This week on Full Frame: Empowered voices for women

Full Frame

Around the world, women often face gender inequality, oppression, even violence when it comes to their freedom and their rights.

This week on Full Frame, we meet those who are determined to defy the odds and speak up for and in defense of women, worldwide.

Denise Dunning: Investing in girls

Denise Dunning

Denise Dunning talks about the creation of Rise Up, a group aimed at transforming the lives of girls, youth, and women around the globe.

At the 2014 World Economic Forum, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that girls are the key to ending global poverty. No one could agree with that more than Denise Dunning.

At the age of 12, while visiting her mother’s native Argentina, she saw an impoverished young girl, not much older than herself, begging with a baby and a toddler in tow. This early experience stayed with her and was the impetus behind creating Rise Up. Through its various programs, the lives of more than 115 million girls, youth and women have been transformed, around the globe.

Denise Dunning knows, firsthand, that investing in girls’ leadership and empowerment leads them to change their communities, their countries and perhaps even the world.

From San Francisco, she joins Mike Walter in our New York studio.

Crossroads: Ugandan women share their stories

Lydia Namubiru and Christopher Conte

Ugandan writer Lydia Namubiru and journalist Christopher Conte talk about creating a book featuring stories of Ugandan women.

Knight International Journalism fellow and former Wall Street Journal reporter Christopher Conte considers Uganda his second home. He lived there for three years and soon after his arrival, he met a Kampala-based newspaper reporter, Lydia Namubiru. She shared with him interesting and insightful stories about her life. As time went on, their conversations became a running dialogue, so much so that the pair decided to collect stories from other Ugandan women and publish them. The collection ultimately became a book: Crossroads: Women Coming of Age in Today’s Uganda.

It’s meant to shine a light on real women in the real Africa, avoiding age-old stereotypes of helplessness and the need for Africa or its people to be rescued by the so-called “developed” world. Told in a straightforward journalistic way, these stories help illustrate the vast and varied lives of Ugandan women who are trying to understand their own social roles and personal identities.

Christopher Conte and Ugandan journalist and writer Lydia Namubiru join Mike Water in our New York studio.

Girl Effect: Ending the poverty cycle

Kanwal Ahluwalia

Kanwal Ahluwalia of Girl Effect talks about empowering girls to end the cycle of poverty.

Could adolescent girls be the key to ending the cycle of poverty passed on from generation to generation? The Girl Effect movement believes the answer is yes!

Launched at the 2009 World Economic Summit, Girl Effect, and its partners, challenged the world to see girls not as part of the global poverty problem, but as co-creators of solutions. It wants to develop a new kind of brand for girls.

Kanwal Ahluwalia oversees Girl Effect’s Impact Team which brings together insights from adolescent girls to make this new branding a possibility.

From London, she joins Mike Walter in our New York studio.

Lola the Illustrator: One girl leaving a big mark

Lola Glass

Eight-year-old Lola Glass is changing the street-mural art scene one mark at a time.

Wielding a spray can is second nature to street artist Lola Glass – known to her fans as “Lola the Illustrator”.

She’s created three larger-than-life murals and has earned two invitations to the Bushwick Collective Block Party. It’s an annual event that draws street artists from around the world.

And while Lola is one of only a few females practicing this art form in a male-dominated scene, what sets her apart is her age: Lola is eight.

Full Frame caught up with this young artist in New York City to learn how this little girl is making a name for herself and gaining respect.