In February 2010 Maughan Mariani,  Executive Director of Bavubuka and Loretta Cella, Founder of the Passion Foundation in BC will head to Kampala, Uganda to provide leadership training to 20 young women 12+. The young women will gain value life skills tools to assist them in creating a leadership project within their peer group and raising awareness in the issues they face using the Elements of SUCCESS:

Self Exploration

Understanding Limitations are Self Imposed

Courage: Taking the steps to move forward

Community: Building a strong network of positive people who are making positive changes in their lives

Evaluation: Looking at what skills are needed in order to achieve the things they want in life

Skills: Learning the necessary self identified skills for their goals

Service: Giving back into the community what they have learnt to help others

Our goal: 40 sets of SUCCESS tool books. 40 pencils, a video camera, and 40 sets of Lunapads (www.lunapads.com).

My quest to East Africa was much too short, too exciting and almost, too successful. I went to explore the Hip Hop music scene of Uganda and discovered people hungry to develop their industry. I worked alongside artists and promoters from Canada, Los Angeles, and London, my allies and partners, who were/are there to promote music and the arts in the East African (Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda) community. Early in my adventures, my friend Peter took me to his village in Rakai District, where the first HIV/AIDS cases were reported. His family had educational posters plastered to the concrete walls, so it was comforting to know the awareness is present. After snapping Polaroids of the kids dancing and playing about, I was presented with one of many, many feasts….

At some point during the 6-hour bus ride south from Kampala (towards Rwanda) to Rakai, I was invaded by small spiders that crawled up my legs for, oh, about 2 hours. I just laughed and brushed them off, as I developed a tolerance for insects while in Uganda. The first morning I woke up to a spider on my wall, and instead of killing it, as I would in the States, I told it to leave me alone, so it did. The only incident I couldn’t face was the massive cockroach running across my bed, but I screamed for Mugaga, one of my housemates and nature-lover, who promptly caught it and tossed it to the neighbors. In the first week, I saw a dead man in a ditch, his legs intertwined with his twisted bicycle. It would come to be foreshadowing, as I ended up in a ditch in a boda boda (motorcycle) accident the day before my original departure, although it was not fatal. A mutatu, taxi van, drove into us, forcing us into the concrete ditch. There was an instant crowd around us, watching, with me saying “I’m ok, I’m ok,” and a man insisting, ”You have blood coming out everywhere, you are not ok!” We were cleaned up in the clinic across the street, while the boda’s tire was fixed. After about an hour, the three of us jumped back on the bike and headed home. The beach of Lake Victoria was our destination, but we never made it. My right arm and ankle are healing well, my elbow not quite fully functional, but it has only been a week. The driver and other passenger came away with cuts and scrapes, and came to me every day after to help them clean the wounds. It was no doubt a bonding experience for my friends, Medi the boxer, Tonny the boda driver, and I. Watching two grown men wince with pain from iodine on fresh wounds created enough laughter to heal any injury.

Whenever I was taken to a family home, I was promptly served a feast of chicken, beef, or pork, mashed plantains, rice, posho (maize), cabbage salad, Irish potatoes, kale greens, and g-nut, a peanut sauce. I had fresh avocado with an egg burrito of sorts called Rolex, nearly every day, and homemade ice cream, or delicious cakes from a friend’s restaurant. The amount of Nile Special beer I ingested is supporting a small village, but the local spirit, Waragi “UG”, was too much like paint thinner for me to enjoy, as the locals do. Christmas was spent with my friends Peter, Patrick and Francis at Patrick’s family’s home. They stuffed me full of food then proceeded to stuff me full of Nile beer until the wee hours of the morning. When I returned home late that night, I fell ill, with what I thought was food poisoning. However, the persistent fever and excruciating pain in every bone in my body proved it was malaria, from a mosquito bite. I laid around in misery for a day, but had to shake it off, as I had to make it to the Hip Hop Summit. I photographed for hours, resting when I could, fighting the fever and aching joints. I took the preventative medicine when I got home that night and it helped knock out the painful virus. I had a fever and pain for a few more days, but bounced back with more fury than before.

Babaluku Smith, the founding father of the Bavubuka Foundation and Luga Flow movement (rapping in Luganda) is a truly kind soul, driven to help empower the youth of Uganda. Through interviews of the kids that come to the Bavubuka House for emcee lessons, they all cited Baba as their inspiration to be an emcee. They said unlike other Ugandan Hip Hop artists, Babaluku’s music has a message. Many families do not support their kids being musicians, but with a leader like Baba they have faith in themselves. My purpose in bringing the theory of End Of The Weak was received well, as many emcees came through to be a part of the MC Challenge. A 16-year-old MC from the Bavubuka House won the freestyle challenge and could prove to be a major player in the international hip hop community. My friend and one of my many partners in crime, Stef from the UK, hosted the challenge and is working on taking over a hip hop night in Kampala to get a regular EOW MC Challenge established. Babaluku and Krazy Native have set the foundation for the UG Hip Hop music scene and the MC Challenge will help it evolve. I spent time with two groups of break dancers, who were eager to perform for my camera. They learn from US dance collectives like Rock Steady Crew, but add a dash of native flavor. I was highly impressed by the dedication of these kids and their desire to learn more.

