See our new New Film Poster for #ABrilliantGenocide ahead of our World Premiere ion March 11, Washington DC – as a part of the DC Independent Film Festival!
bikes4life
I Dreamed a Dream – Uganda
Bikes 4 Life in Uganda.
‘I dreamed a Dream’ Performed live by Patrick Roberts at Bikes 4 Life’s Annual Fundraiser in Melbourne.See bikes4life.com.au for more info on the great work by Bikes 4 Life.
I Dreamed a Dream – Uganda from Ebony Butler on Vimeo.
Follow Bikes 4 Life at www.facebook.com/bikes4lifeorg
Child Troopers 2013
In 2012 we travelled to Uganda and New Zealand to continue filming for our documentary ‘Child Troopers’.
In early 2013 we then traveled to the UK to find out more information and hear more stories for our film. This continues again in Uganda in the coming months.
We will be posting some clips form the recent filming in London in the next few weeks so please check back soon for a sneak peak!
We are also sending a 2nd container of bikes to Uganda through our partner organisation Bikes 4 Life, helping the lives of former child soldiers and victims of war.
We wish everyone success and happiness in 2013 and hope you continue to follow our progress with Child Troopers as we enter the final stages of post production later in the year!
Please follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/childtroopers and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/madvsbad
Peace!
Art Auction for Bikes 4 Life
Hey everyone: friends, fans and dear supporters!
Unsigned Management celebrated it’s 1st year in business last Thursday and they decided to do something a little different by asking various artists both locally and overseas to collaborate with them!
They celebrated with an art exhibition and auction, with all money raised going to us at Bikes 4 Life! The auction started on Thursday night and is still going!
The artwork is up for Auction and will be on display at Artmix studio located at 42 Clifton Street, Prahran Victoria.
Opening times:
Monday 10th – Friday 14th December 2012
10am – 4pm.
Auction is going to be open a little longer than originally planned. Closing Friday 14th at 3pm. So please feel free to pop over to Artmix and take a look.
Size of the pieces are A0.
BIDDING
If you’d like to bid or have a sticky beak at what’s happening,
SMS 0429 362 207 and write: R bikes your full name
eg; R bikes Wendy Lilley.
Pass onto your friends and family as all money raised goes to our current projects in Australia and Abroad!
And, it’s easy to do and loads of fun!
See the link below for more info and to see the art work on auction!!
http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=26b421cd110c38dd708c63982&id=9d9b039291&e=a7eeaa4525
Happy Bidding!
Bikes 4 Life Melbourne Workshop Launch
All the Bikes 4 Life teams across Australia are working hard to repair and collect enough bikes, spares and tools for a special Christmas shipment of bikes to Uganda and remote Indigenous communities in Australia.
We would love your help to make this happen and make a real difference to these communities.
BBQ and drinks provided with live acoustic performances from local artists including Zito Ballo and Vinnie Iyer!!
This event is to kick off our weekly Sunday workshops and BBQs and to help get our bikes ready for another shipment to AFRICA!
Bikes 4 Life Post Uganda Event
The event is in support of our Bikes 4 Life Indigenous Program, and to celebrate our recent success in Africa, where we delivered 400 bicycles to remote communities and set up a bike workshop for former child soldiers and victims of Kony’s war in northern Uganda.
There will be food, music, magic and a short film preview of our work in Uganda.
Thanks for your support and I truly hope to see you on Thursday evening!
See: www.bikes4life.com.au and www.facebook.com/bikes4lifeorg
KONY 2012: Live from GULU
Well it has been an amazing first week in the Pearl of Africa! We spent 6 days in Kampala meeting up with friends and contacts from political and humanitarian roots, while also awaiting the arrival of our container full of bikes from Australia.
A few days in we went to the DAMCO office in Kampala to find out what was happening with our bikes and found out there had been a problem at customs with our mattresses and mobile ambulances.
We got the the required papers arranged to clear the container in Mombasa, and were told that we had to wait for a truck to become available, and 4 days on from that call, we are still waiting for a truck to become available!!
We spent a few days meeting with organisation’s that work with orphans and slum communities in the Kampala region, including Hope Restoration Ministry in Jinja and AFFCAD in Bwaise. We will be delivering bikes to both groups when the container arrives, hopefully by next week!
We were chewing into our time north while waiting for the bikes so decided to travel to Gulu, the biggest town in Northern Uganda. We first had a meting with the President of the Uganda people’s Congress (UPC) Doctor Olara Otunnu. By the time the interview ended it was almost 4pm, and traveling to the north is not advised at night time. However we had people waiting for us so we decided to go anyway!
We made it to Gulu safe and sound, thanks to our top driver Charles… We had some close encounters with trucks and saw the Presidential Convoy thrash by. We also ran over a dog which was terrible. It shocked the whole crew, and we arrived close to 11pm in Gulu in quite a sombre state.
I woke up today with the phone going crazy, emails and facebook all maxed out with stories about Joseph Kony and the LRA (Lords’ Resistance Army). Invisible Children have supposedly launched one of the biggest social media / viral marketing campaigns of all time. Interesting that we are here half an hour from Joseph Kony’s home town and at the centre of where all the worst atrocities took place, yet we have heard no one at all talking about it…!?
Today is International Women’s Day and we are going to celebrate with the Gulu community. After that we will continue our work on the ground, helping communities affected by the war and interviewing people about issues relating the the other side of the coin… Every story has two sides after all!
Film Crew Returning to Africa in 10 Days!!
On the 28th of February our crew is heading back to Uganda, and this time we are also hoping to make it to Eastern DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo)- closer to current LRA rebel activity.
