Rafea: Solar Mama, a story of change

Seminars, conferences and academic journals are not the only channels to spread knowledge about sustainable development. Nor they are the only ways to promote initiatives and awareness campaigns on sustainability. In today's world, which is characterized by Web 2.0 technologies and by social media communication, one of the strongest media for sharing content and making people aware remains, still, the cinema.

An interesting case is Rafea: Solar Mama, a documentary by Mona Eldaief and Jehane Noujaim. It tells the story of a Bedouin woman from one of the poorest desert village in Jordan becoming a solar engineer. The film tells the story of change, a small but tremendous change.

Rafea is a Bedouin woman who lives with her daughters in one of Jordan’s poorest desert villages on the Iraqi border.
She is given a chance to travel to India to attend the Barefoot College, where illiterate grandmothers from around the world are trained in 6 months to be solar engineers.
If Rafea succeeds, she will be able to electrify her village, train more engineers, and provide for her daughters.

(Rafea: Solar Mama | official website)

The documentary has been selected for the initiative “Stories of Change” at the Sundance Film Festival. Rafea: Solar Mama is having a great success both in the Internet and in offline meetings. The shows of the documentary as well as the interviews with the two filmakers are important occasions not just to spread knowledge about issues related to renewable energies but also to tell the inspiring story of the first female solar engineer in the country.

(Rafea: Solar Mama | trailer)

Rafea: Solar Mama, which won the Audience Award at DOC NYC last fall, demonstrates that while no advancement in gender equality comes quickly and easily, hope and perseverance is what makes change possible.

(Carrie Nelson, "Rafea’s struggle for a brighter future")
 

To find out where to see the film, you can visit the Facebook page or follow it via twitter.