Influence Baboul Fundraiser a Sucess!
INCEF's April 8th, 2006 fundraiser for Influence Baboul was a great success, raising $3000 for the instruments and equipment they need to bring healing and awareness to the region through recordings, radio and live performance.
Guests enjoyed hors d’oeuvres, drinks, and live music from the 21 Gessford Court Jazz Ensemble. During band breaks, we screened Influence Baboul recorded performances, as well as a video about INCEF's work using video for conservation and health education in Central Africa.
INCEF thanks the musicians for their wonderful performance, our friends and spouses who volunteered at the door and dining room, and of course all our guests for their generosity and interest. Special thanks to David Weiner for the use of his house.
ABOUT THE GROUP
Influence Baboul is a group of young musicians in Bukavu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, whose original songs address the atrocities they have witnessed, from war in the 1990s to the civil unrest that continues today, and communicate a vision of lasting peace and prosperity for their country.
This ensemble is a thoroughly grassroots effort to heal wounds and promote reconciliation and peace through music. Many women, children - and men - still bear the social and physical scars of abduction, rape, torture, disease and the brutal murders of family and friends. The group’s music touches lives in the community as virtually nothing else can, to restore self-respect and hope to those from whom the ability to live normal lives was violently ripped away.
Influence Baboul has commitment and talent, but relies on borrowed and improvised instruments (a chair and rock serve as a drumset). Proceeds from this benefit will purchase the instruments and equipment they need to bring healing and awareness to the region through recordings, radio and live performance.
INCEF was introduced to Influence Baboul in Spring 2005 while in Bukavu to share our “for local people, by local people” approach to filmmaking and empowerment with community service groups working in the region, including Comité du Rayon d’Action Femme (CRAF). We volunteered to film a performance of Influence Baboul attended by women receiving support from CRAF, and saw that despite past suffering and current hardship, the women reacted with tearful joy to the telling of their stories through song. We witnessed the healing power of music. We discovered Influence Baboul.
