RAFEA: SOLAR MAMA

Working as a solar engineer when you can’t read and write? It is not just Rafea, a Bedouin mother of nine, who finds this idea absurd. She lives with her family in a remote desert region on the Jordan-Iraq border where there is no electricity or running water. But thanks to an initiative by Barefoot College, Rafea is going to India to be educated with other mothers from all over the world. Is the traditional community ready to take this step? In sensitively observed images the film underlines the barrier between tradition and modernity. As an ambassador for a better future Rafea has a great deal of opposition to overcome – not least from her own people. Anne Thomé 

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