Brave Girl Rising with Martha Adams

Brave Girl Rising, screened this past Monday for members of the community including Global Scholars from both Poly and schools in the Pasadena Unified School District, follows the story of Nasro, a Somalian refugee in the Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya. The twenty-minute short film, which blends the artistry characteristic of film festivals with subject matter typical of a documentary, furthers the mission of the original Girl Rising piece, released five years ago to promote girls’ education worldwide. Brave Girl Rising focuses on one girl and her struggle to receive an education in the environment that is perhaps least conducive to such aims. The film has five main segments, each of which depicts a distinct part of her journey to attain an education.


The film, per Martha Adams, the producer who spoke at the event, was not wholly reflective of what actually happened during Nasro’s years in the camp. However, the piece did attempt to capture the realities of the refugee experience of young women and girls in such conditions. The film script, written by Warsan Shire, is at once poetic and concise. During the initial screening of the film, I began considering many questions that were addressed during the question-and-answer portion of the event. I was concerned about the role Nasro herself played in the writing and production of the film; the degree to which Shire, Nasro, and Adams collaborated; and the influence of the various backgrounds of the producers and the circumstances of the film on the final piece. I thought that, without Nasro’s input, the film might obscure or commandeer her voice rather than amplify it. However, after hearing of Adams several lengthy Skype calls with Nasro and Shire’s personal investment in and experience with Nasro’s experiences (she was born to Somalian parents in Kenya), I was made all the more confident that the film’s intent and process aligned. The film, moreover, was profound, calling on the common desire for education the world over and demanding the viewer’s full empathetic commitment. Brave Girl Rising more than accomplished its mission of detailing the struggle girls face in accessing education, both in refugee camps in Kenya and across the globe, and I thank Martha Adams for contributing her time!


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