Rights Reel: Taking Root

Independent Lens is airing the documentary about Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Rights Readers author (Unbowed: A Memoir) Wangari Maathai, Taking Root this week (check your local PBS station for show times). PBS has a website for the show with a timeline, a map of tree planting projects around the world, extra features on the effects of deforestation, lesson plans, action guide and more. The video clips have me excited to finally see this. It looks like the film makes the Green Belt Movement come alive in a way Unbowed couldn't quite manage for me.  Here's the trailer:



You might also want to take a look at this editorial by Wangari Maathai in which she argues for a greater voice for the African Union in matters such as the current military action in Libya at the same time she chastises the AU for not pressuring member states to live up to the human rights standards it has pledged to uphold.