With Women’sVoices Now
Celebrating 10 Years as Executive Director
BY: Heidi Basch-Harod
Gusty, dry August summer winds blew through the small parking lot of the Town & Country Shopping Center in Brentwood, California. I was standing just outside the Leslie Sacks Fine Art Gallery, ready to meet with Leslie and Gina Sacks to discuss my interest in the Executive Director position for the two-year old organization championing women’s rights through film, Women’s Voices Now. It was 2012.
Two months earlier, I had moved home to Los Angeles after a half-decade in the Middle East where things aren’t so formal. On the advice of my friend who gave me the lead to the position, I agreed that being presentable was a good idea, especially for a job where I could actually put my graduate studies in women’s rights movements of the Middle East and Africa to practical, actual use. Dressed in a women’s business suit, I was sweating inside the heavy, dark blue material of the jacket.
Leslie and Gina took me to lunch to talk about life, work, my time abroad, and to tell me about themselves. Not so much about Women’s Voices Now. And I loved this — sharing a meal and getting a feel for each other’s presence. Strangely, I ordered soup and sweated it out even more. (It may be that I didn’t want to refuse Leslie’s suggestion that I try it.) Gina returned to the gallery earlier than Leslie and I. We walked slowly through the parking lot. I remember turning to him and saying:
“I’ve never been an Executive Director before, but I know I can do this. I’d love the chance to work for this organization. I believe in the mission and want more people to do so as well.” He said he’d give me a chance and told me the terms. I accepted, and got to work.
13 months later after our first meeting, the visionary founder of Women’s Voices Now bade farewell to his loved ones after a decade-long battle with cancer. I was in Istanbul sharing films from our film collection on topics including honor killings and forced marriages. As Leslie slipped away, Women’s Voices Now was carrying out the mission to advance women’s and girls’ rights through film by working with Turkish and Kurdish students and professors.
Fast forward to another warm, muggy summer day in Redondo Beach, California, in late-July of 2014. I was nearly two years into my job, positioned on my couch in such a way that, as the labor pains with my first child came in very uncomfortable waves, I could quickly re-position and continue editing the newest iteration of the Women’s Voices Now website. I needed to finish uploading and editing film pages before giving birth to my first daughter (who is now the oldest of three!).
I owed it to the filmmakers who bravely told their stories of women’s struggles and triumphs. I owed it to their generosity to allow us to host their films for free so we can share them with a global audience; sparking conversations and influencing behaviors in favor of treating women and girls with dignity and respect. Looking back on that moment, I realize that, in the months after Leslie passed and Gina promised to carry on his legacy by continuing to support the organization, Women’s Voices Now became my adopted child.
Over the past ten years I have had and still have the privilege of growing the now very large Women’s Voices Now family — its team members, Board of Directors, Advisory Board Members, supporting members, and scores of volunteers all over the world. Together, we have the honor of celebrating and awarding the achievements of our film festival beneficiaries — emerging women filmmakers telling their own stories and those whose stories would otherwise never be heard through our film festival. We come together to facilitate our Girls’ Voices Now program, watching teens from Los Angeles develop into filmmaker activists championing their own rights and those of their sisters, near and far.
Over the years, the generous supporters of Women’s Voices Now have helped us grow our free online film collection Voices for Change — 200+ films in 44 languages — to reach millions of viewers all over the world: from the Sequoyah High School Pasadena, California, to the World Bank in Washington D.C., to a backyard in Abuja, Nigeria, where women domestic violence survivors come together to regain their confidence and self-worth as they re-emerge into the world. We are with them and they are with us.
This adopted child, beloved and supported by so many today, is now in its adolescence. It is growing, expanding, trying out new things, making new friends, and becoming a more evolved and mature version of itself, and I am more committed to it as ever.
Throughout the month of August, I will be fundraising in celebration of 10 years of service at Women’s Voices Now. Between today and August 31st, I’m challenging myself to raise $10,000 (!), so we can continue to promote and advance women’s rights through the power of film.
Will you help me reach this ambitious goal today? Please consider celebrating this milestone with me
With gratitude,
Heidi
Heidi Basch-Harod is the executive director of Women’s Voices Now, a non-profit organization using film to promote equality and to advance girls’ and women’s rights globally.
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