>> welcome to global 3000! take a listen to this: sounds like these are e inspirg young mexicansns, we check outn exciting orchestra project. in india, some women are taking radical steps to stop their menstrual cycle for work reasons and like many countries, gambia has a trasah problelem. but one wowoman is getting a handle on it and proving there's poteial in waste . climate change affects everyone regardless of gender yet women are the main losers when it

comes to its effects. 70 percent of all people living below the poverty line are women. the poor are hardest hit by droughts, extreme weather and bad harvests. when drinking water supplies run dry, it's typically women and girls who have to walk long distances to fetch water. and that means missing work or school. when harvests are bad, men are usually the ones to leave home to look for work elsewhere, leaving their families behind. in some places, when there's not enough food to go around, it's not uncommon to exchange a daughter for some livestock. but does all this mean that women are powerless? no. in the gambia, we met a woman helping both the environment and the many women around her.

>> workingng with women n is so enjoyable.e. to b be honest womomen, whener they are committed, they are coitteted. ananin any development in thte whwhole world, w women they py 100% of theieir role. in anythi. they ner s set bk, thehey always push to the limit. isatou c csey has been called thgagambia'squeeeen oflastic recyclcling'. >> beforore you get fifirewood today, in n the rural cocommunities, y you have to w, maybe one anand a lf, mamaybtwo kilometers before u u get to thforestst thave mayay 10 sticks you can use for one mea u knknow, takeses a lot of ur time. the real poooor ople thehe dona™tt 't g get access toto that char. but with this one, you hav ea accccess ereverer y are inn the country.

>> isatou is the fouerer of th o womemen'initiatiti the gambmbia. it's found a a way to prododuce fuel briququettes from t the ss peaeanutsor grorounuts. groundnuts are the the gambiss ma casash cr and e expt prucuct. ft t to dey, thehe slls produccoco2 anmethanan so first they'y're cshed, , th sllyly burned. >> we're here e for our mimilis we come every moining tohiss ace to earn as mh h as wcan for them. itllowows to pay the scho fees a a school material whenen get up in the mningng a 6:00 to meme her thererere up 500 o oer women here. theieir families w wouldn't sue withthout this jobob. >> one of africa's smalltt cotrieies, t gambibia drowning in n garbage.

>> t to stop them m using plac oror using otherer materials i s very difficult becsese today we are i in kind of a developmt world. everybody goes to the supermarket, buys packed things aneat themem. we believe that these are goodd resoururces that we e can used then turn it into o something. and fofor that one, , pele asku estionons y do yououome with this and how do you do it? it's just about trial. when people ththink about prproblems, the e womena™ss inititiative of gagambia is thinkiking about sololution. >> at a landfifill near cisseys villagage, these womomen are collecting disrded plastic, gls s and leoverer fabc dumpedy lolocal amstreress. if you know what to look for, there are rich pickings to bee had.d. mar ceesasay s one of isisatou firstst partners. she rememembers that t there s some initialal skepticism m at thprojecect and the idid of womemen gaining financial independndence. >> w when i starteted in 1997y fafamily thoughtht i was crazyz. as a yououng married womoman, s expected t to get up in n te

morning, cooook food for my huhusband thehe kitchen. but mymy family and d my husba d toto wat me e headg off f to the dumping ground. ththey tolme i i wast a gogood wife: they expecected me to bebe home with m my husband. they h had no idea w what i wap to!! >> at thisis time of yeaear, ththere's not mumuch growing ie centraral river regigion. it's over 4040 degrees celels, and d the rains wowon't come r anotr sisix months. but people still need e earn a ling. >> i it was a big g threat toe memen of the comommunity. i'i've never blalamed them foro, ththat's t natature of the culture ththat we are liviving. but ia™ve always sasaid: cultue is us, we e are the oneses whoe building cululture.

