Posted By: ivillagecares on

Monday, April 30th, 2007, 12:20 pm

I'm convinced that one of the most important tasks before us is to achieve true equality and diversity in the media. That's why I co-founded The Women's Media Center, a non-profit that has as its main aim, "Making Women Visible and Powerful in the Media." What we see and hear and read in the media has so much influence on how we understand and appreciate ourselves -- our accomplishments and contributions to society. So often our voices and stories are missing, or misinterpreted. It can have life and death consequences, so it means more than just "fairness."

That's why one of the first things the WMC did was create a radio network -- GreenStone Media -- the first woman owned, run and hosted radio network -- so that women can have the chance to shape the conversation. It's why our website at The Women's Media Center links you to women columnists, bloggers and media organizations -- and provides in-depth essays you won't find anywhere else. It's also why the New York premiere of my next movie, Georgia Rule, will benefit The Women's Media Center -- to continue work I believe is so necessary.

A few words about the movie -- which I really enjoyed making. As you may know, I took a long break from filmmaking. One of the reasons I'm back is to make sure the real life projects I've started have sufficient funding.

Georgia Rule is about three generations of women from the same family
who are constantly in conflict, but revelations that come out about the
past lead to forgiveness and understanding.

The men in Georgia Rule help the healing of the three women by support,
love and by telling the truth.

The story is about a teenage girl in San Francisco who is so rebellious her mother sends her to Idaho to spend the summer with her stern grandmother. That would be me. I play Georgia, a strong woman who has a lot of rules that don't always help the situation, but they help her. Georgia is sometimes violent, which is fun to play.

My granddaughter is a rebellious teenager (played by Lindsey Lohan), who screams, swears, drinks and is -- in a word -- uncontrollable. With her latest car crash, Rachel has broken the final rule in my daughter Lilly's (Golden Globe winner Felicity Huffman) San Francisco home. With nowhere else to take the impulsive and rambunctious girl, Lilly hauls her daughter to the one place she swore she'd never return...her own
mother's Idaho home.

Georgia is not your typical sweet and doting grandmother. She lives her life by a number of unbreakable rules, demanding anyone who shares her home do the same -- God is respected, hard work is expected and a tight schedule is never forsaken. Now saddled with raising the young woman, it will require each patient breath Georgia takes to understand Rachel's fury.

However, as Rachel succumbs to her Idaho summer of misery and shakes up the tiny Mormon town, Georgia notices something is changing within her granddaughter. Given structure and responsibilities, Rachel is letting her guard down and learning compassion. Her journey will lead all three women to revelations of buried family secrets and a hopeful understanding that -- regardless what happens -- the ties that bind should bind.

It's a story of forgiveness, understanding and truth told with honesty and great humor, compassionately and carefully directed by the wonderful Garry Marshall.

I think women of all ages will relate to this movie -- as will men, who find women complex, but fascinating.

The Georgia Rule premiere is May 8th at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City and opens throughout the country on Friday, May 11th. More information is available on The Women's Media Center website. To listen to our radio network online, go to www.greenstonemedia.net.

Posted By: ivillagecares on

Wednesday, April 18th, 2007, 4:09 pm

When I'm not shooting "Men in Trees" in Vancouver, I volunteer for Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, or RFBD. RFBD is an organization that records textbooks for blind and dyslexic students. Volunteers come to their offices, pick up whatever textbook is being recorded that week, and head to a recording booth for a couple of hours to read aloud as many pages as they can. You never know what book you're going to get during your recording session, from the history of film to chemistry to a historical novel.

People sometimes ask me what kind of personal connection I have with RFBD. Although my great grandmother did suffer from blindness, I chose to work with them because it's an outlet where my skills can be best put to use. It's a great opportunity for people who like to read, and also for people who work odd hours like me. Check them out at rfbd.org: they have offices all across the country, and just a couple of hours a week can really make a difference.

Posted By: ivillagecares on

Monday, April 2nd, 2007, 4:47 pm

I started the Joyful Heart Foundation in 2002 (Mariska, to help survivors of sexual assault heal their minds, bodies and spirits and reclaim their lives. Playing Detective Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit opened my eyes to the epidemic of sexual assault in this country. It wasn't just in the scripts for the show, but in the many emails I received from viewers disclosing their stories of sexual assault for the first time.

