Greg Bennick: Blog

When I last posted here, the idea of teamwork in terms of the work being done at the time by supporters here for Haiti was just a preliminary glimpse of what was to show itself to be possible in the weeks that followed. We raised thousands of dollars in just 96 hours in order to bag and ship 30,000 lbs of rice to Haiti. The rice ended up going in two shipments, and in addition to the first shipment, we were able to add ten tons of medical supplies and tents. In the midst of all that, I formed One Hundred For Haiti, a fundraising effort with a goal of finding one hundred individuals, companies, or groups willing to donate $1000 USD or more to humanitarian aid in Haiti. So far response has been excellent. You can read more about the group and about the success we had delivering 35,000 lbs of supplies to Haiti by clicking on the logo below and exploring the One Hundred For Haiti website.

People often ask me if I speak about Haiti when I am invited to present at events. I certainly can do that, but its not always part of the program. I recently did a bit of that at the IASB showcase in New York City, an important international event in the speaking industry, and also at the local level to a group interested in being inspired by a call to social action. While I like to share Haiti stories (my presentation that day in NYC led to a $1000 donor for One Hundred For Haiti stepping forward!) its certainly not what I do on a regular basis, and especially not for groups who are looking for a comedy keynote. Haiti works as an excellent presentation subject for humanitarian events, social organizations looking for something current about which they can learn, groups looking to inspire people to action…but it doesn’t work for all clients, and I know the difference.

Recent success stories in terms of my presentations have focused, like the “speaking” page talks about, on passion and purpose and solving the problem of confusion and focus and what meaning we are hoping to find in our lives and in our work.

So the question remains: why, on a site devoted to offering my skills as a speaker and presenter to keynote-needing, comedy-intrigued clients, would I post so much about Haiti humanitarian efforts, film projects about Haiti, and the reasons behind that all of that work? The answer is simple: because its real.

While we work, interact, socialize, we have to remember that social conventions are creations, and that we fall into an unfortunate trap when we forget that. The rules you follow are creations. The ways we interact are creations. This isn’t to say that these things are inherently bad. Quite the contrary: we need these creations. We need structure and we need social organization in order to survive as the social creatures that we are. We’d create meaning if there was a lack of it.

My point is, that in the midst of so many ideas and directions to follow, that we often get lost ourselves. We find suddenly that we have lost meaning even as we have attempted to be a part of things that are meaningful. Maybe the motivation for our actions might not be sound, or the ideas themselves might not be ones we connect with immediately and sincerely. We get swept up in habit, in wanting to satisfy others, in wanting to do the right thing. But we forget to ask ourselves what habits we want for ourselves, whether or not we ourselves are satisfied, and what makes a thing “right” to do in the first place.

The work in Haiti isn’t like that. Haiti gives us something very real to latch on to. Its an ongoing story which provides meaning, concern, inspiration, and hope. Haiti is immediate, its crystal clear, and its undeniable. Its real. And it strikes to people’s core values: that people have the right to live and be healthy, to live without pain, to have children, and to care for those children. And they deserve to be able to do that in societies that are not physically crushed by disaster of any kind. Add to this example the fact that Haiti is our next door neighbor essentially, and you have a situation where people are going to want to know more, and want to help, simply because they realize on a deep level that the people they are reading about ARE THEM, themselves. This isn’t illusion or creation. Its very real. And people appreciate real so very much. I have seen that over years communicating with people directly about issues that are most important to them. They want real life. Real experiences. They crave them. And they want to hear about other people who are taking part in them. This is where people find deep inspiration to think, feel, and to get involved.

If you are interested in learning more about what I do, both onstage or in Haiti, please feel free to be in touch anytime. For the moment, click the link below and learn more about how you can get involved.