it's about the situatn n that we a are ling inin a what favours us, we c call it a culte. so o men leading g is noa problem, b but women also o to, they have rights to leadad because they are ctrtributin > the recycliling center ine village of njau where isatou cissey comes from was the first in the gambia. e employedust five women to begin wi. they would collect and clean up old plastic bagsand then weave them into new bags. today, up to 20,000 people acss the coury work wi or for her ng they produce briquettes, soaoa, babags, jewelry y and toys. some of the bestsellinititems are purseses made fr r reclaim plastic. >> "before isatou came along l wewe knew how toto do was cok now we havave skills that t aw usus to earn ourur own mone. >>

village bas look aer the moneearned bthe womes grgroups around d the country t doesn't alall dippear r into their household spenng. >> we e want to empopower themd we want t to train thehem on econonomics. hothey c canork econonically with the little e they have. whehen they receive their momoney from thehe sales, of e purses a" , it's 100 dalai. u u have tsit t backnd telell us how much money do youantt to take home. but whateverapappensyou hahave toto put se momoneinto herere because e we are plannnning for tomorrow. >> when isatou cissey was growg g up, th arerea wa covered with mahogany dd acacacia trees. deforeststation and clclimae change havave transformemed e landscape into aararid sppe. >> we have to cook with firewood.. the womeththey go to the forest and cut trees for cookin therere's no replalacement.

thesese are the prproblems thae arare strugglingng with. that's why we try y to make alternativives, thata™s why we use e waste like g groundnut shells, , coconut shelells ory dry leavaves, we process them in chaharcoa that women can use o one at a ti. >> funded byonationsns, the women's inititiative also o std a project t called refororeste future.. wawater from a w wl irrigates e nenewly-planted d seedlings. alonong with indigigenous trss likeke mahogany, t theomen are grgrowing mango o and coconut t. the saplingsgs are still i in a tree n nursery but w will evenentually be didistributd across the country. >> you want to make a change anto b be su that t itill be never be o overnight. and ththen you have e to haven expectation that if ita™s s 10 -- eectatitionhat if i iis 100 pepeople that arare livinn yoyour area, 75 wiwill say not the e ginning.g. but let that be a motivation for you. everybody try to make sure t tt whatever you are establishing,

t itit be a re t thing which is helping the society. >> s striving fofor equalit, inspiring others on our facecebook channnnel, dw womenen you'll f find stories s about n who are helping others lead selflf-determined lives. dw women gives a voice to the women of our world >> i was ashamed. i was told i was dirty. i thouought i mighght bleed to death.h. for a lot of young women, the first menstruation is a frightening experience. and in many societies, prejudice and alienation make matters worse. in some countries, around half of a all girls s skip school n they're having their period. anand expensive sasanitary pros and popoor hygiene c conditions mean i it's common for women nt to

work when memenstruating e eir ich hahas a financiaial impactn earnings. somemetimes mensnstruation even threatens livelihoods, and women turn to drastic measures to stop it. >> usha bimkaran is a sugarcane harvester. she's only 34, but already she's physically barely able to perform the work. eight years ago she had a hysterectomy to stop her periods. she couldn't afford to miss a day or two of work whenever she was menstruating. but the surgery left her with serious health problems. >> "i'm in constant pain. i have to take medication every day. my whole e body hurts. my back, my head, my legs. eveverything hurts. >> field workers in india earn very little and none as little as the cane cutters. in harvest season they work every day for six months running and make the equivalent of just 700 euros in total. they have to work hard, because the land-owners bank on three harvests per field per season. if women stay home when they're menstruating, the contractors who've hired them make them pay a penalty.

three of these cane cutters have had hysterectomies to make sure they could work as much as possible. >> "when i still g got my peri, ththere'd be four days a month when i couldn't work. ten euros would be taken off my wage every day. in the long term that was more than i could afford. >> usha bimkaran lives in a village in rural central india where few women are educated. over ten percent of the women here have had their uterus removed. in neighboring villages, the figure is closer to 50 percent. hygiene is bad. a doctor advised her to have the hysterectomy to reduce the risk of infection. but he didn't mention the potential side effects, which range from h hormonal fluctuations t to osteoporosi. >> "he told me i would suffer less. i had my uterus removed because i thought it would make everything better. but in the last seven or eight