I felt a great responsibility to these brave women to let them know that they had been heard and that they could have hope. I studied the subject, trained to become a crisis counselor, and have used my visibility as an actress to become an advocate. The result was The Joyful Heart Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing support and encouragement for survivors of sexual assault.

In creating programs for our members, we quickly realized that everyone heals differently. We provide an extensive network of resources for women and our own groundbreaking retreats that include art therapy, surf camps, swimming with dolphins in the wild, yoga and writing workshops that complement traditional counseling and therapy. When women are abused and assaulted, it is like the doors to their souls slam shut. The goal of Joyful Heart is to let the light, and the life, back in--to banish the darkness and let the healing begin.

Visit the Joyful Heart Foundation online for more information.

 -- Mariska Hargitay plays Detective Benson on Law and Order Special Victims Unit which airs on NBC Tuesdays at 10 PM ET/PT

Posted By: ivillagecares on

Monday, April 2nd, 2007, 4:39 pm

Last fall I attended my first Jimmy Carter Work Project in Lonavala, India, just a couple of hours outside of Mumbai. The JCWP is an annual event in which former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn lead thousands of volunteers in a concentrated effort to build a large number of Habitat for Humanity houses in a single week. Last year's project marked the 23rd such effort. Over the course of that time, the event has resulted in thousands of houses in dozens of locations throughout the world.

This project was particularly meaningful to me, however, not only because it was my first, but because of its India location as well. It was in that country, after all, where about five years ago I reaffirmed my commitment to helping the least, the lost and the left out among us.

Bill Hybels, pastor at the Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago, would call that "holy discontent," which he distinguishes from mere "discontent" along these lines: Discontent is when we watch a terrible event unfold on television, remark that "something ought to be done about that," then tune in quickly to the Movie of the Week.

"Holy discontent," he says, is when we watch the same event, put down the remote control and go into the street to do something about it-when God seizes our heart in a way that compels us to act. This is what I experienced in India while working with the very lowest of the untouchables, the Bhangi Dalits, and particularly as I encountered the enormous hardships the children were enduring every day.

It was a much-anticipated experience for me to return to India in my role with Habitat for Humanity International and to demonstrate that "holy discontent" in partnership with a few thousand volunteers and with families who urgently needed a safe, solid home they could afford. At the end of the week, as we dedicated two adjoining homes that I helped build, Aziz, one of the homeowners, put his arm around Subhash, his new neighbor, and said, "We are from different faiths and different castes, but now we are brothers."

As a child, I often heard my grandmother Millicent Fenwick, the late congresswoman and social justice pioneer, recite Micah 6:8, which says: "... And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

Habitat for Humanity, I feel, provides a perfect opportunity for any of us to practice justice, mercy and humility with our neighbors in desperate need, and that opportunity doesn't rely on our being Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindi, any other faith-or of no faith. Habitat's is an open door that places no strings on one's coming or going.

People engage Habitat for different reasons, but the result is always the same: transformation. And this happens not only in the lives of those who will live in the Habitat homes, but in the lives of those who help build them as well.

One of my favorite quotes about Habitat for Humanity came from Randall Wallace, the screenwriter who wrote Braveheart. In describing the Habitat experience, he said: "Habitat for Humanity is a perpetual motion miracle: everyone who receives, gives-and everyone who gives, receives. If you want to live complacent and uninspired, stay away from Habitat; come close to Habitat and it will change you, and make you part of something that changes the world."

Habitat's is a somewhat unique mission in that supporters can put their compassion to work by supporting our work financially, but they can also get out there on a work site and labor shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand with other partners and with the very people they are wishing to help.

There's truly a place for everyone at Habitat, regardless of race, religion or, yes, construction skills. So whatever we call our discontent, we can put it into action to help build houses with our neighbors who need them. I'm deeply humbled by the opportunity to do this with countless other Habitat partners-whether across the street or across the ocean.

To learn more about this "perpetual motion miracle," call us at 1-800-HABITAT or visit us online at www.habitat.org.

And let's build it!

Jonathan T.M. Reckford
Chief Executive Officer
Habitat for Humanity International

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