delighted to have the opportunity to preview the series for an Indian audience,” says TVE’s Regional Coordinator for South Asia, Chris Miller. “We hope the event will feed into the ongoing debate about why empowering women is so central to international development and lead to having the films versioned in the languages of India and broadcast widely to audiences throughout the country.”

The Why Women Count series is available on DVCam, VHS and DVD compilation tapes from TVE for non-broadcast use.

For more information about the launch and series, or to order DVDs or other tapes, please contact Anshul Ojha, tel +91 935 097 6737.

Or visit the website www.tve.org/whywomencount

Why Women Count was made possible with the generous help of: The Sigrid Rausing Trust, the Global Opportunities Fund - FCO, Al Jazeera English, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), UNIFEM, the British Council, and Ascent Media.

Notes to editors:

TVE (Television for the Environment) is an independent, non-profit organisation, founded in 1984 – with the support of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), WWF and Central Television (now ITV) in the UK – to raise awareness and trigger informed debate about development, environment, health and human rights issues worldwide through television and other electronic media.  

TVE produces, co-produces and distributes a wide range of programmes for broadcast and non-broadcast, educational and campaigning use. In 2006-7 TVE programmes were transmitted in 170 countries, reaching more than 280 million homes, and versioned into 23 languages.

TVE programmes are broadcast on global channels such as BBC World and Al Jazeera English. They are then distributed, for regional, national and local broadcast as well as non-broadcast educational outreach, via TVE’s 49 partners in Africa, Asia & the Pacific, and Latin America & the Caribbean and through TVE’s distribution unit in London.  TVE’s nine partners in South Asia are: the Community Development Library (CDL), Bangladesh; Development Alternatives (DA), India; the Centre for Science & Environment (CSE), India; the Centre for Environment Education (CEE), India; Earth Matters Foundation/Riverbank Studios, India; Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ), Nepal; Serendip Productions, Pakistan; TrustHELP, India, and WWF-Pakistan.  

TVE now has a new, Regional Coordinating office in Delhi (hosted by Development Alternatives) working with all our South Asian Partners, which will enable us to increase the number of high profile launch events, discussions, broadcasts and non-broadcast distribution of programmes in the region.  We are actively identifying various corporate sponsors, local foundations, international donors, and other partners to work with in developing new projects for wider use and distribution of existing films, to be used in their work and to reach the widest possible audiences, and for production of new films in collaboration with new partners.  

The Why Women Count series was produced by broadcasters from the following countries: Afghanistan, Austria, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Brazil, China, Cuba, Czech Republic, Fiji, France, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mexico, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe.

Core funders of TVE’s South Asia activities are Christian Aid and corporate sponsor InterfaceFLOR, through its recently launched project, “Fairworks” http://www.interfaceflor.eu/internet/web.nsf/webpages/why_fairworks_EN.html.  TVE’s institutional host for the South Asia office is Development Alternatives.