Showing posts with label Ford Foundation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ford Foundation. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

12 Visionaries Are Honored by the Ford Foundation


GADO
Syndicated Editorial Cartoonist Nairobi, Kenya


Godfrey Mwampembwa, better known by his pen name GADO, is the most syndicated political cartoonist in Eastern and Central Africa. Through his cartoons and satirical TV series, "The XYZ Show," he has increased awareness of social and political issues, encouraged public participation in discussions about governance and reminded elected officials of their responsibility to the public. With millions of viewers and nearly 120,000 Facebook fans just two years after its debut, "The XYZ Show" has already had an impact both in Kenya and throughout the region.


Ford Foundation Visionaries

“We can’t think of a more fitting way to mark our anniversary than to spotlight the people who continually infuse new energy and ideas into the effort to solve our most pressing social problems.”

— Luis A. UbiƱas, President


4 May 2011 05:01 Africa/Lagos


Twelve Social Change Visionaries Are Honored by the Ford Foundation

PR Newswire

NEW YORK, May 4, 2011

'Visionaries Awards' Mark 75 Years of Support for Courageous Leaders Worldwide

From Technology to Human Rights to Microfinance, Awardees Receive $100,000 to Advance Their Work

NEW YORK, May 4, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In recognition of its 75th anniversary, the Ford Foundation today announced $100,000 awards to 12 social innovators who, through their extraordinary vision and courageous work, are improving the lives of millions of people.

In a period of uncertain transformation in global society, politics and the economy, the Ford Foundation Visionaries Awards seek to raise the profile of leaders whose innovative efforts on the frontlines of key social issues offer pathways to improved economic opportunities and expanded political and social participation for millions of marginalized people worldwide.

"We can't think of a more fitting way to mark our anniversary than to spotlight the people who continually infuse new energy and ideas into the effort to solve our most pressing social problems," said Luis Ubinas, president of the Ford Foundation. "They are thinkers and doers-people who pursue their vision with determination and a laser focus on impact."

The 12 visionaries represent the thousands of brilliant people and organizations the foundation has supported since its founding in 1936. They come from diverse backgrounds and work in a variety of fields-from human rights to technology to education, both in the United States and around the world.

"Through these awards, we want to highlight the unheralded work of thousands of courageous leaders whose lives are devoted to improving systems and institutions so that all people have a voice in the decisions that affect their lives," Ubinas said. "These 12 individuals represent the courage, commitment, and innovative thinking of all the remarkable people who work on the frontlines of social change."

The foundation is using its 75th anniversary to explore the next generation of important issues facing America and the world, as well as highlighting the people and ideas making a difference today.

The awards will help these leaders share their work with a broad range of new audiences, allowing them to promote their ideas and ensure that their insights inform and advance the work of other social innovators.

From an indigenous women's rights leader in Peru to a political cartoonist in Kenya, the visionaries were selected for their pioneering work, exceptional leadership and the potential scale and impact of their visions.

The recipients of the Ford Found a tion Visionaries Awards are:

Enabling Community Ownership over Natural Resources
Alfredo Wagner Berno de Almeida
Coordinator, New Social Cartography Project of the Amazon
Manaus, Brazil

For centuries, traditional peoples have inhabited the forests of the Brazilian Amazon, preserving the forest through their wise stewardship. Despite this history, they have been denied their rights to their lands and livelihoods. In the 1980s, anthropologist Alfredo Wagner Berno de Almeida launched the region's first mapping project challenging official maps by making visible for the first time the claims of traditional communities over the millions of acres of their Amazonian homelands. Wagner's groundbreaking initiative became the model for the New Social Cartography Project of the Amazon, enabling communities to make use of the latest technologies to bolster their rights over their own territories and resources.

Helping Working Families Achieve Economic Security
Ellen Bravo
Executive Director, Family Values @ Work
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Ellen Bravo, a life-long advocate for women, has galvanized the movement to bring low-wage earning women the benefits and opportunities they need to support their families. For nearly 20 years, Bravo ran the influential organization 9 to 5, which has been at the forefront of the fight for pay equity, family leave, fairness for part-time and temp workers, and an end to sexual harassment and punitive welfare laws. Most recently, she founded Family Values @ Work, a network of state coalitions that has already led successful public campaigns to adopt paid family leave policies in California, New Jersey and Washington.