Cheers,
Greg

Donations kept coming in today, as they have over the last few days after the post below about the initial idea to send ten thousand pounds of rice to Haiti. Jason (my full time amazing personal assistant) and I spent all day today and yesterday emailing and calling and facebooking people. We started to realize that there was more potential here than we’d thought. The rice distributor (Sage V Foods from Little Rock, Arkansas) had offered us twenty thousand extra pounds of rice if we could take it off his hands and pay the additional transport costs. The Liberty Schooner, having just found a larger boat to take for this trip (the Halie-Matthew, with a 40,000 load capacity rather than just ten thousand pounds), agreed to take all the rice. What we needed to do: pay for the rice distributor to rebag the rice from enormous ballistic bags to manageable 50 pound bags so that it could get onboard the boat; pay for a truck to take the rice all the way from Little Rock to Key West; pay for fuel expenses for the Halie-Matthew from Key West to Haiti; pay for and arrange ground logistics in Haiti for the distribution of the rice to the village of La Source and to other places in need around the southern coast of Haiti. No problem. ;)

We received donations from new friends, old friends, friends of Trial (my former band - see the “Group Genius” post below), friends in the speaking and film industry…donations from people I’d not spoken to in years, from family, from people overseas, from people down the street, and from people we’d never even met (thanks to Reddit.com, twitter.com (@gregbennick) and wherever else we could post). Amounts came in from $2 to $500 and everything in between. As the days went on, Jason and I feared that we might be able to cover some but not all of the expenses…but as today turned to night and the donations kept coming in, we realized that everything was going to be possible and that we were about to feed the equivalent of an entire city. I was on the phone for five hours today navigating through donations and working out details. Every second of it was exciting.

As of this moment, we’ve raised $4647.81. This all came in over five days, and is enough to do everything we possibly hoped to do. Thirty thousand pounds of rice, one country in need, one shipment, and a hundred different people getting involved and making it possible. All in a week’s work. Thank you so much everyone. We did this. Not one person, all of us. Together we made a difference in the world. I appreciate all you’ve done and will continue to do. Any future donations which come in will be used towards expenses for the boat, for the upcoming water/filming project in La Source, and for providing medical supplies to my friend Dr. Jacques Denis’ medical clinic in Port Au Prince. As always, 100% of donations are used for exactly what they are intended. No overhead ever. 100% direct action humanitarian aid.

Special thanks to Marton Szigeti in Budapest Hungary for getting me onto the radio for 25 minutes the other day in Hungary to talk about Haiti, the mission to bring much-needed supplies, the upcoming water project in La Source, the upcoming One Hundred For Haiti project, and how people who care about others can help. Those who read and understand Hungarian can check out the interview here. The radio station tied these ideas into local and regional Hungarian issues as well, letting people know how Hungarians can get involved with helping in their communities too in order to support poor people in need. As a Hungarian-at-heart (many generations of my family came from the city of Mukachevo in what was Hungary but is now in the western Ukraine) I was excited by the global community shrinking and the work in Haiti inspiring Hungarians to help their neighbors within their own country. It seemed so close to home for me, and really, it is. On a planet this small, anything that happens anywhere is ultimately very close to home.

There is more to do, always. An entire planet swirling and turning in and around and on itself, always in need, always transforming. We will be a part of it as it happens, willing and ready. Keep in touch, and be involved.

As of an hour ago I have 10,000 lbs of rice in a warehouse in Little Rock that needs to be shipped to Miami in order to get to Haiti. UPS is ready to ship it. The Liberty Schooner has agreed to bring it to Haiti. I have ground support set up in Haiti to distribute it. I need $3000 by Tuesday to make it all happen. What you can do: paypal anything you can to xjugglerx@yahoo.com. The Liberty Schooner (the ship on which I last sailed) has agreed to bring the rice to Haiti, in one trip, or split between two trips. More can be learned about them at their blog site. On the ground in Haiti, I have coordinated logistics to distribute the rice from where it will arrive on the south coast of Haiti into the interior of the country. Some of the rice will be delivered to the village of La Source where Josue Lajeunesse is originally from. Josue is the star of the film La Source which I am currently co-producing with my friends at Generosity Water and Transcendental Media about the installation of a permanent water system for that village. Rice will also be delivered to other destinations that come up as being in need. There are many. Some places have yet to see any food aid since the earthquake. We are going to change that. We are currently raising money to cover the transport, the shipping by sea, and the distribution in Haiti of that rice.

