This past Wednesday and Thursday, September 15th and 16th, Pushing the Elephant (PTE), the film’s directors, Beth Davenport and Elizabeth Mandel, and our main subject, Rose Mapendo, traveled to Washington DC, in cooperation with ITVS. Also along were Rose’s brother, Kigabo, and our Outreach Coordinator, Kim Borba.

Our first stop was the World Bank. In an event hosted jointly by the bank’s Social Development Department and the World Bank Institute Fragile States Program, the agenda was to use the film to generate concrete dialogue among fifty World Bank staff and partners on the role of leadership and reconciliation as a response to violence in fragile and post-conflict affected countries. A panel that included Fragile States staff, Rose and the filmmakers followed the screening. The discussion focused on ways Rose’s experience could help Bank staffers understand more closely the communities in which they are working. Tamara Gould (Vice President, ITVS International) helped introduce the program, contextualizing the ways in which social-issue media can be used to create change and inspire action.

Our Advisory Council member Kury Cobham, an Operations Officer in the Social Development Civil Society Fund at the World Bank, organized the event. As with all Arts Engine films, outreach is on our mind from the time we start pre-production. We recognize that the most robust outreach campaigns will be built upon relationships that start early, and that enable us to incorporate the knowledge, connections and ideas of experts in the issue-areas that we address through storytelling on film. It was exciting to see our long-term planning bear fruit in the organization and execution of this event.

Both days of the trip were also dedicated to working with a coalition of NGOs to help pass the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA). For the first time, IVAWA comprehensively integrates helping survivors and the prevention of violence into U.S. assistance programs which provide healthcare, education, and economic opportunity and promote legal reform and social change in developing countries. IVAWA makes ending violence against women a diplomatic priority and urges timely response by the U.S. government to respond to critical outbreaks of sexual violence in armed conflict, such as the mass rapes used as a weapon of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Passing IVAWA would help remove a major barrier that keeps women and girls from getting an education, working and pulling themselves and their families out of poverty.

In cooperation with our longstanding partner Jewish Women International (JWI) and nine other key NGOs of the IVAWA Coalition, we participated in a Congressional Breakfast on Thursday morning, attended by an overflow audience of 160 legislators and legislative and NGO staff. Paula Kerger, President and CEO of PBS commented on the power of Pushing the Elephant in conveying the brutal realities faced by women around the world, and the importance of the film in giving a voice to those women. Rose was a featured panelist at the event, where she shared her personal stories of surviving gender-based violence and addressed the importance of creating local solutions to local problems, with women at the fore. Also featured on the panel were activists in the IVAWA movement and two of the Congresspeople co-sponsoring and heavily pushing the passage of the bill, Congressman Ted Poe (R-TX) and Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL).

As a complement to the power of a public assembly to generate change, we also had one-on-one meetings with the offices of three Senators and five Congresspeople (see below for complete list). These eight represented both parties and included both co-sponsors of the bill and those not yet supporting it. These meetings were organized by our Outreach Coordinator Kim Borba. We were joined by Michelle Freeman, Senior Policy and Advocacy Specialist at JWI. Michelle noted that having a survivor and representatives of independent media at both the breakfast and the one-on-one meetings significantly changed the way legislators responded, as compared to meetings with lobbyists and the NGO community . We received an overwhelmingly positive response across the board, including a commitment from Representative Cardoza, (D-CA), not yet a co-sponsor of the bill, to bring it to the attention of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, to ensure it comes to the Floor in a timely manner, and to come on as a co-sponsor. Likewise, Representative Nunes’ (R-CA) Chief of Staff, after hearing Rose’s story, said he was going to recommend co-sponsorship of the bill. It was exceptional to see Rose putting into action the IVAWA stipulation that local women must be part of the solution, and included at the decision making table.

In these highly partisan times, we were deeply encouraged by the positive response to the importance of this women’s right issue from both parties. IVAWA is a bipartisan bill, though it has garnered more support from the Democrats in the House and Senate.  While the Act could pass in the House with only Democrat support, in an election year, it is particularly important to engage Republican leadership.  Collaboration between both parties will ensure that the Act makes it out of Committee quickly and is passed by an overwhelming majority on the House and Senate floors.

Our effective, productive two days in DC provided us with three distinct partnering opportunities – working with NGOs, legislators and an Intergovernmental Organization; as well as three distinct ways of using Pushing the Elephant to create change—training, advocacy and awareness raising. It was also our first chance to work with ITVS on bringing the film to an outreach audience. It was inspiring to see the commitment the organization brought to this endeavor, from the efforts of Chi Do (Associate Director of Communications) and her team, to the audience-building efforts of Michon Boston (Outreach Coordinator), to the publicity generated by Voleine Amilcar and the Press Department, to the participation of Ms. Kerger and Ms. Gould. We look forward to harnessing the power of social-issue media in tandem with our partners again in the near future.

List of Legislative Offices:
Senator Feinstein (D-CA)
Senator Thune (R-SD)
Senator Chambliss (R-GA)
Rep. Nunes (R-CA)
Rep. Cardoza (D-CA)
Rep. Costa (D-CA)
Rep. Radanovich (R-CA)