Summary: Each week, in countries around the globe, nearly a million people say goodbye to their homes in impoverished rural regions-and move to even worse conditions in cities. This program explores the tragic results: illegal slums filled with some of the poorest people in the world, lacking water, sanitation, and other resources needed to support exploding populations. Viewers are shown the lives and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: While poverty has traditionally been a problem only for the unemployed, a new demographic of Americans has emerged-the working poor. This program explores the disturbing realities that many people in low-wage jobs face every day-such as having to decide whether to pay the rent, buy groceries, or see a doctor. Viewers will learn how standards of living are often measured, how suburban areas have...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: For many teenagers in Mexico, heading across the U.S. border after high school is much more common than heading off to college. But as law enforcement continues to tighten security, that journey is growing more and more hazardous. Filmed on both sides of the border, this program briefly examines issues surrounding illegal immigration-particularly how much more a person can earn in America than...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: For many Americans, the threat of sudden poverty has less to do with the nation's overall economy than it does with personal circumstances. This program discusses the hard facts of situational poverty with a focus on the four most common triggers: job loss, the fastest way to become impoverished; health issues, such as severe injury or long-term illness; the loss of a spouse through divorce or...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Welcome to Camden, New Jersey-one of the most economically depressed and crime-ridden cities in America. Even so, children here have hopes and dreams that compete daily with terrible hardships. This ABC News program documents the lives of three young Camden residents over the course of 18 months: six-year-old Moochie, who has vowed to get straight A's in school; Billy Joe, a teenager determined...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: The United States continues to be the wealthiest country in the world, yet one in eight Americans-approximately 37 million people-live below the poverty line. This program analytically and sympathetically discusses the effects and implications of poverty, examining factors such as illiteracy, insufficient job skills, substance abuse, and crime. The phenomenon of multigenerational poverty is...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
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: As more and more companies view low-income Americans as opportunities for profit, the "poverty business" is taking off. In this program, Bill Moyers Journal and Expose: America's Investigative Reports follow a team of BusinessWeek reporters as they track corporate practices that some say are exploiting the working poor. Bill Moyers then talks with economist Dean Baker, co-director of the Center...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Take a trip to historic Tombstone, Arizona, and relive Wyatt Earp's gunfight at the O.K. Corral-or watch 21st-century vigilantes scour the landscape for Mexican invaders. Modern pseudo-cowboys haunt Southwestern communities with growing frequency, and they represent one of several new trends examined in this documentary on America's immigration anxiety. Focusing on the porous U.S.-Mexico border...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Indentured servitude, however dehumanizing, played a role in the colonization and development of early America. But its 21st-century incarnation, the practice of debt bondage, contributes virtually nothing to the common good of southern Asia. This program examines the plight of workers in India's rural areas, exposing the conditions in which they toil to pay off staggering personal debts. More...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: While politicians grapple with reforming welfare, those who receive benefits worry about how welfare reform will affect their lives. Critics of welfare argue that it has created a psychology of dependency, and that it is rife with fraud and abuse. This program traces the history of welfare beginning with the Depression, then examines the complex issues involved in reforming it. Experts discuss...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program weighs the financial savings of a reformed welfare system against our responsibility to those who need help. Political and religious leaders discuss the feasibility of establishing a new system that works to eliminate the problems of crime, drugs, poverty, and unwanted births. Critics and supporters of current reform efforts discuss their views. Those interviewed include a New...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Illegal deforestation, slash-and-burn practices, poverty, land disputes-these are among the many problems associated with farming in Madagascar. This program guides viewers through the real-world challenges of building sustainable agriculture in the country. Outlining reasons why many growers are unable or unwilling to leave outmoded techniques behind, the film visits community offices that...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: When an 11-year-old Paraguayan boy named Silvino Talavera died from pesticide poisoning in 2003, his name became a rallying cry in the fight against intensive soya production. This program recounts the tragedy and the legal, political, and economic impact of "agritoxins" in Latin America. Opening with a poetically filmed reenactment and moving on to feature key players in the story, the film...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Our most valuable treasure, is how residents of Dakar describe the Bay of Han. But pollution from both residential and industrial sources is destroying the body of water that has long supported fishing families in the Senegalese capital. This program reports on Western-aided efforts to restore the bay's ecological health and its viability as an economic resource. Specific challenges include the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Characterized as an LDC or Least Developed Country, the nation of Chad wrestles with drought, population growth, and resulting tensions between farmers and herders. This program investigates hydraulic projects and mediation initiatives that are fostering relationships between Chad's food growers and its nomadic, livestock-centered cultures. Overviewing the basic causes of Chadian land disputes...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Most elementary-age children exude innocence and optimism. What about kids who face extreme poverty? This documentary focuses on the plight of underprivileged nine-year-olds across the world-revealing their hardships and challenges as well as the light-hearted spirit they often exhibit in spite of their surroundings. Traveling to Egypt, Rwanda, India, Cambodia, Romania, Brazil, and New York...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: House slavery-the confinement and coercion of unpaid domestic servants-occurs far more frequently across Europe and the United States than most people realize. Even more alarming is the widespread use of children as fodder for prostitution rings around the world. This program profiles a Moroccan-born former house slave named Rania, whose father, believing she would be educated and cared for,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Close to the Russian border, far removed from Mongolia's polluted and overcrowded capital city of Ulaanbaatar, an ancient herding culture fights to maintain its identity-and its survival. This program examines the nomadic communities of the Mongolian plains and their resistance to change, despite growing pressure on many herders to modernize and migrate to urban areas. Viewers meet some who...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: In search of a better life, Natasha and Galia Gutu thought they had found fulfilling jobs in Turkey through their seemingly helpful neighbors. But when the Gutu sisters left their home in Moldova they were actually traveling into a nightmare-not the health aide employment that their "friends" had promised, but rather enslavement as prostitutes. This program follows their story by recording...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Does the future of capitalism favor the global corporations of the West-or small, competitive businesses that are homegrown in the developing world? This program offers valuable case studies that clearly illustrate both the challenges and the enormous potential of non-Western entrepreneurship. In Senegal, plastics manufacturer SIMPA has obtained funding for equipment upgrades and employee...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: As climate change lays waste to the Niger River, the great Malian city of Timbuktu increasingly resembles a desert landscape. The same is true for much of land-locked Mali, which could, in a worst-case scenario, find itself without water altogether. Incorporating discussions of poverty, population growth, and other issues, this film examines the impact of desertification on two of the nation's...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: An emotional journey through the abyss of the apartheid era, this program explores the cruel realities and implications of institutionalized racial categorization. Viewers learn the story of Sandra Laing, who, although she was born to white Afrikaner parents, developed the skin color and facial features of a black African through a quirk of genetics. By the time she was a teenager, Sandra had...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: As in the case of coffee, sugar, and other cultivated products, the floral industry would collapse without a steady supply of cheap labor. This program goes inside the world of Colombia's flower growers, in particular those who work the hardest for the lowest pay. Profiling two women with varying experiences, the film reveals both the tenuous nature of life on the industry's bottom rung - Hilda...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009