International womens day: meet Chahinaz

On International Womens Day and I find myself in Stockholm, Sweden at a very unique meeting of communications professionals all working in so-called Global Action Networks (GANs). Since the Global Reporting Initiative is considered a GAN I was lucky enough to be able to join this group of about 20 who have come together to share communications approaches, challenges, ideas, and solutions that we use in engaging with our networks (more on GANs tomorrow, visit again!).

Patrice Barrat of Bridge International Initiative shared with us today his Madmundo.tv approach to storytelling about globalization issues. The Madmundo technique is to start the story with one person's experience vis-a-vis a major globalization issue, and through the story the film crawls from the individual experience to tap into the major global forces at play that have affected this person's life. A fantastically illustrative approach. We were watching video segments from his current film about a young woman named Chahinaz who lives in Algeria and is determined to create equal rights for women.

What does this have to do with sustainability reporting? Two things:
- see earlier blog (Feb 19) on gender issues and reporting
- how can the GRI network start to use individual stories and video media to better communication about sustainability or how reporting has changed the situation of an organization, community or individual?

Enjoy meeting Chahinaz below!