Link TV Celebrates the UNs International Day of the Girl Child with Special Programming on Friday, October

San Francisco, Calif. - Oct. 1, 2013 - In honor of International Day of the Girl Child, a UN observance that promotes girls rights and highlights gender inequalities, Link TV will air a special three-hour block of inspiring documentaries and shorts on Friday, October 11 starting at 11 a.m. PST / 2 p.m. EST. The programming block will repeat at 7 p.m. PST/ 10 p.m. EST.

With poignant themes ranging from education to economic empowerment, each film, also streaming online, will showcase the trials and triumphs of girls from around the world.

To commemorate the International Day of the Girl Child, Link TV will feature the following films that take viewers from rural Bangladesh to Zambia to war-torn Afghanistan to discover the enduring spirit of young women.

To Educate A Girl

(11 a.m. PST / 2 p.m. EST)

Filmmakers Frederick Rendina and Oren Rudavsky travel to Nepal and Uganda, two countries emerging from conflict and struggling with poverty, to find the answer to one question: What does it take to educate a girl?

Vital Voices: Kakenya

(Noon PST / 3 p.m EST)

Kakenya Ntaiya had a dream: to become a teacher. On the way to achieving it, she has had to overcome obstacles and make tough compromises. But, after becoming the first girl from her Maasai village to attend college, she has opened a path for other young girls achieve their dreams.

Smile Pinki

(12:15 p.m. PST / 3:15 p.m. EST)

Winner of the 2009 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject), Smile Pinki tells the uplifting story of two young children in India born with cleft lips. Thanks to the efforts of Smile Train, an organization that pays for surgeries to fix clefts, thousands of children around the world are given a second lease on life every single day.

Shilpis Story: Proving the Value of Girls in Bangladesh

(12:55 p.m. PST/ 3:55 p.m. EST)

In rural Bangladesh, sons are considered a blessing, while girls are seen as a burden. They are often married off young -- ending their education and putting them and their babies at greater risk of death from complications at birth or during pregnancy. But what happens when you give girls a voice? Shilpi gained the confidence to find an alternative -- even though women in her culture are expected to stay at home. Thanks to support from the Nike Foundation, Save the Childrens Girls Voices project has given 42,000 girls in Bangladesh a chance to raise their voices.

The Entrepreneurs

(1 p.m. PST / 4 p.m. EST)

Florence, Esnart, Ngandwe and Precious all come from backgrounds of extreme poverty in rural Zambia. Theyve embarked on five months of intensive training in leadership and enterprise. With courage and determination, these young women defy the odds and establish their own successful businesses, proving that anything is possible.

Skateistan

(1:50 p.m. PST / 4:50 p.m. EST)

This documentary film follows Skateistan, Afghanistans first co-educational skateboard school and its founders, and their daily struggle to break down social, gender and ethnic barriers between the children of a war-torn country. As the foreign skaters quickly discover, local custom will only allow girls to skate in public up to the age of 12 - after that there must be no boys or men around. The solution: build something new that will provide space to hold all-girl skate classes with experienced female teachers.

About Link TV

Link TV is a viewer-supported 501(c)(3) organization, distributed nationally via satellite on DIRECTV channel 375 and DISH Network channel 9410 - reaching more than 33 million US households. Link TV is a service of KCETLink, the national independent public transmedia organization formed by the merger between KCET and Link Media. Select Link TV programming also airs on 220 cable outlets, including in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, reaching an additional 22 million homes. Link also streams much of its content online at LinkTV.org. For complete background information, program schedule and Internet streaming, go to LinkTV.org. Follow on Twitter @linktv, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/linktv.

LINK:	http://www.kcet.org/about/pressroom/press-releases/link-tv-celebrates-...
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