“Music is the weapon of the future,” said the late father of Afrobeat, Fela Kuti. The people behind an organization known as Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) would agree, and they’ve even thrown in a little stand-up comedy for safe measure, creating, they hope, a significant instrument for change.
On Feb. 20, the organization is hosting a benefit show at Club Soda, featuring a troupe of musicians from Montreal and abroad as well as two well-known comedians.
“I’ve always believed that music is an important tool for bringing people together,” says Caroline Russell, a third year journalism and communications student at Concordia who volunteers with the JHR and is helping to organize the show.
JHR is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization that seeks to provide journalists in Africa, largely without access to journalism programs, with the necessary tools to report on human rights issues in a fair and accurate manner. Started in May of last year by Alexandra Sicotte-Levesque and Ben Peterson, the organization is in the process of raising enough money to send a team of journalists from Canada to Ghana and Ivory Coast (a nation currently embroiled in a bitter conflict involving ethnic discrimination) who will educate African journalists on how to report on such issues.
Enter the benefit show, from which all proceeds will go to the JHR’s education programs in Africa. “The event is basically a way to get our organization known and our cause known,” says Sicotte-Levesque, who began the JHR after spending six months in the Ivory Coast working with the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs.
Sicotte-Levesque explains that the show is not intended to promote her organization’s particular opinions on the political situations in Ghana and Ivory Coast, but rather as an opportunity to allow for an unbiased forum focussing on the broader context of human rights. “We don’t want to comment too much on the conflict [in the Ivory Coast],” she says. “We want to focus more on general human rights and why it’s important to talk about human rights, especially in Africa.” Sicotte-Levesque adds that booths with information on the JHR and its projects will be set up at the show to encourage people to become more informed, interested, and, hopefully, involved.
The show features stand-up comic Michel Mpambara, originally from Rwanda, Montreal hip-hop artists Muzion, Afro-funk band Wazobia, whose members originate from Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Nigeria, and local jazz-hoppers Kobayashi, with Concordia communications student Omari Newton on vocals. Another comedian, Sylvie Legault, will act as MC for the event. All performers have ties to Africa and many are outspoken human rights advocates.
“We want people to be more conscious and maybe get involved [with the JHR],” says Russell. “We want people to be aware that there’s an alternative way of getting things moving and that there’s a larger reality.”
Sicotte-Levesque hopes show-goers will walk away with a better understanding of human rights as a tangible practise and not merely an elusive ideal that often seems unattainable.
“People have this perception of human rights as being a vague and general concept, but it’s actually something you can apply on a daily basis. Journalists can include it in their news and make people aware of the different types of rights that exist,” she says.
JHR’s benefit show happens Thursday, Feb. 20 at Club Soda, 1225 St-Laurent; doors at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10 for students with valid I.D. and $20 for non-students. For more info check out www.jhr.ca.
