SHE RISES UP

Director: Maureen Castle Tusty

2024, 91min.

Post-screening talk-back with director Maureen Castle Tusty and Executive Producer James Tusty.

 

She Rises Up chronicles the remarkable journeys of three women who are helping to lift their communities out of poverty through the local businesses they fight the odds to maintain. Gladys Yupanqui of Peru founded a mini-market and is looking to expand. Magatte Wade of Senegal is building a cosmetics manufacturing company. Selyna Peiris of Sri Lanka is expanding the textile company founded by her mother.

Nearly one-third of all countries have laws that stifle a woman’s access to work. They limit access to bank accounts, property inheritance, and many types of jobs. These countries have some of the highest poverty rates in the world.

Gladys, Magatte and Selyna’s stories are each unique unto themselves. Yet a common theme illustrates the critical importance of local businesses to emerging economies. These women prevail over issues that are not faced by the multinational corporations that come in. Opening a business in many countries is easier for a large foreign corporation than for local entrepreneurs.

McKinsey & Company has calculated that if women were to participate in the world economy to the same extent as men, they would add the equivalent of the combined economies of China and the U.S. to the world’s prosperity.

She Rises Up reveals the role entrepreneurs and small businesses can play in women gaining financial independence, and ultimately reducing poverty for all.