Coming soon for Haiti: ONE HUNDRED FOR HAITI. Through my journeys to Haiti, I’ve realized that I had to do something more about the situation there. Something on a major scale. Enter: One Hundred For Haiti. This initiative is dedicated to finding an exclusive group of one hundred donors each willing to donate $1000 or more to help the people of Haiti. One Hundred For Haiti will help with several different projects all focused on direct action for people most in need. From helping with the water and rice projects described above, to filling a Port au Prince medical center with supplies, One Hundred For Haiti will bring direct results. Taking a grass roots approach will allow One Hundred For Haiti to cut through politics and solve problems far more efficiently.

I just got back from Haiti last night. I sailed with nine people and ten thousand pounds of donated medical supplies and food on a boat from Miami on the 28th of January. We traveled 900 miles and seven days, to Jacmel Haiti where locals were so thankful to see us arrive with those supplies that one greeted us on the dock by saying “Welcome to Jacmel. We see you as if God has arrived”. Our boat was an all volunteer boat, and one of the first, if not the first, independent boat from the USA to reach the southern coast of Haiti. I did a radio interview with Peter Greenberg Worldwide (300 stations and 1.5 million listeners) about the mission and you can listen to it here:

Greg on Peter Greenberg Worldwide

Overall, the trip was astounding, life changing, meaningful, and most importantly helpful for local people as well as being the start of an intensive campaign to bring a continuous flow of supplies via boat and other means to the Haitian people. We had our 10000 pounds of supplies distributed within two hours to aid organizations and local groups, and then I spent a day in Jacmel juggling at an orphanage for children with HIV and AIDS.

After Jacmel, I visited a remote area of Haiti for an afternoon assessing damage to Josue Lajeunesse’s village (see “films” page for more on Josue) and connecting with his family. I left Lasource and drove to Port Au Prince to meet with the director of one of the main medical clinics in one of the poorest sections of the city. We are working together to try and find much needed medical supplies for his clinic.

People have been asking me right and left what they can do and its incredibly inspiring to see that happening. All too often people dis-empower themselves before they even ask the question as to whether or not its possible for them to contribute to making change happen right here, right now. The key: GET INVOLVED.

Its simple: want it, do it. That’s all there is. Anything else between “want it” and “do it” are excuses or other priorities. You either want to help and you get the job done, or you want to help but you don’t. There isn’t another way to think about it. Maximum passion and maximum efficiency yields maximum results.

Write me if you feel the desire to do something but don’t know what, or if your organization can help on a large scale, or if you even imagine that it can. I will help you get involved.

-greg

I spoke this last week at TEDxPugetSound here in Seattle, on a topic that integrated passion, creativity, and the human condition. My thought is that our desire to experience the abundance life has to offer can best be fulfilled if we engage via creative process with the seconds we have to live, in the same way an artist would engage with his/her process of creating a work of art.

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Starting with the AFI/Discovery Channel Silverdocs film festival in June, we had the world premiere of our new film The Philosopher Kings which was brought back after two sold out screenings by popular demand for a third screening. We did a Q+A with the audience after the second screening and were excited by the enthusiasm people had about the personal stories of the custodians, particularly Josue Lajeunesse of Princeton University who works nearly 20 hours a day between two jobs in order to earn enough money to send resources home to his native Haiti so that the villagers in his tiny rural home can have access to clean water without having to walk 25 miles round trip to get it. (We are at work on helping Josue establish a permanent water system in the village and will be helping to not only implement this system but also documenting its construction throughout the rest of 2009 and into 2010).

The custodian superstars of the film were almost all onhand for the event at Silverdocs. After the film screened and they were introduced and walked out of the audience, all in suits, it was as if the heroes of the film had literally jumped off the screen and come to life. Hearing them tell their stories was so compelling onscreen, and then to hear and see those stories reiterated live was just perfect. The film ultimately is about listening to those individuals who we normally ignore, or who are invisible to us. For the invisible to be unquestionably visible at Silverdocs was the culmination of a vision for Patrick and for me. We were honored to share it with the custodians themselves and to have them essentially run the show.