Late one evening, after leaving Club Rouge, a nice club and my regular haunt, I photographed a car accident, which promptly brought police attention to this muzungu and her camera. With my friend Roshan driving, Tobi and I passengers, we were escorted down the street by a truck full of about 10 police officers to a quiet area not far from the accident. The interrogating officer, Edwin, asked the typical questions of who we are, why are we there… Tobi explained we work with children, so he warned us about photographing freely and let us go. I was never concerned about going to jail, but more of how much I would have to pay to get out of it. Luck would have it, Edwin thanked us for helping kids and sent us on our way. There are many things to say about politics and religion in Uganda, but that is a book in itself. The political climate is stable and people live freely. I met a handful of kids who lost their parents when the current president Museveni took over Idi Amin’s regime, but there was not any obvious animosity. Most people agree that Uganda flourished most during Amin’s reign, but based on what I saw and how I lived, the people continue to flourish. Many people complained that jobs are difficult to find, but that is an international struggle. Christians and Muslims co-exist peacefully, which I discovered through spending time with both sides. The born-again Christians are just as crazy as they are anywhere, standing on the street corners yelling about their savior. Splashing in the Nile River, riding boda bodas through sugarcane fields, eating fresh pineapple, avocado and jack fruit, swimming in Lake Victoria, photographing the filming of a video shoot from the back of a boda, shooting a boxing tournament, and hanging out on a rooftop overlooking Kampala city are just a few highlights of my adventure. The friends I made became my family and the work I started is unfinished, so my return to Uganda at the end of the year will be even more successful and inspiring. As Tobin from LA said, I have laid my path now I must fulfill my purpose.

 

Bono and Madonna steal most of the headlines, but when it comes to really dealing with some of Africa’s problems, rapper Silas Balabyekkubo thinks he’s got it figured out. “It’s the only thing missing in the puzzle of young people in Africa,” he asserts. Balabyekkubo, a.k.a. Babaluku, is speaking about the power of self-expression.
Babaluku, 27, emigrated from Uganda to Ontario at age 12. He later came to Vancouver to study music, and began creating socially conscious hip hop about “the struggle of what it is to be an immigrant or a refugee trying to survive in North America, and still relating the conditions back home.” On the set of his first music video, he met filmmaker Aaron Elton, who shared his interest in creating opportunities for youth in Africa.
In 2005, the two travelled to Uganda.
Once there, Babaluku recognized that young people were desperately in need of a way to speak out about issues in their communities. As the first hip-hop artist to rap in Luganda—Uganda’s main language—Babaluku brought hip-hop culture into the Ugandan consciousness. Only instead of boasting about sex, cars, and money, he rapped about AIDS, women’s empowerment, and African unity. At the same time, he and Elton launched the Bavubuka Foundation, which empowers young Africans through a multidisciplinary array of programs in music and the arts.
This month, Babaluku is in Uganda on one of his regular visits to facilitate Bavubuka programs, acting on his long-term commitment.
“We didn’t want to be a project that just came through and then took off,” he says. “All the young people understand that we’re not just here one time; we’re here to be a part of everything that’s happening.”
—Jennifer Croll

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These artists are the voice of the new generation, the heroes of their community
and a group of active, enthusiastic and energetic young people more concerned
with global change then how much change they have in their pockets. Music in the trailer by Abramz and Slyvester

In November 2007 we were able to secure a house just outside Kampala, the capital city of Uganda and our home-base for The Bavubuka Foundation.  From this house we operate after-school and weekend programs for children and youth aged 2yrs-25yrs and hold a weekly meeting for all the Bavubuka All*Starz.  Over the last year the attendance at our weekly house meetings has grown from approximately 15 participants to over 100.  This meeting is an opportunity for kids to network, share ideas, tell their stories and get advice from their peers and the program directors.  This is the first time an opportunity like this has been provided to youth in Uganda and we are already witnessing the positive changes that are occurring in our Bavubuka All*Starz as a result of these meetings and programs.

 

The Bavubuka All*Starz Hip-Hop Project focuses on engaging the youth in various initiatives through the arts, particularly rap music and film production.  Giving youth the unique chance to openly express their views, Bavubuka All*Starz helps young people raise awareness about the issues they feel are important in their communities.  In 2008, Bavubuka All*Starz continued to build on their past success by working consistently with approximately 25 youth who aspire to be rappers, music producers, break-dancers, and video directors.  Every Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday, Bavubuka All*Starz hosts Luga Flow hip-hop community workshops at the Bavubuka Community House in Bulange. Young men and women learn how to write and structure rhymes and flow patterns while also gaining a sense of cultural pride as they deliver positive messages in their native tongue, Luganda.