Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Off screen

Family of Woman Film Festival speakers to discuss real issues

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By JENNIFER LIEBRUM
Express Staff Writer

Allison Shigo will be at the Community Library in Ketchum ahead of the Family of Woman Film Festival to discuss how a film about fistulas changed her life. Courtesy photo

    “Our goal is to make UNFPA as well-known and respected as UNICEF,” said Peggy Goldwyn of the Family of Woman Film Festival, which she founded and co-chairs. “Since the UN neither lobbies nor solicits funds from other nations, we serve as fund-raisers with the American public and also try to educate legislators as to the importance of elevating the status of women worldwide.”
     The annual festival—scheduled for March 7-9 at the Sun Valley Opera House—supports the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which works in more than 150 countries to achieve a world in which every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled. Goldwyn, a Sun Valley resident, has been a longtime supporter of the organization.
    In addition to films, the festival hosts a number of dynamic speakers, a brief synopsis of whom is listed below. For complete, up-to-the-minute details, visit www.familyofwomanfilmfestival.org.

Guest speakers include:

Allison Shigo: Through her travels to Ethiopia working on the Emmy Award-winning documentary “A Walk to Beautiful,” Shigo witnessed firsthand the need for women suffering from obstetric fistula to be reintegrated into their communities to receive education, psychological care, support and the means to be productive. In 2009, Shigo co-founded Healing Hands of Joy and trained Ethiopian fistula survivors to become Safe Motherhood Ambassadors. UNFPA has become a partner in her work and one of her ambassadors was recently invited to speak before the United Nations. See www.healinghandsofjoy.com.

Anzaira Roxas: A nurse-midwife in the Philippines, Roxas is the deputy project coordinator at UNFPA’s partner, the Family Planning Organization of the Philippines. Roxas is active in the Youth Peer Education Network pioneered by UNFPA and, along with her fellow youth advocates, was instrumental in the passage of a national reproductive health law in 2012. In 2013, Friends of UNFPA awarded her their International Award for the Health and Dignity of Women and Girls. After the devastating typhoon in the Philippines, she has been providing health education to young people, lactating mothers and pregnant women. On the Internet, see www.unfpa.org/public/home/news/pid/11560.

Meagan Carnahan Fallone: Responsible for international coordination of the Women’s Barefoot Solar Engineering program, Fallone has been a field presence in more than 26 countries since joining Barefoot College in 2011. Championing women in the developing world, she speaks regularly on the power of women as agents of sustainable change and poverty reduction. See www.barefootcollege.org.

Barbara Morgan: Morgan’s first job in education was teaching remedial reading and math and special education on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana. She went on to teach in Quito, Ecuador, and in the little mountain town of McCall, Idaho, where she was selected by NASA in 1985 as backup to Teacher in Space Christa McAuliffe, and trained with the crew of the space shuttle Challenger. After the Challenger accident, Barbara returned to the classroom and continued working for NASA until she was selected to the astronaut rookie class of 1998. She flew on the space shuttle Endeavor in 2007 to help construct the International Space Station. In 2008, she retired from NASA to become the distinguished educator in residence at Boise State University.

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Meet Emmy winner Allison Shigo
The public is invited to a free event to meet filmmaker Allison Shigo at The Community Library in Ketchum on Tuesday, March 4, at 5:30 p.m. Learn how making her film “A Walk to Beautiful” changed her life.

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