Documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy spent a year with Taliban recruiters and children who were training to become suicide bombers.

Her mission? To understand how the Taliban convert children into live ammunition, and why the children actively sign up to their cause.

Based on first-hand, up-close personal observation, Obaid-Chinoy believes the Taliban use a powerful five-step process

Dr. Janet Rose Wojtalik has seven powerful “secrets” to share about parenting girls – secrets that will help today’s moms and dads create the strong, independent, amazing women of the future.

One of three children born to working-class parents, Wojtalik says she herself struggled to break free from negative, gender-biased parental and societal messages, and the fear of failure, to eventually

Here's a taster from the latest video blog update (#5), from Dubai-based Canadian journalist (and AWR member) Natalie Carney, who is producing a documentary on children in Afghanistan.

See the 10-minute "full meal deal" here.

Find out more about her fledgling charity Kids Being Kids: Afghanistan here.

 

Related links:

As post-election trauma and violence sweep across Iran, the powerfully positive forces of music and dance are also at work transforming our world.

Today, I was exposed to two inspirational musical initiatives, one of which I’d like to share with you now (I’m saving the other one for later).

I’m reading A Whole New Mind (Daniel H. Pink), at the moment.

Coincidentally, today my Malaysian friend Malar (thanks Marls, I miss you!), sent me a link to Sir Ken Robinson’s 2006 TED Talk on creativity and education.

The common themes struck a chord with me.

It's a fact that educating girls and empowering women creates a powerful force for positive economic and social

Some people say women talk too much. Maybe so.

In a video message posted just before International Women’s Day on March 8, Queen Rania of Jordan says that on average women use 20,000 words in a day, almost three times as many as men do on average.

Perhaps she read those statistics in In The Female Mind, a book by female psychiatrist Dr. Luan Brizendine, a great synopsis of which can be

He’s not a woman, but he has been an amazing inspiration to me.

His mythical fable, The Alchemist, which has been translated into more than 60 languages and sold tens of millions of copies worldwide, is one of my favourite books.

In fact, since I first read it five years ago, it’s been a spiritaul guide of sorts to me. I treasure my personally autographed, dog-eared copy, which never fails me in

I love Ode magazine.

It’s simply the best magazine I’ve ever read. Ever. I devour each issue from cover to cover. It’s a constant source of new ideas, thought-provoking articles and inspiration.

The October 2008 issue has two particularly interesting articles, one about alternative education for children, the other about the merits of failure (which I’ll save for another day).

The

As children, we tell stories, practice magic and deploy the power of our imagination naturally. We don’t think about it.  We just do it.

We easily weave grand tales of heroes and monsters in which fantasy and reality become wonderfully blurred. We have no inhibitions. Our creativity knows no bounds. Anything (and everything!), is possible.

Sadly, as we “grow up” that delightful capacity