We will be spending 5 weeks on the continent, completing the last stages of filming for our feature documentary Child Troopers, which has now been 3 years in the making. This time we are returning with a new all Australian team, together with Bikes 4 Life volunteers from Melbourne, as well as our local crew on the ground in Uganda. We will also be distributing bicycles to remote war-affected communities (see: www.bikes4life.com.au).
One of the our latest additions to the team is one of Australia’s finest cinematographers, Mr Marcus Dineen. Marcus is flying in from Sweden to work with us and shoot some beautiful footage for our film. Very excited to have Marcus working on Child Troopers with us!
Further to that excitement, I am very pleased to announce that Sabina Paisa, associate producer of Child Troopers, will also be traveling with us to Africa at the end of the month! It was a last-minute decision, made possible by one of latest EP’s, Michael Schmidt. We cannot thank Michael enough for being such a great support and huge part of this production!
Keep checking this site as we will post updates as soon as we are on the ground and have access to the internet! But basically, while away we will be working with kids and community groups in the capital city (Kampala), traveling out to slums on the outskirts of the city and getting some projects assessed for future partnerships with Bikes 4 Life… then we will be heading north towards South Sudan, to a place called Pader where we will be working with former child soldiers and victims of the war. Further to that, while in the north, we will be distributing bicycles to people in remote villages and camps, setting up a bike education and vocational training centre at Friends of Orphans in Pader and filming the Bikes 4 Life journey and Child Troopers documentary at the same time!
Our 5 week East and Central African expedition is going to be quite an adventure so make sure you follow us online, via Facebook or Twitter and see what we get up to!
Wish us luck on our journey…. We look forward to sharing our experience with you and thank you for your support!
If you are in Melbourne, please come down to our farewell event, UGANDA BOUND at the Half Moon in Church Street Brighton on Sunday the 26th of February.
See: www.bikes4life.com.au for more info!
Friends of Orphans Bike 4 Life Workshop
WOW what an amazing day we have had!
With many thanks to all involved, and special thanks to Visa Global for the shipping and management, Ex-Pat Deli for the container, Nick & co for the Graffiti and art, John Wells & co at Independent Color for the stickers (logo’s) and Bunnings Port Melbourne for the new equipment…!
Our awesome graffiti artists started yesterday at Visa in Yarraville, and spent the whole day painting the container, which when in Africa will become a bike workshop for former child soldiers.
Former Child Soldier Emmanuel Jal
I had the pleasure of meeting Emmanuel Jal when he was touring in Melbourne just last month. We spent a few days together and he is an amazing person with a most horrific story that not many could ever comprehend. Emmanuel was recruited as a child soldier in South Sudan when he was only 7. For such a scarred and traumatized human being he has come through the darkness of his past and has become a ray of sunshine, with success, happiness… and a message of hope, promoting peace worldwide through his music. One night we rapped together at his apartment. He was trying to help me write a rap song for my charity Bikes 4 Life. We had a lot of fun!
Here’s a photo of Emmanuel, Silva, Blair Stafford and myself at a charity event in Melbourne for Miss World Australia. We had a great time in Melbourne and I hope our paths cross again one day! Emmanuel is an inspiration. See more info below….
Below is an article from Unicef from an interview with Emmanuel.
Former child soldier Emmanuel Jal is now a hip hop star with a message of peace
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| © UNICEF/2008/Marin |
| Emmanuel Jal performs during a panel discussion on children affected by conflict at the United Nations headquarters in New York, on 15 July 2008. |
By Ticiana Maloney and Elizabeth Njinga
NEW YORK, USA, 25 August 2008 – Over a decade has passed since Sudanese hip hop star Emmanuel Jal was a child soldier. He survived to tell his story and is now an acclaimed international musician with a message of peace.
“Each album of mine always has a theme,” he says. “’War Child‘ is about my story, my experience, what I have seen from the war and what I want to change. I want to make a difference.”
When Emmanuel was seven years old, he was recruited by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. He was one of thousands of children forcibly conscripted by the fighting forces. Many of those children did not survive.
Emmanuel, however, was lucky. When he was 13, he met an aid worker who took him to Kenya, where he was enrolled in school and found his way to a new life. “I was educated,” he recalls. “It happened that I was helped.”
Advocate for peace and reconciliation
For Emmanuel, education was the invitation to expand his identity, not trade it for a new one. “I feel a responsibility. I was once one of them and I know a lot of child soldiers in the same position,” he says.
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| © 2008/Cary Hammond |
| In his newest album, ‘War Child’, Emmanuel Jal uses hip hop to spread a message of peace and reconciliation. |
Emmanuel has a profound understanding of the conditions that led to his becoming a child soldier and he is determined to use his own skills and talent to share his experiences with the world. He uses hip hop to spread a powerful message of peace and reconciliation.
“I survived to tell a story,” he says. “I tell my story through the music. I want to inspire people.”
Worldwide acclaim
Emmanuel’s message has been broadcast on a wide variety of outlets, including CNN and MTV. A documentary about Emmanuel called ‘War Child’ recently won the Cadillac Audience Award at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival. His autobiography is due to be published by St. Martin’s press in 2009.
Today, Emmanuel divides his time between London and Nairobi, but he has not forgotten his native Sudan.
While still living full-time in Kenya, he founded the non-profit organization Gua Africa, which is dedicated to educating children affected by war and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Its main aim is to build a school in Leer, Southern Sudan, where Emmanuel is from, and which has the highest number of child soldiers in the area.
The word ‘gua’ means ‘peace’ in Nuer, a language of Sudan.
Kyria Abrahams contributed to this story from New York.
A BRILLIANT GENOCIDE 