Solar Mamas

Community Cinema ~ Solar Mamas

Thursday, November 29, 2012 - 6:30pm to 7:30pm
  • Library Hall

Bud Werner Memorial Library and Yampa Valley Sustainability Council present a free screening preview of the PBS Independent Lens documentary Solar Mamas, a film by Mona Eldaie and Jehane Noujaim.

Jordanian wife and mother Rafea is leaving home for the first time — to attend a college in India that is training rural women to become solar energy engineers.

Come early for the film or stay late to browse YVSC's interactiveand educational exhibits, including a display of the latest and greatest, itty bitty solar panels for camping.

About the film
Rafea is 30 years old with four children and a husband who is eager to take a third wife. She is a Bedouin woman living in a small Jordanian village close to the desert. With encouragement from the country's Ministry of Environment, she leaves her village for the first time to go to the Barefoot College in India to train to become a solar-energy engineer.

The Barefoot College in India was founded by Bunker Roy to provide knowledge and training to the rural poor to empower them to make their communities self-reliant and sustainable. The solar course at Barefoot College has women from Kenya, Burkina Faso, Columbia, and Guatemala.

And now Rafea from Jordan. She is the first Jordanian woman ever to attend such a program, and she dreams of returning to bring much-needed income and talents to support her family and village.

But two months into the program, Rafea’s husband insists that she return home or he will divorce her and take her children. With no real choice in the matter, Rafea goes back to her village and sets out to persuade her husband and other family members that her studies in India benefit everyone.

In her journey away from home, back, and then away once more, Rafea goes through a profound transformation, returning as an educated woman with the skills to earn an income and achieve for her community what others could not.

RUN TIME: 60 min.

ABOUT COMMUNITY CINEMA
Community Cinema is a groundbreaking public education and civic engagement initiative featuring free monthly screenings of films from the Emmy Award-winning series Independent Lens and other PBS presentations. Community Cinema is on location in more than 95 cities nationally, bringing together leading organizations, community members, and public television stations to learn, discuss, and get involved in key social issues of our time.

ABOUT ITVS
The Independent Television Service funds, presents, and promotes award-winning documentaries and dramas on public television, innovative new media projects on the Web, and the Emmy® Award-winning weekly series Independent Lens on Monday nights at 10:00 PM on PBS. Mandated by Congress in 1988 and funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, ITVS has brought more than one thousand independently produced programs to date to American audiences.  www.itvs.org.

ABOUT YVSC
The mission of the Yampa Valley Sustainability Council (YVSC) is to provide leadership to advance environmental, economic, and social sustainability for current and future generations through education, programs, and building collaboration among individuals, organizations, businesses, and government.

Made possible by a partnership with Rocky Mountain PBS.