A Path Appears - Episode One

Olivia Wilde discusses her involvement in Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide and her experience in Kenya.

America Ferrara discusses her involvement in Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide and her experience in India.

Eva Mendes discusses her involvement in Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide and her experience in Sierra Leone.

Gabrielle Union discusses her involvement in Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide and her experience in Vietnam.

Urmi Basu, the founder of New Light, explains to America Ferrera the caste system in India and how women end up in prostitution.

Olivia Wilde and Nick Kristof visit Joyce, a Kenyan woman who owns a restaurant in Nairobi. Joyce is a member of Jamii Bora, Kenya's largest microfinance organization and a powerful agent of change for the country's women. It provides loans to individuals, including former beggars, prostitutes, and the severely impoverished, who would be unable to pursue their ambitions without financing.

Agnes Libbi Smith lost her father during the civil war in Sierra Leone and her mother when she was 13 years old. Finding herself homeless, Agnes was physically abused and raped by a teacher who promised her an education. Finally breaking free and seeking help at the Rainbo Center with Amie Kandeh and the International Rescue Committee, Agnes hopes to become a doctor and help others.

Follow America Ferrera along as she narrates her time in India through a diary cam. Ferrera talks about meeting the young girls who work with Urmi Basu to break the cycle of forced prostitution. Watch as Ferrera makes chapati with the girls and even learns to sew with some of the mothers.

Sakena Yacoobi has made a difference in the lives of around 8.5 million people through the operation of learning facilities in Afghanistan over the course of twenty years. Sakena believes that, if properly equipped with the knowledge and confidence to act, the current generation of Afghani girls can fix the country's severe gender imbalances within just 5 to 10 years.

Nick Kristof and Olivia Wilde venture through Nairobi to reach Kibera, one of the largest slums in the world. Here, Kennedy Odede and Jessica Posner have worked tirelessly to promote the cause of women, using schools, clinics, and community services to combat Kibera's extreme poverty and habitual neglect toward girls.

Women and girls account for 80 percent of the people trafficked across international borders each year, most often for sexual exploitation. Stripped of their basic human rights, women and girls are bought and sold, generating an estimated $27.8 billion of profit for their exploiters.

Gabrielle Union, Olivia Wilde, Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof discuss solutions to the most pressing problems facing women: maternal mortality, gender-based violence, sex trafficking and forced prostitution. Women are not the problem, they are the solution. Education and economic empowerment are the ladder to a better life for women, their families and communities.