years i've been in constant pain. >> usha never went to school. she was married at 14, and had her first chilild at 16. ashok is her second son. he began working when he was 13, and is 16 now. usha went into debt to pay for her surgery. basically, the doctor who performed the operation and her boss have both benefited from her decision. but it's brought her nothing but suffering.g. >> "the operation cost 700 euros. i didn't have thatat kind of money. my boss gave me an advance to pay for it, and i had to pay it off. he made me pay interest. 3 percent a month. i was paying it off for three years. >> a few kilometers away in the nearest town, we''re meeting the head of the cane-cutter contractors. he also runs a small office for 'financial services'.

he tells us that he has around 300,000 cane cutters under contract across the state. he also says he advises the women not to undergo the surgery. but that some contractors may have a different view. >> "it's possible that some of them force the women into it. i can't comment on t that. but evenen so i'm surere it's y a few. " >> the sugar industry is a bedrock of the maharashtran economy, employing 25 million people. producucers pay 250 million eus in tax every year...that's why the authorities have little interest in investigating the high rate of hysterectomies among cane cutters. an investigation committee was set up but quickly disbanded. >> "none of them have complained in front of our

committee, in front of me or in front of a health officer." >> "so would you say it's not possible?" >> "unless anyone complains of any activity, we cannot do investigate that matter. " >> that statement angers women's rights activist manisha tokle, who was part of the investigative committee. last year, the public health department revealed that 84,000 hysterectomies were performed in one d district alone. but the report was simply filed away. >> "local authorities have the information. they were taken aback by the shocked response, , and now thy want to cover it up. suddenly the number fell to 13,000 cases. and now supposedly it's just

1,300. >> usha bimkaran doesn't expect the state to do anything about her plight. she hopes that when her son marries, he'll tell his wife not to have a hysterectomy. and she says that if she knew then what she knows now, she'd never have had the operation. >> they break gender barriers in sport. they give sung heriones a voice d helplp others bebeco more indndependent. in ourur impact series we meet entrepreneurs, human rhts activists d bloggers fighting injustice e and taboos i in tr societieies. people making anan impact, p pe making a d difference. >> with no periods, there will be no humans on the planet. why is this taboo? because we have a culture that for whatever r reason taughths that this is an embarrassing

part of life, whicich is stran, it is one of the most miraraculous pieces of our biology. clueue is an app t to help w n basically ununderstand whahats going on in n their bodiese. yoyou can track k when your pei is t there, you can track pain, momoodwings, s sual activity, anand many other things th a ae scscientifically releded to te cycle. w what you get baback is predictionons. yoyou can see whwhat is cominp in the next t couple of dadaysu n n start eingng crelationons across many cycles. there is a lot of informational education. my belief is that when women can liveell with t their biology, they can n have a stronger voice in the world. i i think the worlrld needs tor manyiffeferent types o of voic.

i grew up traveling on motorcycles around the world with my parents and my older brotr evever sce i w wasn infa. so i he e seen a l of the world and i have seen nyny womemen's ves inin my differert settings.. so it t sits really y deep in, ththe sense thatat until womenv control l over their ownwn bos and their owown childbeariringt is really y difficultoto start hang the goodedevelopmentall cyclcles that wewe want to sen the world. one thing that we are proud to do with the user's data is t scicientic workrk. so we carefully select resrcrch ininstitions, , weo sciencnc work on n female healtlth withe aim ofof advancing t the knowle around f female health, so tht wewean give this knowledgege bk to the people who tracd d the data. technonolo itself f , of courursenot gender. a car is a car. a spacace rocket is s a spae rock.

