Kristof and WuDunn’s ‘Half the Sky’ to be televised

Natalie Calkin
WVoN co-editor 

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s book ‘Half the Sky’ will be aired as a four-part television series on the US’ Public Broadcasting Station in October.

Half the Sky, written by Kristof and WuDunn in 2009, highlights the challenges women face around the world – and provides inspirational stories on how women are addressing these challenges.

The book achieved international acclaim, with over 300,000 copies sold in the US alone.

Now, Kristof and WuDunn are working with PBS to take the message of the book to audiences in the US and across the globe.

A recently released trailer taps into the power of political and celebrity advocates to promote the “Half the Sky” movement.

American actresses Olivia Wilde, Eva Mendes and America Ferrera are featured in the documentary and accompany Kristof as they seek testimonies from women in Cambodia, Kenya, India, Sierra Leone, Somaliland, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Liberia and the US.

All these women face varying challenges in their everyday lives and are held together by the aspiration for a better, more equal world.

Rebecca Lolosoli from Kenya, one of the women featured in the trailer, is a community activist in Kenya and established the “Umoja Women’s Village,” which unites and supports women who are survivors of violence, torture and rape.

Along with providing each other moral support, women in the village have been able to establish new forms of livelihoods by making money from selling beadwork and opening the village to tourists.

In the trailer, Lolosoli aptly describes what she strives for:

“We want to choose our husbands. We want to own the land. We want to go to school….and make decisions.  We want to be able to participate in politics, to be leaders. We want to be equal.”

Co-author WuDunn knows that the goal of achieving women’s equality is not an easy one but she feels it is “the moral challenge of the century,” according to the trailer.

Women make up half the world’s population – hence the metaphor and title of the book “Half the Sky” – and so a woman’s struggle is an issue for all of humanity.

The television series will continue the fight for a woman’s equal role in society, and the metaphor that this must be achieved to ensure that women really do “hold up their half of the sky.”

Half the Sky will air October 1 on PBS and internationally in 2013.