After Silverdocs, TRIAL played a great show in the Czech Republic at Fluff Fest for over 3000 people. The connections made there were unreal. Friends from all over the world were together both at that show and at the show the next week in Stockholm Sweden to experience connection and vitality.

After the TRIAL shows, I screened Flight From Death to a group of Ukrainian and Russian young people (photo of our post-film discussion below) within Ravensbruck, the former women’s concentration camp, in Germany. We also held a screening in Weimar (very close to the Buchenwald camp) to an enthusiastic audience who stayed for ninety minutes after the film finished to discuss the ideas in it! To screen in such historically significant places was the culmination of a dream: to put ideas that matter in places of significance and discuss the feelings and ideas which result from that experience.

Upon returning home, I travelled to Cornell for the American university premiere of The Philosopher Kings. The event went so far beyond any expectations we could have had. Read the review here to see the effect the film had not only on our custodian stars, but also on the audience. Patrick and I have shared some incredible experiences in our film career over the last six years. But little can compare to the the moment when at the first screening (a private screening for Cornell custodial staff all of whom showed up in their red work shirts), our custodians walked out onto the stage for the Q+A session after the film. The entire audience of 600+ stood as one, all wearing their Cornell red shirts, in a standing ovation for their coworkers onstage. There was so much pride in the room and the applause was deafening.

Since Cornell, I have been looking forward to screenings and film festivals across North America, recording a record in Canada with my new band Between Earth and Sky, and beginning work on a book project about living passionately and pushing one’s limits.

The current screening schedule for The Philosopher Kings looks like this. Dates with an asterisk are ones where we will be in attendance to do Q+A sessions and to present the film in person.

October 24th - San Francisco, CA - SF Int’l Doc Fest (Oct 16-28)* - West Coast Premiere

October 28th - San Diego, CA - San Diego Asian Film Festival (Oct 15-29)

Many who interact with me in the course of my life, while meeting me
as a film producer or as a speaker, might not know about my punk/hardcore band TRIAL and what it means to me, and what it means to the people about whom I care most in my life.  The band is an experience of the deepest emotion, authenticity, sincerity, and connection, which exists ONLY because of the relationship between audience and band along with the dynamic that genuine communication creates when people have the courage to make it happen.  This photo was taken at the TRIAL show in Chicago IL which took place in honor of the release of the book “Burning Fight: The Nineties Hardcore Revolution in Ethics, Politics, Spirit, and Sound”.  The audience numbered 1100 from all over the world and it was the deepest honor to share collective creativity with them.  The group is powerful, both in our passion and intensity and also in our sensitivity and love.  Every single person in this photo is courageous and awe inspiring to me.  Collectively, their depth and vast genius is beyond words.

South Africa: the intersection of violence and hope

Fourteen years after the fall of apartheid, South Africa is simmering with racial tension, violence, and an undercurrent of fear. This is concurrent with a deep hope that the wave of xenophobic violence will soon pass, allowing the country to gain back its sense of normalcy. Poor South Africans, threatened by the loss of jobs to immigrants from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Somalia, and the Congo, took to the streets last month, killing, beating, and harassing those foreigners. Literally tens of thousands of Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, etc, have fled their homes in the townships for fear of violence at the hands of the attackers. Often then have fled with just the clothes on their backs. There are currently 8000 people in the camp near Johannesburg, and even more in the camp near Cape Town. Conditions in the camps are reported to be overwhelmingly dire. There are reports of hunger strikes in protest of the conditions in the camps. I heard yesterday of a threatened mass suicide on the part of several hundred Somalians in the Cape Town camp.

