Notes from the Annals of Humanitarian Hip-Hip

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.

The three albums sponsored by Humanitarian Notes include tracks in Oshiwambo, Demara and Afrikaans (Namibia), Dam (Liberia); Ga, Fanta and Hausa, a West African hybrid lingua franca (Ghana), as well as English (all three). From the embryo of AIDS prevention, these collaborative artists have addressed all manner of social issues, from women’s empowerment and continuing education to monogamy and abstinence amongst the youth. While Humanitarian Notes did have editorial control over the albums’ content (nonetheless needing to trust the artists’ translations), there was little, if anything, they rejected on lyrical grounds – only the occasional remonstration that acquiring AIDS was a divine curse rather than the fruit of poor or ill-informed decision-making (the goal being to educate and empower rather than psychologically console).

Amy, for her part, now works with a public health organization in Johannesburg, South Africa, and is unable to contribute much to Humanitarian Notes these days – though Dan is unperturbed. On 6 December he held his fifth anniversary party at Nuyorican Poets Café in the East Village. As for further projects, he has Durban, South Africa on his mind…

Daughter’s Rising: An Ethic of Emancipatory Art

I recently sat down in Soho to speak with Hannah Herr about Daughter’s Rising (http://daughtersrising.org/), an organization that she and Alexa Pham created in 2010. Introducing novel art forms and encouraging local craftsmanship to empower women in Thailand and Cambodia, they hope to reduce the prevalence of human trafficking in the region by making artists of potential sex workers.

The two first met whilst working at a Mexican restaurant in the East Village. Suffice to say, their professional collaboration did not end there. Hannah, then a BFA candidate in sculpture at Parsons, was immediately inspired by Alexa’s previous experiences at Ghar Sita Mutu (http://www.gharsitamutu.com/), a children’s home in Katmandu that sold crafts on the side to fund its operations. All the same, felt eraser covers were not a hot commodity, and Alexa invited Hannah to breathe fresh air into Mutu’s product line. A polymath globe-trotter, she didn’t need much convincing: off she went in the winter of 2009, helping the children sew scarves, slippers and make compacts, which were subsequently imported to the US and sold at A Repeat Performance, a staple antique shop in the East Village where Alexa worked at the time.

With Hannah’s help, the new line of products was a booming success, and she and Alexa immediately began to ponder strategies to improve the organization’s artistic reach. Yet Barbara Bronson, the owner of the antique shop and co-founder of Ghar Sita Mutu – an integral player to bringing these Nepalese girls’ product to market – did not want to overhaul her original business plan. As such, Hannah and Alexa were left in a bind: stumble forth with questionable efficiency or take matters into their own hands. With great vision, if scant management experience, they decided upon the latter.

The original objective of Ghar Sita Mutu had been to fund community girls’ clubs in Katmandu to address the socio-educational needs of those at risk of becoming victims of sex trafficking into India. Indeed, the brothels of Nepal’s more economically dynamic neighbor have routinely been an insidious source of demand for the barren and mountainous country’s most vulnerable people. Nonetheless, Hannah and Alexa soon gathered, if the ultimate goal was to attack sex trafficking at its very heart, they would have to go further east.

Though the international slave trade has been all but eradicated in the last two centuries, the instance of sex trafficking has only seen a rapid increase. And though many say it is ‘common knowledge’ that Southeast Asia is the epicenter of such supply, the hill peoples of Burma, Tibet, Thailand and Cambodia are by far the most effected, Hannah told me. Lacking formal infrastructure and isolated from efficient trade networks, they become artisans to make ends meet. In order assist such efforts, then, they would first go to the source.

Alexa, already well-traveled in the region, was the first to establish artisanal contacts in Thailand. Seeking out a former friend and guide, she traveled to the hill regions to meet with artisanal women from the Karen tribe, a community whose daughters have been long since vulnerable to agents promising domestic work, modeling or secretarial positions in the lowland cities – only to sell them to underground ‘madams’ upon arrival. How was this trend to be combatted? The goal, then, for Daughter’s Rising, would be two-fold: one, enlarge the artisanal mothers’ market and artistic span to enable them to fund their daughters’ education; and two, to establish scholarships to educate them in matters both artistic and practical. Already, things are taking shape. Since launching their inaugural gala in February 2011, Daughter’s Rising has sponsored two girls from the Karen village of Chaing Mai to attend neighboring schools with the proceeds of sales from the organization’s website.

Whereas Daughter’s Rising’s work in Thailand is predominantly preventative, it is more therapeutic in Cambodia. Working with Somali Mam, an escaped sex worker who created a foundation for girls such as herself (and whom Alexa met on her travels), Daughter’s Rising encourages Cambodian girls to take up weaving to mitigate both their material and emotional misfortunes. Using the proceeds of their craft to establish women’s empowerment and PTSD workshops, Daughter’s Rising hopes to establish self-sufficient, locally-led outposts in the country that will address the women’s social, emotional and artistic needs.

Whilst the drive and ethical impetus for such developments are strong, their successful implementation will not come without difficulty: in the isolated hills of Southeast Asia, language and logistics provide their own concomitant challenges. Nonetheless, Hannah and Alexa remain undaunted. Along with Kai, Alexa’s husband, and Claudia Lux, a women’s sexual health expert and mutual friend, they flew to Bangkok last Friday to set up artistic and educational workshops on the ground, in addition to strengthening the women’s commercial ties to the US (via Daughter’s Rising). Though flood and difficulty loom, the promise remains larger.