thumbtack k -- femtech is rerey justst saying: thehere is a grof technologies that are addressing needs that women have specifically, because we have a specific body that is different to that of male. female health is still not talked aboutut enough. it is s under-researarched. is also u under-funded. ere is a lot o of work to bebe done to really have e a world where peopople can talk k frey about this as they can talkk abouout their headadaches. mumusic was my f first love ant will be myast . >> music connenects us. it doesnsn't difrentntiate between where peopople come fr, whahat geer thehey e. it's a languguage that's undersrstood across s the glo. almomost every chihild arounde woworld ngs to lea an instrument. it is becacause making mususic, dancing and singing don't ju p ininto our emotitis, they y n unleash our deepest pontntial... the lastst f minutesesefore

the performance begins, when stage fright is at its most intense, when the audience is waiting expectantly that's the part that rosi enjoys most. it's the culmination of a journey. one that was anything but easy. >> "music rescued me. i used to have terrible family problems." >> for tourists, valle de bravo is a lovely place to spend a relaxing vacation. but in the mountainous hinterland, most people struggle to make ends meet. rosi's mother earns a few pesos selling tomatoes door to door. rosi grew up in abject poverty. her family still can't afford a

modern stove. >> "our financial situation is difficult. my parentsts just dodon't havey money. they just don't. >> the family have been through some dark times. rosi's father is a recovering alcoholic. he'd come home from work drunk, angry and with empty pockets. >> "my mother would cry, my children would cry: papa, stay w with us but i'i'd just go off drdrinkg again.n. >> rosi's mother was determined her children would have more opportunities than she had. she signed them up for a new orchestra project offering disadvantaged children free music lessons. it was a decision that would change their lives. the orchestrtra's musical

director is prospero reyes. hehe's not interested in workig with professional musicians chasing fame and fortune. >> "schools select their students carefully. they want the best in the world. i don't care about the best kids. i'm interested in all kids. " >> the filarmonia vallesana is an orchestra financed by donations. it's specifically for children from poor backgrounds who can't afford music l lessons, let ale instruments. what they do have is enthusiasm. as members of an orchestra, they're learning more than just how to play their instrument they're learning about creativity, team spirit and responsibility. the idea is to make learning music fun. there's no pressure.

the students even get to conduct and have a turn being in charge. it boosts their confidence. for rosi, the orchestra was a life-saver. >> "i'm so grateful to have discovered music. it lifted me out of the misery discovered music. itit lifted me out of the misey and loneliness i felt. music's my whole life now. >> alvaro osorio feels like he's found a family. >> "i'm an orphan. this is my family. really. i love it. if i didn't havehis, then ii would really be badly off.f. >> there's no mistaking his commitment. on foot, orchestra practice is two hours away from where he lives. alvaro also passes on what's he's learnt to other children in his village. >> "sharing what i can do with others is what drives me.

my village bonds over music. that means a lot to me. " >> rosi now studies music at a university a long way from home. she tatakes piano and sasaxope classes. it's a demanding program. >> "slow down. you're rurushin. you're nervovous. concentrate." >> but rosi knows she can't take anything for granted. accommodation, food going to university costs money. the university supports rosi as much as it can.

she's clearly a gifted student. the filarmonia vallesana trained her well. >> "she's an excellent student. first class. we're doing eveverything in nr power to make sure she can carry on." >> "if someone asked me if i wanted a different life, i would say nono. i'm prproud of who i i am. i had to grow up fast. and the best part is that when i began with music, my father told me he would quit drinking and win back his family." >> and that's what he did. rosi's father no longer drinks and he works as a technician with the orchestra. today, is a special day for the young musicians. they're performing in valle de bravo's main square. >> "this is so important.

it's a milestone for their confidence." >> rosi is proud to be here. when performing, the orchestra gets to bask in the glory of everything it's achieved. it's when the underprivileged young musicians realise that their accompmplishments are an enrichment not just of their own lives, but of everyone's. >> that's all from us at global 3000 this time. we're back next week of course, with more stories from around the planet. in the meantime, don't forget to write to us. let us know what you enjoyed about the program and what you'd like to learn more about. you can reach us at global3000@dw.com.

and of course do check out our facebook page dw women.

announcer: on this episode of "earth focus"... we vivisit oil-rich communitiesn california's san n joaquin vavay and along alaska's arctic slope, where residents are asking tough questions about the consequences of fossil fuel extraraction. it's beenen the bedrock of their economomic livelihoods for d des but is now fracturing communities and threatening the planet. [camera's shutter advancing]