use today.
To be able to portray the status of women with a clear eye and strong critical sense, the director Zeresenay Berhane Mehari – resident in the US, but born in Ethiopia – leads us, through the eyes of the camera, to live a true story that really happened in his country of origin “.
The choice of the film's title is in itself an exhortation to look with optimism to the future, in fact in Ethiopian the name Difret means courage, and the film is meant to be an encouragement to fight together to change things.
"Difret – The Courage to Change – emphasises Roberto Vicario – is a film that, we are sure, will be uncomfortable for many, especially in its country of origin and in other countries that use similar practices. A film conceived many years ago, which experienced various production problems, almost to its permanent cancellation.
It was Angelina Jolie who, being increasingly active herself in the social field, revived the fortunes of this project and fascinated by the story and the subject decided to take part as co-producer. A happy choice not only for the significance and value of the film – capable even of winning the Sundance Festival – but mainly because from possible cancellation we progressed to a media attention, which can only be beneficial to the production. On the other hand, as the film’s title says, we must never stop fighting, but fight with courage to defend our rights, but more than anything else our dreams."6
A petition film
The success of "Difret the courage to change", the film produced in the US with a strong emotional and cultural impact, has not just happened overnight but is the result of many initiatives that preceded and followed the distribution of the work throughout the world. These include the essential initiative of the 1 October 2015, when Girls Not Brides launched #mylifeat15, an international campaign calling on governments to make it a primary goal to put an end to child marriage by 2030.
Girls Not Brides, global meeting 2018
We celebrated reaching 1000 members with a Group photo at our Global Meeting. Photo credit: Graham Crouch/Girls Not Brides
In Kuala Lumpur, during the second Girls Not Brides global meeting, about a thousand organisations from over 70 countries gathered to discuss the issue of child marriage.
The event was overwhelming and participation strongly felt. The interventions, which focussed on achieving the goal of abolishing child marriage by 2030, developed future theories of commitment planning to work collectively at local, national, regional and global levels.
Given the encouraging results already obtained, the effective words of Lakshmi Sundaram, executive director of Girls Not Brides, opened up hopes of possible short and long term achievements of goals even more. Her report, published on the Girls Not Brides portal, highlighted the significant commitment on the part of all the partnership’s organisations:
"Members – wrote Lakshmi – have been able to effectively share learning, conduct joint advocacy, change local attitudes, influence national and regional strategies, leverage new resources, hold governments accountable and build South-South collaboration. However, for partnerships to thrive and have the greatest impact, they need to include a diversity of voices and be managed effectively".
Young people are key change-makers.
"During the global meeting – Lakshmi specified – youth activists shared examples of how their work has led to concrete changes in the lives of girls. It was clear that if we want to end child marriage, we have to empower youth and youth-led organisations and ensure they have the agency to make decisions about their present and future". And it is precisely the commitment of girls who have suffered and experienced child marriage that is one of the drivers of the global project, because, according to Lakshmi Sundaram, they "are amongst the most powerful advocates in efforts to end child marriage, but they need appropriate support to share their stories safely and effectively. They must also be involved in designing policies and programmes to address the issue.
This is why it’s critical that the global movement to end child marriage Girls Not Brides doesn’t just focus on prevention – we have to address the needs of married girls in a holistic manner. To this end we must address gender inequality – stated Lakshmi – it must be at the heart of everything we do, since such discrimination is the fundamental cause of child marriage. And it is important to involve men and boys who can be a key part of the solution to the problem. (…) However, we need to have the courage to discuss some of these difficult topics – including sexuality, social norms and power and race dynamics – openly and respectfully. We’re not going to make progress on ending child marriage if we’re not willing to take these conversations beyond the Global Meeting”. 7
Memory Banda: I’ll marry when I want
Memory’s story is called “A warrior’s cry against child marriage”.
I'll tell it to you because it’s very engaging and also fun to listen to. The video is posted on YouTube (with translations into 38 languages). Just enter the name Memory Banda into the search engine to find it.
I write "fun" because this girl really is a force of nature. She is able to describe with firmness, a sense of humour and courage the enormous problem of a marriage which they wanted to make her accept at all costs.
Her story takes place in Malawi, a country in East Africa. Read what the girl says:
“When I was 13 years old, I was told: ‘You are grown up, you have now reached the age when you're supposed to go to the initiation camp’. I was like: ‘What? I'm not going to go to the initiation camp’.
You know what the women said to me? ‘You are a stupid girl. Stubborn. You do not respect the traditions of our society, of our community’. (…)”
This teenager’s positive energy is exceptional, for not only did she manage to avoid her own marriage, but she fought to have laws passed, to interest public opinion and the institutions of her country. She’s organised sit-ins with her friends to get in touch with the relevant authorities to deal with the unfortunate problem of child brides.
Memory tells her story directly to a meeting:
This is her public speech:
“I'll begin today by sharing a poem written by my friend from Malawi, Eileen Piri. Eileen is only 13 years old, but when we were going through the collection of poetry that we wrote, I found her poem so interesting, so motivating. So I'll read it to you. She entitled her poem ‘I’ll marry when I want’.
I’ll marry when I want
‘I’ll marry when I want.
My mother can't force me to marry.
My father cannot force me to marry.
My uncle, my aunt, my brother or sister,
cannot force me to marry.
No one in the world can force me to marry.
I'll marry when I want.
Even if you beat me,
even if you chase me away,
even