Empowering Women to Forge Their Own Futures
Ela R. Bhatt
Co-founder and CEO, Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA)
Ahmedabad, India

Widely recognized as one of the world's most remarkable entrepreneurial forces in grassroots development, Ela R. Bhatt has dedicated her life to improving the lives of India's poorest and most oppressed women workers. A former parliamentarian, she founded the Self-Employed Women's Association-a trade union for poor, self-employed female workers in India with more than 1 million members. Bhatt also founded Sa-Dhan (the All-India Association of Micro-finance Institutions) and the Indian School of Micro-finance for Women, which together have created new financial opportunities for millions of women across India.

Making Art that Provokes and Transforms
GADO
Syndicated Editorial Cartoonist
Nairobi, Kenya

Godfrey Mwampembwa, better known by his pen name GADO, started drawing as a teenager and found that he had a flair for raising awareness through satire. The most syndicated political cartoonist in Eastern and Central Africa, GADO has given form and voice to a new vision of democracy. Through his cartoons and satirical TV series, "The XYZ Show," he has increased awareness of social and political issues, encouraged public participation in discussions about governance and reminded elected officials of their responsibility to the public. With millions of viewers and nearly 120,000 Facebook fans just two years after its debut, "The XYZ Show" has already had an impact both in Kenya and throughout the region.

Educating Today's Students for Tomorrow's World
Steve Barr
Founder, Chairman and CEO, Future Is Now Schools
Founder, Green Dot Public Schools
Los Angeles, California

In his push to help struggling urban schools act as better supporters of student achievement, Steve Barr has leveraged public dollars to transform public education in California. In 1999, he founded Green Dot Public Schools and has since propelled the organization to become the leading force for change in the region, overhauling deeply troubled schools and helping them achieve remarkable levels of stability. In 2010, Barr formed Green Dot America, recently renamed Future Is Now Schools, to bring the lessons learned and successes achieved on the local level to other communities around the country. Barr was also a co-founder of the nonprofit, nonpartisan "Rock the Vote" campaign.

Harnessing Technology for Social Good
Yochai Benkler
Co-Director, Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies, Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Yochai Benkler is recognized as a leading thinker on technology and the law. Since the 1990s, he has been working to pinpoint the importance of the "information commons" -systems such as libraries or online communities that exist to preserve information for current and future generations-to innovation, information production and freedom. His award-winning book "The Wealth of Networks" analyzes our increasingly networked economy and society, and illustrates the impact of networks on individual and group collaboration. Awarded the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Award, Benkler is an important voice in the current debate about Internet freedom and access.

Lifting the Voices of Indigenous People
Tarcila Rivera Zea
Founder & Executive Director, CHIRAPAQ (The Center for Indigenous Peoples' Cultures of Peru)
Lima, Peru

Tarcila Rivera Zea started her teenage years as an indigenous servant in a small Quechuan village and today runs one of South America's most influential organizations for indigenous people. Over the 20 years since she founded CHIRAPAQ, she and her staff have worked to give indigenous people a national and global voice, secure equality and access to opportunities they have been denied, and develop pride for indigenous cultures. Rivera Zea helped create the International Forum of Indigenous Women of the Americas and other bodies working to strengthen the lives of some 25 million indigenous women across the region.

Challenging the Injustice of Poverty
Bryan Stevenson
Founder and Executive Director, Equal Justice Initiative (EJI)
Montgomery, Alabama
Law Professor, NYU School of Law, New York City

Every day Bryan Stevenson challenges the fundamental injustice of poverty and fights bias against people of color and the poor in the criminal justice system. "The opposite of poverty is not wealth-it's justice," he says. Through the Equal Justice Initiative, he advocates on behalf of juvenile offenders, poor people denied effective representation or wrongly convicted or charged, and others whose experiences with the criminal justice system have been marked by bias or misconduct. Driven by the belief that society's treatment of the disadvantaged is the real test of its commitment to social justice, Stevenson teaches law and has written extensively on criminal justice, capital punishment and civil rights issues.

Building 21st-Century Social Movements
Jeremy Heimans
Co-Founder and CEO, Purpose
New York, New York

Jeremy Heimans is a next-generation leader who is carving out new venues and strategies for social movements and proving that the power of online communities can translate to authentic social change. He co-founded Avaaz.org, the fastest-growing online movement in history with more than 8 million members from 190 countries, and GetUp.org, a grassroots community advocacy organization that has become Australia's largest political group. Today Heimans leads Purpose, a global initiative that draws on leading technologies, political organizing and behavioral economics to build powerful, tech-savvy movements that can transform culture and influence policy.

