My Start - From Kakuma to London

My Start Project - Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya

AFRICA

My Start is a collaborative, creative Arts project working with Film Aid International. Since August 2012 My Start has run a series of Art, photography and film workshops in refugee camps each summer. These workshops encourage young refugees to share their experiences through the arts. The workshops teach practical skills, encourage creative expression and bring together the various ethnic and tribal refugee and host communities to work in a fun and dynamic way. 

Kakuma workshop

Kakuma workshop

United Kingdom

The art work produced at the camp is then exhibited in London schools. It acts as a powerful, visual resource that can be used across the curriculum to support learning on global issues. Issues such as conflict and conflict resolution, displacement and migration as well as promoting peace, tolerance and empathy. The exhibition encourages British students to share and discuss their own views on immigration, forced migration and refugees and challenges misconceptions and existing perspectives.

“The student response was fantastic and thoroughly engaging”

— Alex Costello, Art teacher, Park View School, UK.

                                                 London workshop

The British schools are encouraged to create response work including their own visual diaries and messages for the refugees at Kakuma. This work is then taken back and exhibited at the camp the following summer.  My Start is an inspiring project that brings local and international communities together through the arts.

Creating the Mural - Kakuma Refugee Camp

If you would like to support the work of My Start and their projects with FilmAid International then please contact Tania and Amy or visit My Start's Facebook page.

tania@emmanueljal.com; campbellgoldingamy@googlemail.com

FilmAid's Research, Learning and Outreach

Ilana Sackler-Berner spent three weeks in Kenya working with FilmAid’s Outreach and Research and Learning teams in Nairobi and Kakuma. Here she reflects on her time with FilmAid.

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This February, I had the incredible fortune of working with FilmAid in Nairobi and visiting Kakuma Refugee Camp.  I live and work in New York City as a public health professional.  This was my first trip to Africa.  I plan to return!

FilmAid delivers media content in Kakuma and Dadaab that is designed to inform refugees about critical issues affecting their lives (from health education to human rights, conflict resolution to economic empowerment) and to provide psychosocial relief.  In order to show that these programs have a practical impact on the lives of refugees, FilmAid conducts ongoing research to monitor and evaluate the reach, quality, and outcomes of programs.  I worked with FilmAid to design an approach to do just this.  Maybe not glamorous work (I love it anyways!!), but essential for continued and future funding.           

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In Kakuma, I had the pleasure of conducting a training for the refugee facilitators of FilmAid’s Video Workshop Series.  These wonderful women and men are inspiring.  They are leaders. They are knowledgeable about the issues facing their communities, and skilled in delivering critical messages and facilitating engaging discussions.  They are kind, open-minded, and work hard to make a difference every day.  I am in awe of them.       

While in Kakuma, I attended an evening screening in the new arrivals section of the camp.  What a magical experience.  I think now I understand what FilmAid means by ‘the power of film.’  It is difficult to describe the emotion I felt in that moment.    

I am back in the United States now and I have taken many moments to ‘evaluate the impact’ my time in Kenya had on me personally.  I have no doubt it has changed me for the better.  I’d like to thank FilmAid’s staff in Kenya for being such wonderful hosts, teachers, and friends.  A very special thank you to Mordecai, FilmAid's Research and Learning Officer.  It was an absolute pleasure working with you.

Making Music in Kakuma

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This February, Michael Sackler-Berner together with his wife Ilana (see her post here) spent one week in Kakuma with FilmAid staff. Michael brought state-of-the-art sound equipment and conducted workshops with FilmAid staff and students. Here is his account of the week!

Flying to Kakuma can be misleading. Though the plane I took was chartered and run by the World Food Programme and headed to a massive refugee camp hours from any city, it felt much like a standard commuter plane, complete with drink cart and flight attendants. It took only a few minutes upon arrival to realize it was no usual puddle jumper.

Kakuma is in the desert and the only real road signs I noticed as we approached the camp were those pointing to NGO compounds.  The armed, gated compounds are tucked inside a surprisingly large city of small, dusty homes.  Some homes are mud brick with metal roofs, others are tarp relief tents, and none have flooring or plumbing. 

The tremendously bumpy roads and paths the NGO land cruisers use to get around led us right to FilmAid’s offices. I clutched my guitar and bag hoping the recording gear inside wouldn't be damaged in this last leg of my two-day journey from Brooklyn to Kenya.

After a warm welcome from FilmAid’s field staff, I found myself in a small community building just past the new arrivals check-in point, with a generator pumping outside.  Within a few hours, microphones were set up, software installed, and monitors blasting. I would spend the next four days in this building with refugee and host community musicians, FilmAid audio staff, and countless refugees who would hear music and wander through to see what was going on. Outside the studio window was a latrine and a road where goats would occasionally wander by, munching on garbage that lines the paths. 

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Time, which has a way of moving at light speed in New York, moves mighty slowly in a refugee camp. Refugees from every corner of the region live in Kakuma, from years to decades, with no ability to work and nowhere to go. It is not unusual to see someone spend a whole day under a tree, resting, with nothing to do. So anything to do, particularly something creative that results in a final product, is much needed psychological relief. It is met with open arms, excitement and preparation. 

Every morning, I worked with 4 or 5 artists, rappers, and singers to write a song. Every afternoon, we tracked the tune. When I work in professional co-writing sessions in New York or Nashville, it often takes hours before the writers find a new way of saying something meaningful enough to consider the words "lyric." Not in Kakuma. The artists have a lot to say and it is right on the surface.

The opportunity to be heard is a rare treat for these artists. They live difficult lives in arguably some of the toughest of conditions.  No time I spent with them was ever wasted or taken for granted. Questions, ideas, titles, melodies, beats, and lyric were constantly flowing from the 8:30am car ride to the studio, until the generator ran out of gas after our final playback around 6:00pm.

I never could've anticipated the wealth of talent FilmAid’s outreach staff was able to find.  Everything I’d heard about African rhythm was true and there seemed to be a gold mine of incredible singers and rappers with something important to say. They also have fantastic stage names – Smart, Diddy Stone, Afisa, King Moses, Fire Man, etc. FilmAid’s staff audio producers, Victor K. and Abdul, have the skills and gear to make fantastic and meaningful records for years to come.  Their passion for making records was deeply refreshing.

I could go on for days about the artist’s individual talents, heartbreaking stories, hopeful dreams, and plentiful skills, but I will let their music do the talking. With the help of FilmAid, they have a microphone that has the potential to not just bring them moments of joy when it is needed, but with any luck, and a touch of musical magic, bring their stories to the world.