village beat

Project Website

villagebeat.org

Support this Project

Donations also accepted by mail.
Please make checks payable to Creative Visions Foundation and write "Village Beat" in the memo and send to:

CREATIVE VISIONS FOUNDATION c/o HBA
Attn: Grace
3216 Nebraska Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90404-4214

Other organizations this project is affiliated with

Ghetto Radio, Nairobi

Yoga Soup

Brian Hodges Photography

Suat Kutlug, Cinematographer

See Change Global

Creative Citizen

Rob Malmberg Photography

Marianne Romeo Photography

Justin Vandenberg Photography

Peck The Town Crier

Project Summary

Tough Bond, Village Beat's first project, is a documentary film that informs communities in Kenya and abroad about the growing issue of street children and their use of glue as a drug. We started in the streets and befriended a few groups of Kenya's "glue kids."

In our time with them, we discovered hardened, armor-clad children ready to fight, who at the same time still possess a deep childlike innocence despite the many horrors of surviving on the street.

We went into the villages, slums and government offices to examine the nature of the problem, what can be done about it, and how community and government neglect is a violation of basic human rights.

Tough Bond will be successful if it challenges Kenyans to regard glue use among street children in a new light - to revive the lost sense of collective responsibility and take a stand to transcend both tribalism and individualism. "Glue kids" are kids after all. Village Beat is a budding social movement. We use creative storytelling and reporting as peaceful weapons to fight in the war against the system that divides us.

Right now, the flow of information, ideas, and images is dominated by the designs of market expansion, prioritizing products over people and consumption over culture. We push back and reverse the flow of information with cameras, paintbrushes, and a megaphone, amplifying the voice of the Village - those living on the front lines of globalization, those whose stories are crucial to shaping our progress towards a sustainable and egalitarian future.

In addition to Tough Bond, we're presently building a web-interface designed to connect Kenyan community members and organizations dedicated to helping street children with each other and to anyone else, worldwide, that wants to contribute funds, large or small, specific items such as books, mosquito nets or medicine, or volunteered services. We're also in the process of creating Vibe News, a web-forum for freestyle journalistic reporting and discussion of local and national issues that impact Kenyan communities.

As the Village Beat becomes louder and more voices are heard, we hope to form a collective from the relationships we build along the way. Like new partners and friends, new ideas will always be welcome. We are activists, artists, students, teachers, scientists and mystics. Together, our community is our immunity to the system.