Last night--Wednesday, August 4th--Global Goods Partners screened "Child Brides: Stolen Lives" as part of our summer film series. This event was co-sponsored by Engel Entertainment who produced the film for the PBS series “NOW.” PBS premiered the screening in October 2007; since then, it has reached a wide audience and was nominated for an Emmy award. The film explores child marriage in Guatemala, India, and Niger, and documents the work of people campaigning to end this centuries-old practice. Read "Child Marriage: What We Know" to learn about who's affected and the effects of child marriage. Global Goods Partners chose this film as it relates to our mission statement and partnerships. With artisan partnerships in Guatemala and India, we feel a strong connection to the women featured in the documentary. These women face incredible challenges unbeknownst to many in the Western world; child marriage is an issue among the challenges that women artisans must overcome in order to earn an income. Global Goods Partners provides an alternative opportunity for these women to fight poverty and social injustices by supporting community-based organizations and an online marketplace for their handcrafted goods to be sold. We were ecstatic to see so many supporters out for the documentary screening at Bluestockings! We hope the film educated our attendees on the reality of this horrible practice and served as a call to action to create awareness and find solutions. A special thank you to Susan Lee from Engel Entertainment who came to speak about the making of the film. The Q&A  session after the film (pictured above) with Susan and Catherine Shimony, a co-founder of GGP, yielded great conversations regarding the variety of challenges of international development.  Despite all the barriers, the consensus reached by our two speakers was simple, yet powerful: to combat issues affecting women in developing nations, we need to focus on education. A special thanks to Bluestockings: Fair Trade Bookstore and Cafe for being such gracious hosts, and of course to our wonderful supporters who continue to inspire us to do what we do! We hope to see you all at our second film screening on Tuesday, August 10^th at Birch Coffee from 7-9. We will screen “Black Gold,” a critically acclaimed documentary that focuses on the global coffee trade.

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