The Independent DocuFilm Series, co-hosted by Junktown Cinema Club and UUCGV, is intended to serve as a platform to shed light on topics related to humanitarianism, environmentalism, and social justice, with the idea that by meeting with the film creator/s after the showing, we equip the community with the information and tools to take steps of action inspired by the film.
Past Film Screenings
Women Are the Change
Created by Linda Stout
Friday, March 15, 2024 at 6:00 p.m.
536 Ouray Ave., Grand Junction, CO 81501
Sub-Saharan Africa is poised for sweeping change. Educated women are the agents of this change. They are the mothers of a new Africa. This is the story of African girls and how educating them can change everything.
The women in the film grew up as ordinary girls, struggling with traumas of war, loss of innocence and obstacles of culture. And yet they are now extraordinary women - educated and giving back to their communities.
Join us on a journey to see how educating these girls has changed their fates and has started a new chain pulling others along.
The women in the film grew up as ordinary girls, struggling with traumas of war, loss of innocence and obstacles of culture. And yet they are now extraordinary women - educated and giving back to their communities.
Join us on a journey to see how educating these girls has changed their fates and has started a new chain pulling others along.
How I Came to Make “Women Are the Change”
by Linda Stout
As a girl growing up during the struggle for women’s equality, I worked on the issue in several ways. One was to create a scholarship for a woman in honor of my father, who was a farmer and who attended New Mexico State University as I did. This woman was studying agriculture there. Near the same time, I read the autobiography of Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai. I learned that most of the farming in sub-Saharan Africa is done by women.
I wanted to do something that would have a ripple effect for women in agriculture. Through connections at NMSU, I linked up with an organization in Kenya, which worked to give some young women, who had achieved university education, additional preparation. I had a number of Skype calls with that organization and learned that the information these women needed most was “defusion of innovation,” which is the name given what county extension people do. In other words, they needed to learn how to teach the new techniques and research developed in agriculture universities to the agricultural producers in their area.
With that plan in mind, I decided to create a service learning program for a few women and fund their trip and stay at NMSU for one month. My hope was that this opportunity would inspire confidence and impart knowledge so that they could be leaders and policy makers in government and education. The agriculture college faculty was generous, creating intense mini-courses for them. The women, in turn, made presentations to the agriculture classes and created a project they could implement back at home. I stayed in the dorm with them, chauffeured them, and was in general their mother duck. One of my friends taught them how to have difficult conversations. I taught them leadership and feminine empowerment. After doing this program twice in 2011 and 2012, I decided that to have more ripples in the pond, I would go to Africa and film these women helping women farmers and create a documentary. This documentary could then live on to be shown to girls in many sub-Saharan countries for the purpose of inspiring and role modeling the value of education for girls.
- Linda Stout
I wanted to do something that would have a ripple effect for women in agriculture. Through connections at NMSU, I linked up with an organization in Kenya, which worked to give some young women, who had achieved university education, additional preparation. I had a number of Skype calls with that organization and learned that the information these women needed most was “defusion of innovation,” which is the name given what county extension people do. In other words, they needed to learn how to teach the new techniques and research developed in agriculture universities to the agricultural producers in their area.
With that plan in mind, I decided to create a service learning program for a few women and fund their trip and stay at NMSU for one month. My hope was that this opportunity would inspire confidence and impart knowledge so that they could be leaders and policy makers in government and education. The agriculture college faculty was generous, creating intense mini-courses for them. The women, in turn, made presentations to the agriculture classes and created a project they could implement back at home. I stayed in the dorm with them, chauffeured them, and was in general their mother duck. One of my friends taught them how to have difficult conversations. I taught them leadership and feminine empowerment. After doing this program twice in 2011 and 2012, I decided that to have more ripples in the pond, I would go to Africa and film these women helping women farmers and create a documentary. This documentary could then live on to be shown to girls in many sub-Saharan countries for the purpose of inspiring and role modeling the value of education for girls.
- Linda Stout
*All proceeds from the screening of "Women Are the Change" went to CASA of Mesa County.
CASA of Mesa County provides a voice in court for victims of child abuse and neglect in Mesa County.
Learn more: https://www.casamc.org/
CASA of Mesa County provides a voice in court for victims of child abuse and neglect in Mesa County.
Learn more: https://www.casamc.org/
Junktown Cinema Club
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Junktown Cinema Club is a Grand Valley-based arts organization that is dedicated to using the medium of cinema to build a more compassionate, resilient, and imaginative local community. We program film screenings to facilitate eye-opening encounters between local and global perspectives, and we organize filmmaking workshops to empower local residents to tell their own stories.
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Junktown Cinema Club strives to be a welcoming space for people of all identities & backgrounds. We expect that everyone who participates in our community – from staff to audience members – helps in cultivating an environment of inclusivity, safety, and respect. [read full Values Statement here]