Saturday afternoon I went up to Phoenix with some friends from church for "Displace Me". Displace Me events happened in major cities all over the country on April 28th; there were a total of 67,871 people across the country who participated, 1,700 of which were in Phoenix. The event was to spread awareness of what is going on in Northern Uganda. In 1996, many Ugandans were given 48 hours to seek refuge in displacement camps. They have now been there for over 10 years, living in horrible conditions and only getting little food and contaminated water. The conditions have been getting worse and worse and the rations smaller and smaller because of foreign aid being cut. "Displace Me" tried to simulate the experience of what it is like to live in a displacement camp. Participants were asked to bring enough cardboard to build themselves protection to sleep out over night, one box of saltines, and one 1.5 liter bottle of water. Upon checking in, I had to hand over my saltines and water, so that they could be later re-distributed during the night, and then I got to work building my shelter.
There was lots of creativity when it came to building shelters...
Our friends, Matt and Abby, building their home...Matt came with a plan of how he wanted to build it, but unfortunately didn't have as much cardboard as he had hoped for..
Throughout the night they would show a film clip of what is going on in Northern Uganda, and then they would direct us toward doing different things: writing a letter to our senator, writing a letter to the Ugandan President, taking 21 minutes of silence to represent the 21 years that this war has been going on, etc.
Here's the screen that they would show clips on..
In the morning, we woke up to African drummers and dancers...
4 comments:
Abby -
What an amazing experience, I'm sure! This is such a cool movement (I had never heard about it before) but i hope it catches steam!
Ryan L.
Wow - this is SO cool! I bet that was an incredibly valuable experience. Is there a website?
Liz
Abby, do you know about the film "War/Dance"? It showed at the Chicago International Documentary Film Festival and it was by far the best film we saw there--and possibly one of the best documentaries we've ever seen. It follows students in a Northern Ugandan internally displaced persons camp who are preparing for the national music and dance competition. It is truly an amazing film. You can see an extended trailer at: http://shineglobal.org/shine_trailer_wardance.htm.
-Mira
Sweet former summer roomie, I miss you and your hubby. I hope life is beautiful for you. Life sounds beautiful. It is a pleasure to read about all that you have been doing. You rock.
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