I recently sat down with Dan Cwirka near NYU to discuss the origins and development of Humanitarian Notes, an NGO he founded which promotes AIDS awareness in Namibia, Liberia and Ghana through the distribution of socially conscious hip-hop.
Dan was already well into his second year of service with the Peace Corps when he had his Saul-to-Damascus moment on a rural bus in the Namibian outback. Perturbed, if not downright disgruntled, by the prospect of another eight hour-ride to the tune of blaring dunces, he was struck by a simple realization. En route to Ondema, the village of four hundred people where he’d been promoting AIDS awareness for nearly eighteen months, he realized that bus drivers had a complete and unadulterated monopoly on their audiences’ attention – particularly that of the youth. Though they scarcely listen to naïve, if well intentioned, white Americans, adolescents devour all that flows from the lips and pens of their favorite artists. Why not combine the two – good music with a relevant and powerful message?
Riveted by this simple, if poignant, idea, Dan still had no idea how to go about setting things up. He ran the idea past several Peace Corps friends - Peter was too busy and Kevin thought the idea mad; they had too much on their plates as it was. Amy, however, was keen – and together they set about establishing contacts in the Namibian music industry. Driven by their efforts to make waves, each kept the organizational flame to the other’s rear, one progressively outdoing the other in cold calling and emailing as the months went by.
They started by contacting Clive, a friend and owner of a major record shop in Windhoek, the nation’s capital, and a foot in the door to much of the city’s musical scene. After several months of meeting artists and managers in the coffee shop of the local mall, Dan and Amy had built a reasonable base from which to proceed. The artists, he told me, were the easiest to get on board with the idea of penning new songs (or revamping old ones) to educate the youth about the perils of AIDS – in addition to addressing broader social themes. They were also happy to work pro-bono, whereas everyone else, be they managers, radio hosts or even friends, was more skeptical.
With a grant from PEPFAR and funds from bugging friends and family back home, Dan and Amy were able to put fourteen local and national artists in the studio within six months of launching their project. With help from the Peace Corps in applying for Federal grants and support from local radio stations, the bus drivers’ union, the Transport Ministry, an incredibly active French producer and GTZ, a German NGO, Humanitarian Notes launched their first album on 1 December 2011. Incidentally, their launch coincided with both World AIDS Day and the Namibian Music Awards - the latter of which donated both TV and radio plugs for them to promote their innovative approach to music and social consciousness. With but a few weeks to spare, they produced 1,000 CDs and left them in the hands of their reputable friends at GTZ to distribute across the country not only to musical movers and shakers such as radio disc jockey’s, cabbies and bus-drivers, but also those most at risk of AIDS, such as long-distance truck drivers and those who frequent the border regions most prone to sexual encounters of a less intimate nature.
If things got off to a good start, that does not mean everything would fall naturally into place once Dan and Amy moved back to the U.S. Apart from his Peace Corps severance package, Dan landed in New York without a dime to his name while Amy returned to her native Missouri. Penniless, he was not without the overwhelming conviction that this was the first thing in his life was willing to make a sacrifice for. Indeed, after two years in the bush executing less-than-expeditious means of combating the prevalence of AIDS, he had found his calling. But how to capitalize on one’s convictions?
Running an NGO takes more than utopian chutzpa: one needs the legal and organizational acumen of a seasoned, bureaucratic fund-raiser to weather the competitive winds of New York. As such, Dan immediately got in touch with the IRS to obtain a 501C3 (for tax exemption purposes) and continued perusing contacts for potential donors. He even got a gig at Google to make ends meet. Meanwhile, Amy expanded her base of contacts in Liberia, which they had their sights set on for numerous reasons: one, the latter’s previous connection; two, they were solicited by a Liberian member of AIESEC, a global organization that promotes economic development and educational exchange programs for college students, who had heard of their work in Namibia and wanted to get involved. After a year in the city, Dan jumped at the opportunity, quit his job at Google and bought a one-way ticket to Monrovia, where Amy had already set up shop a month beforehand.
In similar fashion to their strategy in Windhoek, the plan was to raise enough money before leaving the U.S. to sustain a several months-long campaign and then simply take to the streets upon arrival. Though mildly inefficient at times, given the limited Liberian music industry this generally worked. Likewise, Amy’s husband was already working for a local NGO and gave them a place to stay in the capital. With the help of AIESEC, Merling (a local Liberian NGO) and GTZ, the German org mentioned earlier, Dan was able to pursue roughly the same approach as in Namibia. After four months, he had secured songs from thirteen artists and was mass-producing CDs and cassettes (for taxis) and pushing the collaborative album in bars and testing centers throughout the country. Overall, the Liberians were incredibly helpful in the process and agreed to distribute the CDs nationwide once he returned to the US in March of 2008.
Google was kind enough to take Dan back upon return – though Liberia had only whet his palate for further expansion. Hence he hunkered down yet again, expanding his base of contacts, supportive friends and financial backers and prepared for his next departure. Though Amy stuck around Monrovia an extra month, she would became preoccupied with other personal and professional pursuits; from here on out, the direction of Humanitarian Notes was his alone to lead. Such was the solo fashion in which he set off for Ghana the following year (winter 2009-10).
If Namibia and Ghana were the testing grounds for Humanitarian Notes’ socio-charitable business model, they were far more professionally forgiving than Ghana. The former had only nascent music industries – environments in which artists were sure to show if only they could hitch a ride to the coffee shop or recording studio (not an uncommon occurrence, from what I was told). Ghana, on the other hand, has long since enjoyed a rich and active music scene that reverberates throughout the country, region and wider world. Though Dan entered the country with several contacts from AIESEC, he was an unknown American fish in a much bigger pond. Hence he spent his first month ambling about Accra’s bars and concert halls, attending shows and testing the waters. In much of life, however, all it takes is one good contact – and within a few weeks of meeting (x), he was gallivanting about with the likes of Wanluv and Reggie Rockstone, two the country’s most preeminent hip-hop artists. With the help of such household names, he put together the most prolific album yet: 13 tracks from some of Ghana’s finest, most of whom wrote original scores for the occasion. Moreover, he hit the radio scene running, getting endorsements from every major station in Accra and many in the countryside and smaller cities. As with Namibia and Liberia, he was able to establish an efficient distribution network upon departure, thanks to help from AIESEC foot soldiers in particular.
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