We want powerful five-minute films that tell stories of progress in developing countries. What are people doing to help end poverty, disease, hunger, conflict, inequality, and illiteracy? Show us the progress being made towards achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Your film can win the $20,000 Grand Prize, be shown on Link TV and other TV channels worldwide, and can inspire action and change!

You may enter in six categories:

• Empowerment
• Innovation
• Leadership & Governance
• Local/Global Partnerships
• Overcoming Conflict
• Sustainability

Find out how to enter here:

http://www.linktv.org/viewchangefilmcontest

“Link TV is launching ViewChange.org — a digital media hub that highlights progress in reducing hunger, poverty, and disease in developing nations. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ViewChange.org combines powerful video stories with the latest Web technology to make videos, articles, blogs, and actions readily available to key audiences working in global development.

“At Link TV, we know that stories are powerful. They teach us lessons and shape our values. Unfortunately, when it comes to stories about foreign aid or global development, far too often the moral of the story is focused on bad news instead of hope and progress.

This is your opportunity to get your work seen by our judging panel of influential artists and individuals. Judges include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of prizewinning novels including Purple Hibiscus, award-winning filmmaker Wim Wenders, actor-directors Gael García Bernal and Danny Glover, Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee Senator Daniel K. Inouye, and Grammy award-winner Angélique Kidjo.

Find out about all of the sponsors: NomadsLand, DAI, United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF), Explore.org.

http://www.linktv.org/viewchangefilmcontest/partners

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Link TV is launching ViewChange.org — using the latest in semantic Web technology to give you the power to change the debate.

“ViewChange.org uses powerful search technology that dynamically refreshes information as the video plays, providing up-to-date links to related articles, videos, and blogs. Inspired by what you see? You can now take action — to donate to a cause or send stories directly to the media and policymakers.

Fair Trade Certification empowers farmers and farm workers to lift themselves out of poverty by investing in their farms and communities, protecting the environment, and developing the business skills necessary to compete in the global marketplace.

It emphasizes responsible and ethical tourism by active participation with the local communities and by disseminating information on the benefits to the community and the wildlife that surrounds them.

Camps International already has sustainable development and conservation projects running in Kenya and Tanzania and is about to expand with similar ventures in Borneo. The CIT charity will direct funds to support these projects and ensure every penny is carefully spent. It important to stress that, unlike large international charities, CIT will avoid local government or other non-governmental agencies directing with how the money is distributed.

PEPY primarily works in Siem Reap Province in the northwestern part of Cambodia. The majority of PEPY’s educational programs are in Chanleas Dai Commune, a rural area about 65 km outside the city of Siem Reap. The city, home to the temples of Angkor, is a burgeoning tourist destination and generates millions of dollars in tourism revenue each year.

Because of the extensive research begun by Dr. Dian Fossey in the 1960s and since carried on by the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, the mountain gorilla is perhaps the best understood of all wild gorilla populations.

The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International closely monitors several groups of mountain gorillas in Rwanda’s Parc National des Volcans. Staff at the Karisoke Research Center visit the mountain gorilla groups daily and report on their activities, as well as conducting anti-poaching patrols. Other gorilla groups designated for eco-tourism are also regularly monitored.

Travel with Founder Matt Mitro, Senior VP Ben Stone, and the remarkable women of Rwanda as they discuss the empowering approach of Indego Africa, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit social enterprise devoted to helping artisans lift themselves out of poverty.  Indego Africa – which stands for INdependence, DEvelopment, and GOvernance – partners with cooperatives of world-class artisans in Rwanda, composed entirely of women, and sells their fair trade handicrafts at high-end retailers across the U.S. and on its WebStore. Indego Africa then applies 100% of profits and other grants or donations to its long-term skills training programs in financial management, entrepreneurship, literacy, and computers – which are administered by Rwanda’s top university students.  Indego Africa is a member of the Fair Trade Federation and the subject of a Harvard Business School case study.

In the area near Dubluq, Borena clans have wells with earthen ramps leading their cows down to flat areas with mud troughs so their animals can drink water passed up, bucket by bucket, by teams of men in a vertical chain, all singing to keep rhythm. These traditional eela wells, also called singing wells, are crucial in the dry season, and the clans have a schedule for which herds can access the wells on different days.

A well provides water, and song, for cows in Ethiopia’s dry season. Check out this video to see how Oxfam America helped one clan optimize their well to make it more efficient.

People living in poverty hundreds of miles from the nearest town find it nearly impossible to get hold of, or afford, the necessary spare parts. WaterAid research has shown that only 10% of Afridevs are mended within a week. This can have dire health consequences as most communities with a broken pump revert to collecting drinking water from risky sources such as unprotected traditional wells, swamps or rivers. Some take off the handpump and fetch water with a bucket and rope. This exposes them to the risk of potentially fatal water-related diseases such as typhoid and cholera.

To get around the spare parts problem, WaterAid Mozambique has been piloting the use of simple rope pumps in its projects since early 2003.
The most common problem in a rope pump is a broken rope, and even in the remotest areas rope is fairly to easy to find and cheap enough for communities to afford.

Refugees International is a powerful voice for lifesaving action. We gather information directly from the field and provide governments, international agencies, and non-governmental organizations with effective solutions to improve the lives of displaced people. Where there are needs — for food, water, shelter, protection from harm, access to health care — we witness what is lacking, we present solutions, and we demand action.

The 15-page report, Darfur Bleeds: Recent Cross-Border Violence in Chad, based on a Human Rights Watch investigation in eastern Chad in January and February, documents an alarming rise in attacks against civilians in Chad by Sudanese government-backed Janjaweed militias and Chadian rebel groups. The Janjaweed and Chadian rebel forces operate from bases in Sudanese government-controlled areas of Darfur. Sudanese government troops and helicopter gunships have at times supported these cross-border attacks in eastern Chad. The Sudanese government provides support for several Chadian rebel groups, including harboring them on Sudanese territory.

“The government of Sudan is actively exporting the Darfur crisis to its neighbor by providing material support to Janjaweed militias and by failing to disarm or control them,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The Janjaweed are doing in Chad what they have done in Darfur since 2003: killing civilians, burning villages and looting cattle in attacks that show signs of ethnic bias.”