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Sound-rich, evocative, funny, and powerful--stories of coming of age, rituals and rites of passage, secret identities.  Of women who crossed a line, blazed a trail, changed the tide. These specials are produced by Peabody Award-winning producers, The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva), in collaboration with NPR reporters and foreign correspondents, independent producers and listeners around the world. 

These two stand-alone Specials are Newscast Compatible, produced with the NPR News Special Programming Clock, and available to all stations Monday, October 3rd.

The Hidden World of Girls
Two New Hours from The Kitchen Sisters and NPR

With Host Tina Fey

NPR is very pleased to announce the October availability of “The Hidden World of Girls,” two new hour-long Specials hosted by Emmy Award-winning writer and actress, Tina Fey. Stories of coming of age, rituals and rites of passage, secret identities—of women who crossed a line, broke a trail, changed the tide. 

Host Tina Fey, star of 30 Rock, author of Bossypants and Saturday Night Live alumna, takes listeners around the world into the secret life of girls—from the dunes of the Sahara to a slumber party in Manhattan, from the dancehalls of Jamaica to a racetrack in Ramallah—and reveals some of her own hidden worlds.  

These two new specials are produced by the Peabody Award-winning Kitchen Sisters, in collaboration with NPR and independent producers from around the world.  Inspired by “The Hidden World of Girls” series heard on Morning Edition and “All Things Considered”, these specials feature the best stories from that series as well as new, never before heard features, interviews and music.  

Lively, sound-rich, evocative, “The Hidden World of Girls” is two hours of stories and more. Stories of girls and the women they become. Learn more at hiddenworldofgirls.org

These Specials are available to all stations on Content Depot and PRX.org on Monday, October 3.

As part of this international collaboration, The Kitchen Sisters opened up The Hidden World of Girls NPR phone line and invited listeners to share their stories of groundbreaking girls and pioneering women. Calls poured in from around the world and these stories and messages thread throughout the hours. Some of the stories that will be heard include:

• The story of The Braveheart Women’s Society: Coming of Age in South Dakota, a journey to a four-day rite of passage ceremony for Sioux girls from the banks of the Missouri River.
• From the foothills of Dublin, The Hidden World of Traveller Girls. Travellers, the gypsies of Ireland, nomads traveling in caravans, camping by the side of the road. The men live for horses, the girls for their weddings. Big elaborate weddings.
• From Afghanistan we enter The Hidden World of Kandahar Girls—girls and young women going to school, working towards careers, standing up to the threats of the Taliban.
• We travel to Wayne County, Mississippi into the world of Girls Who Hunt. 
• We explore the mysterious universe of women’s bodies in the story, Chicken Pills: The Hidden World of Jamaican Girls where homegrown cosmetic treatments and changing ideals of beauty are part of a national debate going on in the music, in the dancehalls and on the streets.
• Nigerian writer, Chris Abani tells the story of his English-born mother, Daphne Mae Hunt, who enlists him at age 8 to be her translator in rural Nigeria as she goes door-to-door into the villages teaching women the Billings Ovulation Method of birth control.
• In San Francisco, we step inside the secret identity of Theresa Sparks.
• We visit Tiina Urm, a young Estonian environmental activist who spearheaded a one-day clean up of her entire country.
• We meet Amira Al-Sharif from Yemen who came to New York City to document the lives of young American women. 
• We grapple with issues of family, crime, violence and reckoning in the story, Deborah Luster: One Big Self
• Russia’s Singing Babushkas—a group of elderly women from Buranovo, Russia, who began singing together and who have become a musical sensation at concerts performing Beatles songs.  
• Horses, Unicorns and Dolphins—a story of girlhood fantasy and aspiration.
• And science fiction stories of friendship, superpowers and the Beatles.  

Major Funding for The Hidden World of Girls comes from The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes a great nation deserves great art. And from listener contributions to The Kitchen Sisters Productions.