It is crucial that women increasingly take the reins and responsibility for the world's difficult problems. Women must gain visibility and influence as they become public advocates for peacebuilding, democracy and civil society, ecology, sustainability and public health, grassroots economic development, human, women's and children's rights, religious freedom and other pivotal social issues.

The Women Rising Radio Project is giving powerful women worldwide prime radio air time to speak about their work, their issues, their dreams and visions. Women Rising is helping to bring public discourse to a deeper and more personal level.

Women Rising is a project of Crown Sephira Productions and its producer Lynn Feinerman, in co-production with the Women's Desk of the National Radio Project. These programs were released within the Making Contact series.

Programs are listed below - click through to descriptions for guest contact information and audio files.

10-08 Women Rising XVI: Civil Disobedience and Resistance
Anti-war activist Medea Benjamin takes her pro-democracy and pro-environment activism to new heights with CODEPINK; Burmese activist Saw Myat Mar has worked closely with Nobel Prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to establish "Burma's National League for Democracy."

50-07 Women Rising XV: World Health Activists
Women are gaining influence as leaders throughout the world, fighting for peace and justice. In this program, we profile two activists, Prudence
Mabele and Mary Pipher, facing two of the most difficult health and human rights issues of our time.

43-07 Women Rising XIV: International Changemakers in the Arts
On this edition, we profile four artist activists. Velina Brown is a core actor with the world famous San Francisco Mime Troupe. So An is a singer activist in Haiti. Jaishri Abichandani is an artist and curator with the South Asian Women's Creative Collective and Zimbabwean Rutendo Mudzamiri teams with the International Museum of Women to launch the "Imagining Ourselves" online art exhibit.

37-07 Women Rising XIII: Enterprising Women
Lucky Chhetri started the first women's trekking guide business in Nepal. Jane Kunyiha works with the Baobab Project, making micro-grants for small business startups in Kenya. Brigitte Kitenge created a women's cooperative organization in the Congo for women victims of war, and Rashmi Dixit started a restaurant to rescue indigenous culture in India.

21-07 Women Rising XII: International Changemakers - Journalists in the Crosshairs
Giuliana Sgrena, Italian journalist, kidnapped by Iraqi resistance fighters while on assignment, then shot by US soldiers on her release; María Suárez, founder, FIRE: Feminist International Radio Endeavor of Costa Rica; Sarah Olson, US journalist, broke the story of Army Lieutenant Ehren Watada's refusal to deploy to Iraq.

10-07 Women Rising XI: International Council of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers
Rita Pitka Blumenstein of the Yupik nation, on staff at Anchorage's South Central Foundation Traditional Healing Clinic; Flordemayo, Mayan curandera (healer), board member of the Institute of Natural and Traditional Knowledge in New Mexico; Beatrice Long-Visitor Holy Dance, elder in the Native American Church, sundancer, health worker with the Lakota Oglala people.

51-06 Women Rising X: International Changemakers - Human Rights Advocates
Huwaida Arraf, founder, International Solidarity Movement (ISM); Maria LaHood, lead attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights; Patricia Isasa, activist and former torture victim.

47-06 Women Rising IX: International Changemakers - Honoring Elder Women Activists
Dr. Helen Caldicott, founder, Nuclear Policy Research Institute; Dolores Huerta, co-founder, United Farm Workers of America; Mairead Corrigan Maguire, co-founder, Community of the Peace People.

30-06 Women Rising VIII: International Changemakers Protecting the Environment
Anne Kajir, Papua New Guinea indigenous lawyer and Goldman Environmental Prize recipient; Olya Melen, Ukrainian lawyer and Goldman Environmental Prize recipient; Dana Rassas, Palestinian activist; Ilana Meallam, Israeli advocate.

25-06 Women Rising VII: International Changemakers in Politics
United States Congresswoman Barbara Lee, 9th Congressional District of California. Wu Qing, People's Deputy at the Beijing and District levels in China. Malalai Joya, among the first women elected to both the Loya Jirga and the WR7-2 new Parliament of Afghanistan.

01-06 Women Rising VI: International Changemakers - Whistleblowers
Cindy Sheehan, founding member of Gold Star Families for Peace; Leuren Moret, geologist and anti-nuclear activist; Sibel Edmonds, former FBI counterintelligence trainer and whistleblower.

40-05 Women Rising V: International Changemakers - Grassroots Activists
Shereen Essof, activist for women's rights in Zimbabwe and South Africa; Sahar Saba, Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA); Wendy Pekeur, Sikhula Sonke and the Women On Farms Project in South Africa.

25-05 Women Rising IV: International Changemakers - Women as Religious Activists
Elana Rozenman, Co-Director of the Women's Interfaith Encounter; Irshad Manji, Author; Regina O'Callahan, Founder, Northern Ireland Interfaith Forum.

47-04 Women Rising III: International Changemakers - Women Writer Activists
Ritu Menon, leading Indian feminist publisher; Maria Cristina Caballero, Colombian journalist and peace activist; Asale Angel Ajani, African American author on Colombia.

03-04 Women Rising II: International Changemakers - Women in Peace and Antimilitarism
Laura Slattery, Pace e Bene; Amneh Badran, Jerusalem Center for Women; Paula Green, Karuna Center for Peacebuilding; Hyun Back Chung, The Women’s House for Peace.

10-03 Women Rising: International Changemakers
Wangari Maathai, founder of the Greenbelt Movement in Kenya; Devorah Brous, founder of Bustan L'Shalom, a human rights/peace and justice organization in Israel/Palestine; Lydia Alpizar, founder of Elije, a youth organization for women’s rights in Mexico.