Thursday, November 22, 2007

Get Involved

Along with our first proper screening tonight, we are making the rather wonderful original soundtrack to the film available as a CD, in the hope of raising some support for two organisations in particular.

The first organisation we would love to be able to send support to is Rev Meg Guillebaud's school sponsorship work, which is a part of Friends of Byumba


Meg was born in Burundi and now lives in Northern Rwanda, working with the Diocese of Byumba - an area which was badly hit by the genocide and now has a huge population of war widows and orphans. Meg is extremely involved with the local community, organising training, medical funding and school sponsorship among many other things. It costs around £150 a year to support a child through school, and Meg's ability to facilitate orphans and the children of sick parents getting to school is restricted only by the amount she has to spend. Aloys, one of the main actors in the film, actually realised half way through the shoot that his own brother had been educated because of Meg's help with the fees. We would love to be able to contribute towards more school fees in this critical way.

The second organisation is the KOMEZUBUTWARI assocation, which is headed up by Emmanual Ulimubenshi - survivor of the class 6 attack. Emmanuel has been a crucial part of the process of making the film - he helped us with script research, with organising permission to film in the school, and during the actual shoot, was with the production team for the duration, helping us to reconstruct what happened in the most accurate way possible. (He is pictured below with Fabrice who played Emmanuel in the film).


The KOMEZUBUTWARI organisation is incredibly exciting - it was established by the survivors of the Nyange massacre, and their activities include the following:
- Organising training and debates around issues of reconciliation and peace
- Facilitating post-trauma care for attack victims
- Fundraising for the ongoing healthcare for those injured in the attacks, some of whom have still not received the medical attention they need after 10 years
- Fundraising to support attack victims through higher education after many missed getting the crucial government note which provides support through university

We are beginning to explore ways to support these wonderful guys in their work - if you have any questions or ideas, please don't hesitate to be in touch

Details about these initiatives and the soundtrack will follow shortly on the film's official website (currently work in progress):
www.WeAreAllRwandans.com

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Debs and team - thanks for an exceptional evening at BAFTA. This is an amazing story (told through a strong and accomplished film) which deserves to be heard and seen everywhere. Will be sending up prayers for the festival responses - they're always a good way to get a film out there, as no doubt you know. Look forward to speaking with you more. Thanks. Mark