Dim Sum
Playing for Change - Music That Makes a Difference
The idea behind Playing for Change, a stunning compilation of songs performed by artists from around the world, is to inspire peace through music and to connect people through song. The album immediately became a surprise, top-10 hit in the United States. And for good reason - the album covers Bob Marley, U2, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan and Sam Cooke and integrates the performances of an international group of musicians.
Playing for Change began in 1998, when producers Mark Johnson and Whitney Burditt joined to create a documentary film that examined street music around the world. While filming, the crews, Johnson and Burditt all noticed that many of the areas they visited were in great need of help. This led them to create the Playing for Change Foundation, which provides resources such as facilities, technology, musical instruments and education to the communities of musicians around the world. Beginning in 2004, Playing for Change traveled around the globe with recording equipment and recorded musicians songs and mixed the various versions together to create intriguing and beautiful songs that meld cultural sounds.
It can be found at record stores, on iTunes, online, and anywhere else where you regularly purchase music.
- Geoff Calver
In The River They Swim - Essays on Changing Lives by Reducing Poverty
In The River They Swim (Templeton Press) is a collection of 29 essays by individuals from around the world about combating poverty through enterprise solutions. The foreword, written by Rick Warren, focuses on the importance of fighting poverty around the world and echoes the feelings of the essayists in the book, saying, “It [poverty] demeans dignity, shrinks the soul, wastes potential, and inflicts suffering on over half of our world’s population.”
The essays in In The River They Swim highlight individually discovered solutions to poverty and attempts to lessen its crippling effects on countries around the world. The essays focus on a broad range of subjects, from an essay by Rwanda’s President, Paul Kagame, in which he describes how the country turned a lack of foreign aid into an advantage, urging Rwandans to make their own future, to one by Ashraf Ghani, chief advisor to Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, in which he describes tackling crippling inflation and counterfeiting head-on to create a more prosperous Afghanistan.
A particularly interesting essay, by Marcelo Escobari Rose, “Selling Culture without Selling Out,” highlights the increasing influence of globalization upon the world and the steps needed to turn a struggling reggae music industry in Jamaica into a profitable, successful worldwide industry.
- Geoff Calver
Amadou & Miriam - Welcome to Mali Is Fun, Energetic, Joyful Music
Amadou & Miriam broke new ground internationally with their 2005 album, Dimanche a Bamako (Sunday in Bamako), which won great critical acclaim for its soaring musical beauty and French lyrics about life in Mali, where the duo grew up and met at Mali’s Institute for the Young Blind. Their newest album, Welcome to Mali, finds the duo in top form.
The opening track, Sabali, was named as one of the best song’s of 2008 by Pitchfork magazine, and deservedly so. The duo uses multiple instruments and musical styles to complement their strong voices; there are synthesizers, disco beats, techno hints and jazz as well. It is a soaring opening to a joyous album.
Together since 1974, Amadou & Miriam are Mali’s biggest stars and they continue to rise meteorically in the United States and around the world. They played at Lollapalooza, the huge music festival in Chicago in 2007, and recorded the 2006 World Cup anthem with German artist Herbert Grönemeyer, hitting number one on the German charts and reaching an audience of billions.
This is an album that is worth the investment to support such an inspiring and fun musical group. Welcome to Mali is on Nonesuch Records and can be found in stores, online, on iTunes and anywhere else where music is available for purchase.
- Geoff Calver
Global Health Narratives for Young Children - Educational and Fun
Global Health Narratives (University of New Mexico Press), a compilation of short stories edited by Emily Mendenhall, is a great tool for educating young children on global issues. The book features stories from around the world that focus on young people’s experiences with illness, death and ethnic conflict.
Geared towards children aged 12 years and older, Global Health Narratives is a catalyst for debate and discussion in classrooms. Because the book is divided into sections that gather stories from different geographical regions of the world as well as those that focus on children and teenagers, it is appealing to a broad audience.
The standout stories in this book are well-told, fascinating glimpses into other cultures and their views of their illnesses. One story details a heroic girl’s night-long horse ride to the nearest large village. Carrying her brother on her horse, she rides through the night of Mongolia and delivers him to a doctor, where he is treated for Mercury poisoning. Another story focuses upon a Chilean family that doesn’t have access to clean water.
The stories depict real problems; both physical and psychological, and they are related maturely and realistically. Because of this, and because of the age of the protagonists, Global Health Narratives is a successful endeavor to educate youth on global health issues.
Global Health Narratives is widely available online, in bookstores, and from the University of New Mexico Press.
- Geoff Calver
Soccer Foundation and UNICEF Sponsor Online Photo Exhibit
The ravages of HIV/AIDS have decimated Swaziland’s population, with more than half its citizens now younger than 18 years and having an average lifespan of 32 years. The country has the highest HIV/AIDS-positive population in the world at 36 percent.
Photographer Pep Bonet, in conjunction with UNICEF and the FC Barcelona Foundation, chronicles the effects of HIV/AIDS on Swaziland’s population in a sobering photo exhibit. The photos are portraits of families - often headed by a young child who cares for younger siblings. The effects of the disease are widespread in Swaziland, and the photo exhibit highlights a need for greater aid in a country that is struggling with an HIV/AIDS epidemic.
FC Barcelona, one of the world’s most well-known and successful soccer teams supports increased awareness of HIV/AIDS and supports programs for youths who have lost their family to the disease through its foundation.
- Geoff Calver
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