Sahar Sarshar gave us some tips on how to tell stories of international women -- locally and globally

• Get to know the culture you're covering and show them that you care and understand their everyday life --- then find the stories that will inspire and motivate them.
• Research is key.
• Take what you present to your audience seriously
• Find stories that can work across cultures and bridge the gaps across the globe.

Sarshar showed us a 30 second clip of an animation bumper VOA created for the Iranian New Year that showed a woman, Ms. Spring, who is so magical she can make the sun shine and flowers bloom with a snap of her fingers.

Here is the Web site for Voices of America.

The women in Paola's book are her partners

She asks them their most interesting stories, interviews them in their first language and only works with women interpreters.

She records all of her interviews, transcribes the work and forms the chapter, and then sends the draft back to the partner in the other country and asks them to correct facts, spelling, etc.

That process has yielded some changes, but surprisingly, not many fact changes, she said. She also has the publisher give the women a copy of the book and allows non-profit organizations to use the photographs she uses in the books.

"it's an interesting collaborative system that really works for this type of project," she said.

Paola Gianturco has written a number of books about women's issues and their triumphs

Celebrating Women

Women who light the dark

Viva Colores

She's telling us about her travels -- and the stories in places like Zimbabwe,, Vietnam and Morocco where women use poetry to bring attention to childhood rape, who use puppets to talk about issues of domestic violence and a theatre group that showed illiterate women the impact of new laws that helped to ensure women were treated the same way as men, respectively.

Honor Killings

Lois Raimondo is showing us photographs from her story on honor killings.

A man gouged out his wife's eyes and sliced off her nose because she wouldn't give him a divorce. Raimondo was at the courthouse when the woman went to trial against her husband. The man, in chains, is shown smirking in one of Raimondo's photos.

His response to how he felt about what he'd done?

"She offended my honor, so I 'm proud of what I did."

The police he was with patted him on his back.

The story ran on the front page of the Washington Post (I'm trying to find the story online) and Raimondo said she felt sick about it and wanted to tell a story about the complexity of honor killings and the people involved.

International Panel

Good Morning!

The first of two morning panels is about to get underway here at the JAWS Fall Symposium. The session, an international panel, will discuss how "international issues are being covered at home, how hard it is to pitch international stories related to women, women reporting overseas and how to find -- and best tell -- the untold stories of women overseas."

The panelists are:

Peg Simpson, freelance writer from D.C.
Paola Gianturco, documentary photographer, author
Lois Raimondo, staff photographer The Washington Post
Sahar Sarshar, videographer for voice of America, and video/radio for the Iran chanel.

We're having a little trouble getting all of the technology in the conference room set up, but things should begin shortly.