Yesterday was bittersweet. The same night Good Fortune won an Emmy we heard that Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai passed away. We had interviewed Dr. Maathai for Strides in Development, our supplementary short video series looking at positive alternatives to foreign aid. Watch the video here.


And read more about Wangari Maathai here.

Missed Good Fortune on PBS NewsHour? Watch it online! The 8-minute segment is now available on both the PBS NewsHour and The Economist Film Project websites.

Good Fortune was nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy award this morning in the category of Outstanding Business & Economic reporting. It joins six other POV films to be nominated this year. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Tune in to PBS NewsHour TONIGHT for an 8-minute clip from award-winning documentary Good Fortune. The film will be presented as part of The Economist Film Project, a new initiative to bring to life the pages of The Economist through the powerful medium of documentary film. Good Fortune was selected from 1,000 submissions for its unique perspective on international aid.

Tonight’s clip will feature the story of Silva, a midwife whose home and business in Nairobi, Kenya are being demolished as part of a United Nations slum-upgrading project. Tune in to PBS NewsHour tonight at 7 p.m. EST, or click here for your local TV listings: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/airdates.htm

“The type of aid which will help Africa is the type of aid which will empower Africans so that they themselves instigate reform from within.” —George Ayittey, Ghanaian economist, author, and founder of the Free Africa Foundation in Washington D.C.

Watch the latest installment of “Strides in Development” to learn more:

Good Fortune has been named as one of four films selected to debut the Economist Film Project, a new initiative launched through a partnership between The Economist Magazine and PBS Newshour.

Since we announced The Economist Film Project in December, we have had more than 600 submissions of documentaries that tell riveting stories set in all parts of the globe,”  “These four films stood out for embodying the spirit of the Project, presenting unusual perspectives on complex issues and enhancing our understanding of the world, said Gideon Lichfield, Editorial Director of The Economist Film Project.

In the coming months a short excerpt from Good Fortune will air on PBS Newshour. Stay tuned for the air date!

http://blogs.indiewire.com/sydneylevine/archives/the_economist_film_project_and_pbs_newshour_announce_documentary_series/

Good Fortune was recently awarded the Overseas Press Club’s Carl Spielvogel Award for “best international reporting in the broadcast media showing concern for the human condition.”

The Overseas Press Club of America has been serving the interests of international journalists since 1939. Each year they recognize outstanding journalistic work with the OPC Awards. Here’s what they had to say about Good Fortune:

“Good Fortune is an insightful look at the everyday life of average people in Kenya, presented against the backdrop of globalization and western notions of progress. It is compelling, breathtaking, moving, and it challenges conventional wisdom about what people in poor countries need from the world outside their own. It allows one woman to be representative of a culture, and treats her eloquent criticism of the failures of international aid in Africa with the kind of respect normally reserved for the suppliers of that aid.”

http://opcofamerica.org/awards/carl-spielvogel-award-2010

Join us today in New Haven, CT, for the Unite for Sight Global Health and Innovation Conference.  

The Global Health & Innovation Conference annually convenes more than 2,200 participants from all 50 states and more than 55 countries. The conference participants represent a great range of diversity, including students, nurses, doctors, policy-makers, nonprofit directors and volunteers, public health professionals, health educators, community health workers, researchers, social scientists, social workers, social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, teachers, lawyers, and business executives. The goal of the conference is to exchange ideas and best practices across disciplines in order to improve public health and international development. Participants are encouraged to attend presentations in fields that may be outside of their existing expertise so that they can learn about successful strategies in other fields and apply those ideas to their own work.

Following today’s screening of Good Fortune, filmmaker Jeremy Levine will present a talk on The Ethics of Development and lead a discussion session among an audience of development studies students and esteemed professionals.

Please visit http://www.uniteforsight.org/conference/ to learn more.

Every Educational DVD package we send comes with a small request: “We’d love to know how you heard of our film, if you feel like dropping a note.” We’re proud to post this one sent from Wisconsin’s Eau Claire Area School District:

Several months ago I watched Good Fortune on Wisconsin Public Television.  Our school district is working to identify, discuss, and develop cultural competence strategies to increase the academic achievement of all of our students, especially students of color.  Part of this effort is a concentrated examination of the role and presence of “whiteness.”  Cultural conditioning, socio-political group dominance, and systemic racism are integral to this process.  Our staff is primarily white, with too many not understanding the reality of multiple-perspective and multiple-experience.   

Two years ago I shared the following Chinese fable with our district staff:  

“Once upon a time a monkey and a fish were caught up in a great flood.  The monkey, agile and experienced, had the good fortune to scramble up a tree to safety.  As he looked down into the raging waters, he saw a fish struggling against the swift current.  Filled with a humanitarian desire to help his less fortunate fellow, he reached down and scooped the fish from the water.  To the monkey’s surprise, the fish was not grateful for this aid.”  

And then I watched, and watched again, your documentary.  Interestingly enough entitled “Good Fortune.”   

Thank you for sending the discussion and educator guides.  Your work will be used to further our cause.   

Tim Leibham

Executive Director of Administration

Eau Claire Area School District