1. All Roads Film
Project Blog

The All
Roads Film Project was created by National Geographic to raise awareness of
and access to various indigenous and underrepresented cultures around the
world. Through film and photography, the program aims to showcase just how
diverse perspectives and experiences from different places and groups of people
can truly be. As the project makes its final preparations for its 5^th
Annual All Roads Film Festival, you can find daily updates on their work,
as well as commentaries and summaries of recent news stories, at the All Roads blog.

Pay close attention to this very geographically relevant recent
entry, in which they explain the possibility of the Chinese government
establishing a “Cultural Protection Zone” for the Qiang, an ethnic minority in
the Sichuan Province whose people were severely affected during the massive
earthquake that struck there this past May.

2. Gapminder

In today’s world of state-of-the-art technology and ever-present
information systems, we are constantly bombarded with statistics and data about
how the world is on the brink of destruction. Don’t tell me you’ve never turned
on the television or booted up the computer, only to find that someone has now
determined that eating a single snack size bag of potato chips kills fourteen
goats, uses three gallons of petroleum, and makes it impossible for children in
Nepal to go to school (Note: I might have made those statistics up for dramatic
effect, but you get the picture.). Anyway, the point is that Gapminder, a non-profit
venture promoting sustainable development and achievement of the United Nation’s Millennium
Development Goals allows you to understand what that information and those
figures actually mean. Plus it does
so using videos that are
short, clear, and straightforward.

Continue reading “Five for Friday”