Making Melodies in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp

View fullsize

This blog was reposted from Creative Time Reports
By FilmAid, Nairobi Kenya
December 14, 2012

“The Music Producer” is the story of Omwot Omwot Ogul, full-time music producer, part-time handyman, who lives in Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee settlement.

After fleeing his homeland, the Gambela region in Ethiopia, in 2004, Omwot found himself in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp. He subsequently moved to capital Nairobi, where he discovered his love of music. Five years later, Omwot was forced to uproot once again. This time, he relocated to the Dadaab camp, home to nearly 500,000 refugees.

Now an independent music producer, an unlikely profession in this isolated corner of sub-Saharan Africa, Omwot empowers his fellow refugees to make music about their lives and helps them record that music. On the side, he works as a handyman, repairing and charging phones for people in the camp, using a personal solar panel he built and installed.

“The Music Producer” was shot by Ramah Hawkins, a Nairobi-based filmmaker who spent several months in the settlement collaborating with FilmAid’s Kenyan and refugee staff and film students there. The short film is part of Dadaab Stories, a web-native, multi-media documentary project charting everyday life in the Dadaab refugee camp, located in eastern Kenya, on the border of Somalia. Using videos, poetry and music, Dadaab Stories provides a platform for refugees to tell their own stories to the world in their own voices.

Supported by the Tribeca Film Institute New Media Fund and the Ford Foundation, this project aims to increase public understanding of refugee lives, forge a deeper connection between the refugee community and the outside world, offer a platform for creative expression and document the history of the refugee experience.

Personal stories are the central part of the project – a record of the extraordinary experiences of the refugees in Dadaab, and a powerful advocacy platform for ongoing international attention to the region. But the project does not only focus exclusively on the darker aspects of life in the camps. Dadaab is a living place and the people in it live their lives and dreams just like anywhere else.

We hope you enjoy this special preview from FilmAid’s Dadaab Stories. If it inspires you with a spirit of generosity this holiday season, we thank you for supporting our work, projecting hope and making change for refugees and other displaced communities: www.filmaid.org/donate.

‘Film is what I feel, see and hear’

‘Film is what I feel, see and hear’

View fullsize

'‘Film is what I feel, see and hear"

This is the voice of 29yr old, Amos Lolibo from Lodwar, Turkana, a student of FilmAid’s filmmaker training program in Kakuma refugee camp. This year, Amos’ film, Never Again, was selected for the 7th edition of the Kenya International Film Festival and was screened alongside other FilmAid student films as part of the week's events.

Never Again, is a powerful documentary reflecting on those affected by the 2007/08 post-election violence. Using chilling archival footage and firsthand interviews from Kakuma refugee camp, Never Again leaves a lasting impression of Kenya's past election, where over 1,300 people lost their lives and an estimated 650,000 were displaced.

‘This is a real story,’ says Amos, ‘that needed to be made into a film so people could watch it.’ However, you don’t just watch this film. You are drawn into it, experience it and feel it too.

Screened for the first time at this year’s World Refugee Day and FilmAid Film Festival in Kakuma, Never Again stirred emotions among audience members, some even requesting repeat screenings in their villages.

When asked about the making of the film, Amos speaks about crew tension and lighting challenges. Normal production life of course, but add in incessant heat and dusty wind, and you can start to get a sense of what a huge accomplishment this film was for the crew.

In 2010, Amos met FilmAid and applied one year later for the student filmmaker training program which also runs in Dadaab. The program works both with refugees and youth from the host community. Amos is one of many students who are trained in creative and technical film skills such as scriptwriting, camera operations and post production. The training program empowers young people to tell their own stories in their own voice.

At the end of each program, these powerful student films, focusing on issues such as health, security, identity and peace, are screened back to the refugee community and posted to FilmAid’s YouTube channel for global dissemination. Some of these films are even selected for festivals. This year, Never Again was screened at the Slum Film Festival in Nairobi, winning second prize in documentary shorts.

Although Never Again was a big achievement for Amos, he is already assisting as the boom swinger, fixer and translator in a new FilmAid production about peace. The production focuses on the peaceful coexistence between the Kakuma refugees and the host community.

‘Film is what I feel, it is my force to fight poverty in my community’, he says.

Never Again and other FilmAid student films can be viewed below or on our YouTube channel, Click here.

Reconnecting Families Through Film

FilmAid and Refugees United have partnered to develop educational video materials to strengthen the ongoing effort to reconnect individuals and families who have been separated by war, conflict and other catastrophes. The films will promote and demonstrate Refugees United’s mobile application, which is the newest addition to the most successful system ever in reconnecting refugees and displaced persons across the globe.

A 20-minute drama video will be scripted and shot by FilmAid’s filmmaker students in Kakuma Refugees Camp, and the final product will be translated into Sudanese, Somalia and Congolese languages before being screened across the camp. FilmAid’s commitment to the participatory video approach ensures that the refugees in Kakuma are empowered in informing their own community in the most effective context.

This new initiative sees the RefUnite platform go mobile in order to provide better access for refugees in the camps, and across the world, to reconnect with their loved ones. Our partnership is crucial in directly helping families reconnect with missing loved ones through a safe and secure search tool that allows for full anonymity without incurring any costs.

Once completed, the film will be screened during FilmAid’s daytime and evening screening programs in Kakuma. Through 30 evening screenings the project will reach over 12,000 people, and daytime screenings include the opportunity for in-depth discussions and question and answer sessions about the search tool and the operations of Refugees United.

FilmAid supports and works closely with other humanitarian agencies in an effort to improve the lives of refugees living across the world. For this reason, we are very excited about our partnership with Refugees United as we now work together toward reaching their goal of reconnecting one million families displaced by war, conflict and catastrophe by 2015.

Please visit our YouTube channel to see the short films we have previously produced.