Film Featuring World-Renowned Poet Pays Tribute to Farming Rural Women
By Khalifa Hemed
Published October 16, 2019
A short film aimed at raising awareness of the power of rural women in helping fight global hunger has been launched.
This Is How We Rise, the short film launched on the International Day of Rural Women by United Nations’ International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), features world renowned poet Maya Angelou.
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“Women are a cornerstone in building holistic and sustainable food systems. We all rise – men and women, communities and nations – when the 1.7 billion women and girls who live in rural areas have equal access to resources,” says Gilbert F Houngbo, President of IFAD.”If we can mobilize political support to empower rural women and increase funding to agricultural development … there will be higher overall food production, better nutrition, poverty reduction and increased access to education.”
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Women may make up about half of the agricultural workforce globally, yet they face great constraints in accessing essential productive resources and services, technology, market information and financial assets.
This Is How We Rise is based on the Angelou’s poem, Still I Rise, and includes the voice of the poet who died in 2014v reading lines from her iconic poem. Images in the film are of rural women from IFAD-supported projects in Mozambique and Nepal that have some of the world’s poorest rural areas. Like in Angelou’s poem, they demonstrate their fortitude and resolve as they go about their daily tasks and build their own agricultural businesses.
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”The women in this film are locally cast. They’re real farmers, fisherwomen, mothers, sisters, friends and community leaders. It was deeply humbling to be in their company,” says Camille Summers-Valli, director of This Is How We Rise.”We wanted to show the beauty and potential of rural women … by showing them in their everyday environments and routines. The film is about sending a message of hope and of strength.”
Angelou, a poet, humanitarian and civil rights activist, touched the lives of millions around the globe through her teachings, writings and actions. Through her works, she championed women’s rights and gender equity.
IFAD says the film–part of its global campaign called Real Groundbreakers whose target is to increase investments in the economic and social empowerment of women through rural and agricultural development– will be broadcast on global television networks and other channels.
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Here is Angelou’s complete iconic poem, Still I Rise, taken from And Still I Rise: A Book of Poems:
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
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Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
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Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
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Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