Bringing African Culture to New Audiences
Elsie McCabe Thompson
President, Museum for African Art
New York, New York

The Museum for African Art is one of only two major American museums devoted solely to African art, and it was Elsie McCabe Thompson's singular determination that made possible the opening of a high-profile showplace for the museum's collection. The lawyer and former city government executive was relentless in her quest to enrich the lives of all through a deeper engagement with African culture and art. After more than a decade of fundraising and planning, Thompson succeeded in establishing the $95 million institution on upper Fifth Avenue near Harlem, where New York City's cultural institutions and African, African American, Caribbean and Latino communities meet.

Creating Financial Opportunities for the Poor
Martin Eakes
Co-Founder and CEO, Self-Help
CEO, Center for Responsible Lending
Durham, North Carolina

Martin Eakes is a national leader in the fight against abusive financial practices-predatory home loans, payday lending, and exorbitant checking and credit card fees-that target poor people and trap them in cycles of poverty. Self-Help, the groundbreaking community development lending institution that he founded in 1980, reaches low-income families underserved by conventional financial institutions. Over the years, Self-Help has provided almost $6 billion in financing to more than 60,000 homebuyers, small businesses and nonprofits, and serves more than 25,000 mostly low-income families through seven retail credit unions. Standing in direct contrast to the predatory financial products that played a central role in the financial crisis, Self-Help's work demonstrates the importance of responsible and affordable financial products in helping low-income people achieve economic security.

Reimagining the Way We Think about Urban Design
Teddy Cruz
Co-Founder, Center for Urban Ecologies
Professor of Culture and Urbanism, University of California, San Diego
San Diego, California

Teddy Cruz was born in Guatemala City in an overpopulated old neighborhood teeming with people and life. Today he is an architect with a humane vision for metropolitan areas across America that breaks down physical and cultural barriers, and introduces social complexity and richness by mixing wealthy and poor, old and new, and public and private. Cruz is internationally renowned for his urban research on the Tijuana-San Diego border. His work focuses more broadly on traditionally overlooked poor, minority and immigrant communities and spaces, and has transformed border neighborhoods in California and communities in New York by creating affordable quality housing and public infrastructure.

In addition to its Visionaries Awards, the Ford Foundation will host a series of global conversations throughout its 75th year exploring the next generation of critical social challenges.

May 4: Fresh Angle on the Arts - An exploration of the role arts and culture play in social justice. For more information: http://www.fordfoundation.org/newsroom/events/473
June 30: A Metropolitan Vision - Identifying next-wave growth and opportunity in American cities.
Sept 20: Human Rights - A global conversation on the future of this vital movement.

Learn more about the Ford Foundation Visionaries Awards at http://www.fordfoundation.org/visionaries-awards

Explore our history and interactive timeline at www.fordfoundation.org/about-us/history

www.fordfoundation.org

SOURCE Ford Foundation

CONTACT: Suzana Grego, Ford Foundation Media Chief, +1-212-573-5128, grego@fordfoundation.org

Web Site: http://www.fordfoundation.org



Thursday, January 20, 2011

Ford Foundation Launches $50 Million Fund for Next Generation of Documentary Filmmakers



The goal of this new initiative is to advance social justice worldwide through the talent of emerging and established filmmakers.


19 Jan 2011 16:00 Africa/Lagos


Ford Foundation Launches $50 Million Fund for Next Generation of Documentary Filmmakers

PR Newswire

NEW YORK, Jan. 19, 2011

Building on Legacy of Leadership, JustFilms Will Focus on Stories with Social Purpose

-- A Major New Source of Funds for Documentaries Around the World --

Partnerships with Sundance Institute and other Leading Organizations Will Expand Reach

NEW YORK, Jan. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- One day before the start of the Sundance Film Festival, a program of the Sundance Institute, and its gathering of independent filmmakers from around the world, the Ford Foundation today announced a five-year, $50 million initiative to help find and support a new generation of filmmakers whose works address urgent social issues.

The new initiative, called JustFilms, will invest $10 million a year over the next five years to support and expand the community of filmmakers and mediamakers around the world focused on creating documentaries with passion and purpose, but who often lack funding to realize their visions or reach audiences.

"With the growth of the Web and social networks, the potential global audience for filmed content with a social conscience has exploded," said Luis Ubinas, president of the Ford Foundation. "We want JustFilms to support visionary filmmakers from around the world to create works on urgent social issues, and help them reach and engage audiences."

JustFilms will build on the foundation's longtime support for documentaries, including such landmark productions as "Eyes on the Prize," "State of Fear" and "Why Democracy," among scores of others. It will also leverage the foundation's global network of 10 regional offices to identify and lift new talent from around the world and to strengthen emerging communities of documentary filmmakers.

