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| In Uganda - Jazz Concerts By Berklee College Musicians When jazz guitarist and Berklee College of Music alumnus Jim Logan lived in Uganda in 2004, he received a grant from the U.S. Embassy to perform with a band of local musicians at a barely sustainable camp for internally displaced peoples in Soroti. His original thought was to bring some musical relief to a plight that UN Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland calls their "the largest neglected humanitarian emergency in the world." Anticipating a sizable crowd, Logan decided to invite non-governmental healthcare organizations to deliver services from tables around the edges of the audience. Local health workers know that social stigmas prevent many citizens from being tested for AIDS, and the supplies they brought reflected their statistics. Logan thinks it was the music that day that eased people from any stigmas as more than 100 HIV tests were administered, wiping clean the supply on hand, and leaving a demand for many more. Logan has formed an organization based in Cambridge, MA, called Caravaan to support further exhibitions combining music and health service delivery in Uganda. On May 11, he leaves for his first tour there since 2004, planning to play multi-hour concerts in at least four IDP camps and two townships in the northern part of the country. This time, he is bringing 2, 000 HIV testing kits, donated by Abbott Pharmaceuticals. He also hopes to return to the U.S. with a young piano player he met while living in Uganda who has been accepted to Berklee College but who faces obstacles due to the lack of funding for full tuition. Caravaan is the acronym for cultivating art and realizing alternative ventures for aid to the African nation. Its mission is to use live music as a way of delivering health services to disenfranchised Ugandans. This includes HIV testing and counseling and other health initiatives. Caravaan also has a scholarship fund for exceptional African artists to attend colleges in the U.S. One potential recipient is a Ugandan piano player named Godfrey who played with Logan for more than two years in Uganda. Logan submitted Godfrey's portfolio to Berklee, which offered the pianist a $50, 000.00 tuition scholarship to be distributed over four years. Logan is trying to find more support to help Godfrey attend college in Boston, a proposal made even more compelling as the Ugandan is currently raising his own three children and the three children of his brother, noted Ugandan musician, who died of AIDS. Traveling with Logan to Uganda in May will be Berklee assistant professor Herman Hampton, a bass player and Roxbury, MA, resident, and Stefanie Pollender, formerly with the British Quaker Organization in Northern Uganda. The Berklee College of Music Alumni Grants Association, Christian Aid, and Save the Children Uganda are funding Logan's tour. Doing tour preparation in Uganda is the Concerned Parents Association, an organization of parents whose children have been abducted and forced to be child soldiers. Reminiscing about his last tour of Uganda, Logan said, "It was the most significant musical experience of my life. We made a difference in the lives of many people that day. What started as a desire to perform for people living in unconscionable conditions in the IDP camps, morphed out of a last minute brainstorm into a means of delivering health and social services." He added, "I feel I owe Berklee for many things; the education gained there has certainly attributed to my capacity to take this on, and now for the opportunity to repeat this initiative on a larger scale." write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Jazz News :: home page |