"We Sing Her Story"

March 8 is International Women’s Day — and WHRO Public Media is celebrating by releasing the final episode of GreenBeats, a WHRO-produced series of animated shorts that focuses on critical environmental issues and themes. The popular series has helped children learn how to be good stewards of the environment by encouraging kids to recycle, avoid plastics that can’t be recycled—like plastic drinking straws--and clean up after their pets.

This final episode in the series, “We Sing Her Story,“ celebrates four women from around the world who have fought bravely to save the environment.

Songwriter and musician Skye Zentz said for this episode of the series, the team wanted to focus on real-life cases of people leading by example. They originally planned to feature only one woman, but found more stories that they wanted to share.

“The more I looked into the choice of WHO to focus on, the more amazing women I found,” Zentz said. “It was a tall order to whittle it down to four women, but I loved the variety of each of these particular women’s backgrounds and the focus of their work. These women are environmental justice warriors and, honestly, I would have been able to write a whole song about each of them!”

She also wanted the music in the episode to reflect the global nature of the stories being featured, so she incorporated instrumentation from different parts of the world. “Just as we did with the instrumentation, it was tremendously important to me that this song feature an aural quilt of different, distinct voices,” she added. “I love the richness of each of our vocalists’ voices separately, but when they all join together on the bridge, it’s profound!”

Since the episode is unlike others in the series because it tells the true stories of real people, the animation needed to be approached differently as well, said Ken Nishimoto, the series animator.

“I did not have the freedom to just create my own characters, environments or scenarios,” he said. “I had a responsibility to visually tell these stories and depict these characters with respect and accuracy. I had to take the time to research and, in a way, get to know these women as best as I could with the resources I have now.”

Telling each woman’s story in a short verse of music was a challenge, so the song highlights the women’s mission and motives.

“The stories are so different from one another, but the theme I found that connected them all was the theme of a light in the darkness,“ Nishimoto explained. “I decided that each verse would have a moment where the image goes completely black and is then overgrown by light. I created as much as possible by hand and animated using the traditional frame-by-frame method, which is not the usual way I would create a GreenBeats episode. I felt this was important because the song talks about returning to a more direct contact with nature and lessening the interference of modern technology.”

The fact that the episode features real-life environmentalists also made production more special for the team. Each team member said they felt a responsibility to preserve and pass on the legacies of these women and the important work they’ve done around the world.

“Stories only work when we continue passing them on, generation to generation,” explained Zentz. “I feel that when we tell these women’s stories, it renews a sense of purpose and inspiration in all of us—emboldening us to dream bigger about the kinds of change we can foster in our own communities.“

Nishimoto agreed saying the song reminds him of a chant, one of the ways some people groups have recorded history and preserved their identities. “To me, this song is like a modern chant for the tribe of humanity,” he said. “It reminds us that no matter what nation we are from, we all share this home that is Planet Earth.“

Jeff Fine, WHRO’s vice president of production, expressed gratitude to his team for all of their hard work on the series and thanked donor Jane Batten for her generous support.

"We've been so fortunate to have Jane Batten's support, which has enabled us to create these entertaining animated videos to help children around the Commonwealth learn critical lessons about being stewards of the environment," he said.

Though production has wrapped up, there are still exciting opportunities ahead for the series.

"We were just approached this week by WNET, who wants to include the GreenBeats videos in their national television series Camp TV," Fine said. "Also, we're partnering with the Virginia Stage Company to create GreenBeats Live, a musical that will be performed in schools around Hampton Roads this spring. It really feels like GreenBeats is taking on a life of its own."

Watch “We Sing Her Story” online now.
Watch the full GreenBeats series


Want to know more about the women featured in this episode?

Read about them below.

greenbeats rachel carson

Rachel Carson - USA (1907-1964)
Rachel Carson worked as a marine scientist working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington, DC, primarily as a writer and editor. In 1962 she wrote Silent Spring, a book that warned of the dangers to all natural systems from the misuse of chemical pesticides such as DDT, and questioned the scope and direction of modern science. Many attribute her writing as the start of the contemporary environmental movement. Learn more at rachelcarson.org


greenbeats wangari maathai

Wangari Maathai - Africa (1940-2011)
Wangari Maathai was the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize (2004). She founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, an organization that has since planted more than 45 million trees across Kenya to combat deforestation, stop soil erosion, and generate income for women and their families. Learn more at greenbeltmovement.org.


greenbeats berta caceres

Berta Caceres - Honduras (1971-2016)
Berta Caceres was a Honduran environmental activist. In 1993, as a student activist, Cáceres co-founded the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), an organization to support indigenous people's rights in Honduras. She won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015 for her grassroots efforts among the indigenous Lenca people of Honduras that successfully pressured the world’s largest dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam. On March 3, 2016, she was killed by gunmen in her home in La Esperanza, Honduras. A Honduran court ruled in 2018 that executives of DESA, one of the Honduran companies involved in the dam development project, ordered her murder. Learn more at goldmanprize.org


greenbeats vandana shiva

Vandana Shiva - India
Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecologst and a tireless defender of the environment. She is the founder of Navdanya, a movement for the protection of biological and cultural diversity. She is also the founder and director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy, an organization devoted to developing sustainable methods of agriculture. Follow her on Twitter.