When they return in mid-December, I will do a follow-up piece to chart Daughter’s Rising’s progress, in addition to screening the documentary they plan to film whilst there.

The Sudan Canvas Project – Where Art and Action Mingle

I recently began writing for a small human-rights and film blog in New York. Whilst they're keen on my work, their readership does not take to 1,000 word pieces. You, alas, my few and unfortunate base, might be more forgiving. Enjoy.

Interested in why her high-school son was lobbying to create awareness for Darfur in Washington, Cynthia Davis, a seasoned decorative artist and painter, began doing her own research. Before long, she was devouring countless books and lectures in her local community. Nonetheless, it was not until she met Gabriel Bol Deng at a conference sponsored by her daughter’s club, buildOn, that she truly resolved to become personally involved in resolving the conflict. After hearing the former lost boy speak, Cynthia was incredibly touched by his humanity, his profound sense of family values. Here was a man whose life had been torn by the ravages of war and exile for two decades and yet still shared a remarkably similar sensibility to hers. Almost immediately thereafter, she began collaborating with his organization, Hope for Ariang, vowing to help his groundbreaking efforts to educate and empower women in the native village from which he was chased as a boy in 1987.

Cynthia had always been interested in Africa, though always from a distance. Raised in a Jewish household, the reality of the Holocaust was never far away. All the same, the prospect of genocide in Africa loomed on a distant horizon; she was well aware of the situation in Rwanda, among others – though again, from a seemingly inapproachable distance. That all changed the day she met Gabriel. The latter, as earlier mentioned, was forced to flee his native village of Ariang in present-day South Sudan as fighting between government-backed Janjaweed mercenaries and local rebels loomed imminent. A lost boy par excellence, he wandered by foot across the barren desert to seek shelter in Ethiopia, during which he and other castaways nearly starved to death. Not for twenty years would he return to his native village; by this time his parents had already perished. Empowered by the sheer tenacity of his will to survive, he vowed to give back to his community. In May 2007, he established Hope for Ariang, the organization that Cynthia Davis would do so much to support in the years to come.

In the months and years following her encounter with Gabriel, Cynthia fought tirelessly to raise funds and public awareness for Hope for Ariang – becoming a Board Member in 2009 and playing a major role in raising funds to build the village’s first school. Similar fundraising efforts allowed the village to drill six new wells – after which their perennial struggle against cholera has greatly abated (now that villagers had access to a clean water source). Girls whose days were previously consumed with long marches to fetch highly polluted water could now attend school. Not, however, that said facilities would appear from thin air. When she began working with Gabriel, there was not a brick to be seen in the entire village – much less the means with which to produce them. Through her and Gabriel’s efforts – among others - they soon acquired the capacity to produce 300,000 – enough to construct an edifice housing 500 students. The difference in the quality of life of the village between 2008 and now is more than palpable. All the same, Cynthia had yet to truly synthesize her professional with her political and philanthropic activities: a decorative artist by trade, she longed to combine her art with her efforts to empower women in Ariang.

When an acquaintance from West Hartford nominated her to become a Carl Wilken’s Fellow, she jumped at the chance to join the “12-month program that provides a diverse set of emerging citizen leaders with the tools and training to build sustained political will to end genocide.” Named in honor of the only American to remain in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, Fellows are selected to raise awareness and build strong relationships with local congressmen toward this end. Once accepted, Cynthia went to Washington in February for the group’s inaugural induction. Here she met an exciting and dynamic cast of fellow activists and artists, one of whom, Rebecca Davis, had already established a dance company for Darfur. She also learned about Naomi Natale, an accomplished installation artist, photographer and social activist who would later encourage her to use her artistic gifts to further her efforts with Hope for Ariang. Shortly thereafter, Cynthia created the The Sudan Canvas Project, a grassroots art collective whose paintings create awareness for the plight of the South Sudanese and whose proceeds go to educate and empower the women of Ariang.

Within no time, she received an enormous amount of positive feedback: the International Decorative Artists League and the Fairfield-based Pink House Painters immediately came on board. Similarly, the Director of the Fairfield Arts Center, who quickly became familiar with the Canvas initiative, donated free space to the project within which to showcase their members’ work. Altogether, some forty-two artists have now contributed to the Sudan Canvas Project, many of whom had only been scarcely familiar with the geopolitical and humanitarian situation in Sudan. That, Cynthia told me, is one of the most important aspects of her initiative: in order to contribute to the project, the artists involved must first come to terms with the conflict and engage the suffering and humanity of their subjects. Having delved into these peoples’ lives and predicaments, they become complicit in Cynthia’s efforts not just to raise awareness but do actually do something about it - symbiosis between art and politics, if ever there were one.

On November 27^th, Cynthia Davis will be exhibiting and auctioning the entirety of the works hitherto made for the Sudan Canvas Project at the Fairfield Arts Center in Connecticut. More than just paintings, the exhibit will also contain a number of photographs and interviews with women from the village – a detailed account of their lives and struggles. Such, Cynthia says, is the threefold purpose of the event: to create awareness, to educate and to empower the women of Ariang. Taken together, she hopes the exhibit will be a powerful call to action. How many works do they hope to sell? I neglected to ask her. Among those, however, will be one of her own - a painting in which three women lift their weathered arms in jubilation to welcome the return of a distant son. They were celebrating the return of Gabriel Bol Deng, the lost boy who’d come home after twenty years in the wilderness to rekindle the flame of hope for Ariang.