"Storytelling is a unique and powerful way of helping us understand our past, explore our present and build our future," said Darren Walker, vice president of Ford's Education, Creativity and Free Expression program. "We see these stories as vital ingredients to social change, translating how people engage with the world and the issues that define our time."

The foundation said JustFilms would focus on film, video and digital works that show courageous people confronting difficult issues and actively pursuing a more just, secure and sustainable world. The initiative will pursue three distinct funding paths:

* Partnerships with major organizations such as the Sundance Institute, the Independent Television Service, and others;
* An ongoing open application process that will help JustFilms stay attuned to fresh ideas and stories wherever they may emerge; and
* Partnership with other Ford Foundation grant-making programs where the introduction of documentary film could help draw attention to an issue or advance a movement.


Directing the JustFilms initiative will be Orlando Bagwell, an internationally respected, award-winning filmmaker who has supported documentary film and other narrative art forms over the past six years as a program officer and director in the foundation's Freedom of Expression team.

"This major new commitment to documentaries reflects our recognition that individual stories— meaningful and well-told—can be a powerful instrument of change," Bagwell said. "The test of JustFilms will be its ability to lift the voices of independent filmmakers and mediamakers from outside the mainstream, to build audiences for social justice stories, and to enlarge the conversation on critical but often less visible issues. It's work that at its essence is really about capturing imaginations."

Key Background

Mr. Ubinas, Mr. Walker and Mr. Bagwell—along with several members of the Ford Foundation Board of Trustees —will be in Park City, Utah, this week to launch a major five-year partnership with the Sundance Institute as a key part of the JustFilms initiative. "We couldn't be more delighted to have the Sundance Institute as a premier partner as we launch JustFilms," Mr. Walker said. "Robert Redford, Keri Putnam, and Cara Mertes have shown incredible leadership in supporting documentary filmmakers, and we are proud to be joining with them in this partnership."

JustFilms will contribute $1 million a year over five years to support the Documentary Film Program at the Sundance Institute. The resulting Sundance Institute/Ford Foundation Documentary Film Fund will support international and U.S. productions that focus on human and civil rights, free expression, economic opportunity, and other critical topics. It will also support filmmaker labs that enhance storytelling through cutting-edge editing, producing, and film scoring workshops. And it will support panels and dialogues at the Sundance Film Festival to enhance understanding and recognition of documentary film as a key component of social change.

Throughout the year, JustFilms will announce its work with the other key partners.

JustFilms will spend roughly one-third of its annual budget on each of its three core funding paths (strategic partnerships, open applications, engagement with Ford Foundation grantees). The initiative has also set aside funds for marketing partners who will help filmmakers promote their work and engage directly with audiences.

Some examples of works JustFilms is already supporting:

* "Women, War & Peace," a four-part PBS special, examines the enormously disproportionate suffering of women in today's wars, but also how they are emerging as leaders in brokering peace and forging new international laws governing conflict.
* "Higher Ground" explores the efforts of Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed to petition world leaders to save his island from rising sea levels as a result of climate change.
* "Detroit Hustles Harder" (working title) chronicles the lives of courageous individuals who have made the conscious choice to stay in Detroit to help turn the city around. Their lives and dedication represent not only what can transform the city, but what can renew America.


Learn more about JustFilms at www.fordfoundation.org/justfilms

Explore the expansive collection of documentaries the foundation has supported over the years.

The Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grant-making organization. For more than half a century it has worked with courageous people on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. With headquarters in New York, the foundation has offices in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

www.fordfoundation.org

SOURCE Ford Foundation

CONTACT: In Park City: Alfred Ironside, Ford Foundation Communications Director, a.ironside@fordfoundation.org, or In New York: Suzana Grego, Ford Foundation Media Chief, s.grego@fordfoundation.org, +1-212-573-5128

Web Site: http://www.fordfoundation.org



Hot Topics
CreditCards.com: Weekly Credit Card Rate Report
The Original Love Boat Comes to Life - in 250,000 LEGO® Bricks
Iran Documentary Cancelled in Canada After Threats
The Winners of the 2011 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition Are ...
Ford Foundation Launches $50 Million Fund for Next Generation of Documentary Filmmakers
Restoration of Phil Spector's Catalog Brings 4 New Collections
Samuel Adams Revolutionary Rye(TM) Claims Victory in the Sixth Annual Samuel Adams® Beer Lover's Choice® Contest
Quarterly Earnings Reports