Each video in this series covers two countries:
Egypt: Fifteen-year old Samah Ibrahim Hussein gives us an intimate view of her neighborhood in a government housing project in Cairo, Egypt. With great pride she introduces us to her 5,000 year-old culture, taking us on a tour of the pyramids, the Sphinx and the Nile River. We also get a subtle glimpse of the dilemmas faced by a girl trying to be a modern teenager in an Islamic culture.
Tanzania: Bernard Bulemela, 15 years old, lives in remote, rural Tanzania, East Africa. Bernard tells us about his peoples's struggle with desertification, and how local tree and water projects give hope. We feel the joy and excitement as villagers celebrate the opening of a new well. We also go to school with Bernard, where the teaching of Kiswahili combats tribalism and promotes national unity.
Discussion and study guide include.
Closed captioned.

Australian Max Walker spends his 29th Christmas filming the unique holiday celebration by people of Bumu village in Tanzania. There he befriends Steven, a teenager who explains that Christmas brings no gifts - no Santa Claus.
The annual income per family in Bumu is only about one-hundred dollars. The village lacks electricity, telephones, running water, roads and health facilities. What could the villagers possibly have to celebrate? Walker discovers that the people of the village believe they have a lot to celebrate. By looking through the eyes of the villagers, Walker - and viewers - see Christmas in a way they never would have imagined.

This video, suitable for young children, features three African fables: "Banana Thieves", "The Spider and the Antelope", and "The Boastful Crocodile". Illustrations are watercolor drawings by Deus Tumbago and Lisa Bade. Each fable is introduced by a young man from South Africa, who explains how animal tales are used to pass on cultural traditions and important lessons in African society. In addition, there is a 4-minute segment entitled "Children of Zaire", with scenes of daily life. Food preparation, homes, the village blacksmith, and a church service are viewed through a child's eyes.

Young people from North America join African youth at the Youth Assembly of All Africa Conference of Churches in Zaire. Cultural differences and similarities are explored and understood, including the role of the church in students' lives.

Each video in this series covers two countries:
1. Japan: This video features the life of Satomi Tamura, a 13 year old girl from historic Kyoto, Japan. The program follows her and her friends at school as they study English and character painting. Her parents and home life are seen as are visits to a cemetery and to a nearby Shinto shrine. Special note is made of the value Japanese place on education.
2.Cambodia: Sok Thea, a 13-year old Cambodian boy, lost his leg to a land mine as he tended his family's cows. The program follows him as he struggles to use his new prosthesis. You visit his family and get a rare view into rural Cambodian life. Sok Thea is one of thousands of people maimed or killed in the aftermath of the country's genocidal civil war.
Closed captioned for the hearing impaired.

Each video in this series covers two countries:
1. Haiti: Marie Julie Deronnette, 14 years old, lives in a south-coast fishing village where she, her younger sister, mother and grandmother inhabit a two room home. Desperately poor, all four must work to feed themselves and to keep the family together. In addition to their typical daily lives and the children's schooling, Haitian proverbs and the sport of cock fighting are explored.
2. The Dominican Republic: Jonathan Taveras de los Santos, 13 years old, lives with his family at a crowded Santa Domingo housing project. In the aftermath of hurricane "Georges," he fell and broke his arm, but that did not dampen his enthusiasm for baseball and Sammy Sosa. Jonathan's home and school are shown along with historic colonial sites, including the Faro a Colon where Christopher Columbus is buried.
Closed captioned for the hearing impaired.

This is new version of "Central America Close-up"(VT0542).
Each video in this series covers two countries:
1. Guatemala: Natividad, a 14-year-old Maya girl called "Nati" faces important choices about her future. Her isolated mountain farming village retains many age-old traditions, which strengthen its sense of identity. However, the increasing scarcity of farmland and a recently constructed road are influencing changes in village lifestyles. 2. El Salvador: Jose Marvin Benitez, age 15 is called Marvin by everyone. He was born in Nicaragua, to which his parents fledduring the civil war of the 1980s. After years of uncertainty, they return totheir native land. Back in El Salvador, they begin rebuilding their lives and establishing new roots in Nueva Esperanza, a jungle cooperative village where Marvin now attends school. Closed captioned for the hearing impaired.

In Guatemala, an Indian teenager flees from violence in her village to the city and its challenges. A young El Salvadoran woman joins other youth to work for peace, despite the danger of violence and murder.
New version of this video is VT2662.

In Nicaragua, a young woman medical student commits herself to the revolution and the danger involved. In Honduras, a student refuses to allow poverty to keep him from his studies or from helping his neighbor.