Summary: How much do American and Canadian citizens really understand about the personal, social, and economic struggles of undocumented workers? This program deepens that understanding, providing an intimate look inside the lives of two non-status migrant laborers. Geraldo, a Costa Rican construction worker, and Angela, a Caribbean domestic employee, describe their experiences with labor exploitation...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Mexican citizens working in the United States and Canada can face difficult conditions, even when they are employed legally. Filmed over an entire growing season, El Contrato documents the experiences of a group of laborers contracted to work in a sprawling tomato greenhouse. Tensions between workers, growers, and government officials reveal disturbing aspects of the hugely profitable...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: A growing number of environmentalists, ethicists, and economists believe that the needs of the "have-nots" will one day become too powerful to ignore. This program highlights that viewpoint, illustrating vast disparities between the living standards of developed and underdeveloped nations and questioning the wisdom of looking the other way. Deconstructing conventional economic notions of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Coffee is second only to oil as the world's most valuable traded commodity, but small-scale producers rarely profit from it. This program reveals the hardship and uncertainty faced by coffee farmers in Guatemala, and how many are taking steps to obtain better prices and build better lives. Analyzing the country's traumatic history and the lingering effects of its civil war, the video sheds...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: A 150-pound bag of coffee beans might earn a farmer
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program contrasts indigenous, community-based culture with market economics driven by multinational corporations. The film assesses the growing conflict between Burlington Resources, an American oil company licensed to prospect in regions of Ecuador, and the self-sufficient Achuar people of that country, who believe the oil industry will destroy their environment and non-materialistic way...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: For centuries, cotton has influenced the relationship between America and Africa. It drove the slave trade, and today it epitomizes the uneven playing field created by farming subsidies. This program examines the lopsided nature of the global cotton industry-in which U.S. and European producers enjoy massive government support while independent African farmers struggle to remain competitive....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In an age of globalization, companies are scrambling to blend the ideals of social justice with the concept of a free-market economy. Drawing on case studies from around the world, this program focuses on progressive efforts being made by businesses to unite profits and principles. Issues under consideration include the practice of social responsibility through ethical investment policies and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Are the days of the traditional cash economy numbered? This program examines ground-breaking monetary systems designed to benefit disadvantaged segments of the population and build strength in the small business sector-not only in the United States, but also in Mexico, India, Poland, and Britain. Traveling to each country, the program showcases remarkable financial innovations-including the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: All over the world, green enterprise is growing. This program focuses on the catalyst that is transforming Earth-friendly businesses into paying ventures: a thing that economists call externalities. In Mexico, coffee growers use collective bargaining to create a more secure market. In Tanzania, where malaria is rampant, a mosquito net manufacturer makes good by marketing social change. In...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Despite unprecedented growth in the world economy as a whole, some 1.5 billion people in developing countries live in extreme poverty, and the living conditions for twice that number are almost as deplorable. This program investigates how both trade and financial aid are being used to help Costa Rica and other third-world nations bridge the technological divide and gain much-needed know-how so...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Tokyo is one of the most technologically advanced cities on the planet, but Japan's low birth rate and the diversifying interests of its young people are causing Tokyo to rely increasingly on skilled immigrant labor. This program examines the implications of that change, gathering insightful commentary from a wide range of Japanese society about multiculturalism, racism, and interracial...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Controversial writer Johan Norberg argues forcefully for one side of the globalization debate. In this program he examines three developing countries and how they fit into that debate, building a case for deregulation, the abolishment of subsidies and tariffs, and a long-term view of industrialization. He frankly defends the use of sweatshop labor, through which Taiwan has cultivated a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Defining the typical New Yorker has always been impossible; today, the definition of a Londoner is nearly as elusive. This program travels London's increasingly cosmopolitan neighborhoods, sorting through perspectives on immigration and resistance to it. Interviews with leaders and everyday citizens reveal distrust in several quarters; Lord Nazir Ahmed and East London Muslims cite examples of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Urban punks with green hair and green thumbs, the members of Tierra Viva transform toxic Mexican earth into vegetable gardens. Their actions make up one remarkable part of this wide-ranging Mexican odyssey. Depicting Michoacan farmers who are fighting the trend to move to the cities-and preserving the winter home of the monarch butterflies-the program also journeys to Magdalena Bay,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: To describe New York City’s cultural makeup, the best metaphor is a salad bowl rather than a melting pot. This program follows the Queens #7 subway line through a dazzling array of ethnic communities, each with its own distinct texture and flavor, illustrating demographic changes the city has undergone since the early 1990s. Less inclined to learn English and join mainstream society than...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program defines Mexico City's globalization in terms of winners and losers, examining how, in the world's largest metropolis, immigration challenges are linked to poverty and population influx from surrounding rural areas. Contrasting the city's high-tech facilities and fashionable neighborhoods with its sprawling slums and their struggling inhabitants, the program outlines the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Poverty, unstable government, and disadvantages in trade have virtually eliminated food security in Malawi. This program explores the African country's struggles on both a personal and national level, interviewing frustrated civil servants and impoverished citizens, and reflecting widespread despair over WTO policies and the government's inability to subsidize the agriculture of its own people....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program examines India's immense child labor problem and the fight against it. The video contrasts this nation's status as the world's largest democracy with the fact that, inside its borders, 80 million children work physically exhausting jobs for minuscule wages. Incorporating interviews with Shanta Sinha, founder of the organization known as MVF, the video illustrates how the group...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In Nicaragua, a growing awareness of domestic violence and its consequences has spurred grassroots activism. This program documents the efforts of two groups, the Xochitl-Acatl Center and the Association of Men Against Violence, both of which confront gender and sexual abuse. Arguing that economic and political oppression influence male tendencies to exercise physical authority within the home,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: East Africa's wild beauty may also be its greatest challenge. This program describes the ecological issues arising when a finite amount of land is needed for ever-growing human and animal populations. Where will Kenya's varied wildlife go when cities expand into age-old migration paths? How will farmers and cattle ranchers protect their land from invading animals? And how can a developing...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In 1532, 168 Spanish conquistadors arrived in Peru. They were exhausted, outnumbered, and terrified, and ahead of them were camped 80,000 Incan troops. And yet within just 24 hours, more than 7,000 Inca warriors were slaughtered, the Incan emperor languished in chains, and the victorious Europeans began what would become a brutal reign that would leave its marks throughout the Americas. This...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: An emerging high-tech focal point, Frankfurt has the largest foreign and immigrant population in continental Europe. This program studies the effects of that diversity, for Frankfurt specifically and within the larger context of German culture as it struggles with right-wing extremism. Rosi Wolf-Almanasreh of the Frankfurt Department for Multicultural Affairs focuses on the nation's...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Unlike the primarily east-to-west conquest of the Americas, European incursions into sub-Saharan Africa proceeded south-to-north-an approach, climatically speaking, that did not favor the invaders. Cattle and crops failed to thrive, and indigenous diseases decimated the newcomers, yet still that vast region was subdued. How? This program tells a story of colonization and exploitation that shows...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010