Humans are faced with a predicament. We are unique in the animal world because we are not only alive but are aware that we are alive. Along with this comes the knowledge that someday we will die. For a creature who can use reason, and imagination, it follows that this is problematic: we can imagine a time when we will no longer exist. As a result, we seek structures and allegiances which soothe the fear. We latch on to systems of living and believing which make us feel that we are invincible: it gives us a deep sense of calm when we are a part of something greater than ourselves. Its as if knowing the group will survive outweighs the knowledge that we ourselves will die. But these systems come up short. Religion, money, family, and culture only go so far to calm our tortured hearts, especially when we add into the psychological maelstrom the pressures of economy, race, and other influences. The strategies for coping with which we ally ourselves are threatened by the strategies held dear by others. I believe that this, simply put, is a substantial part of what causes violence in our world. In South Africa, there is a sense of loss, not only of one’s individual life, but also the life of the collective with which one most closely aligns his/herself. Its the threat of this greater loss, enhanced by the fear of poverty, which brings people out into the streets, ready and willing to commit acts of violence. And commit acts of violence they have.

A sense of humility, a step back from immortality striving, a willingness to be afraid, the courage to laugh in the face of death. These are the things that we need in order to survive psychologically as a species in these most desperate of times.

And that’s where our story begins. Twelve students, a film crew, a history teacher…in South Africa along with local friends, to explore for three weeks the potential in all of us for violence, and the ability in each of us to transcend that potential. Johannesburg, Pretoria, Soweto, Kimberly, Cape Town: cities filled with rich history, and an expansive breadth of humanity. We are seeking immediate human experience and the real life stories attached to those people who are desperate for, and in the midst of, survival and transformation.

Updates to follow…

Update 1 - 6/15/2008: News from the streets of South Africa:
Mozambican man burned alive today near Pretoria

Update 2 - 6/17/2008: These words are from co-trip leader Dave Whitson:
“We’re casting a wide net on this trip, scheduling visits with freedom fighters, young people trying to shape their community today, victims of the apartheid era, members of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, people leading human rights campaigns today, those active in the refugee camps recently established - and people involved in the fight against AIDS. The over-arching theme is the challenge of rebuilding after an era of great violence. So, while we are certainly interested in the struggle against apartheid, we’re more interested in the struggle to build a free, democratic, and equitable state. What I am cautious about avoiding is making it appear as though we are looking to somehow exploit grief. We are interested in hearing people talk about their lives and their work, to see things as they really are - and, should there be an opportunity for us to be helpful, to contribute somehow while we’re there.”

Update 3 - 7/12/2008: Youngsfield Refugee camp, Cape Town, South Africa:
My life has been changed forever by South Africa. In the past ten years, I have traveled to fifty states, five continents and over thirty countries. I have talked to people all over the world about their lives, their history, and their hopes for a future. But South Africa leaves me speechless. Something about South Africa has burned a hole directly into my heart. There is too much to type.

We spent yesterday and today in the refugee camps, doing exactly what I came half a world to do. We spent two days face to face with refugees from all over Africa. Men, women, and children from Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, Congo, Somalia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, who were homeless as a result of the recent attacks here on foreigners. These are people who had fled wars, torture, murderous gangs and beatings in their homelands to come to South Africa in hopes of having half a chance at freedom, only to be attacked here as well and end up in refugee camps with no future and no hope.

Forgive the lack of clarity in my writing. I am exhausted and am not thinking clearly.

Yesterday, we’d gone to the camps to play with the children there, because we’d heard that the children in the camps are losing their minds with boredom, as weeks of hunger, cold, rain, and no toys and nothing to do take effect. We were told that the South African Army, who is housing this particular camp, allowed absolutely no filming whatsoever and that we stood no chance of getting permission to film. This was a huge disappointment for us.

Needless to say, driving up to rows of army tents, people wandering and shouting out to one another, and seeming anarchy in the midst of a military environment didnt leave us feeling particularly safe or comfortable, but that is largely the challenge of this trip. Feeling comfortable means that nothing is changing. Comfortable is what you get from inaction.

We got out of the car and the trauma center director gave us the toys which had been donated for the children. I walked into the main tent where 70 children were waiting and scrambling to get access to the 20 or so crayons that had been supplied to them by donations from the outside, and said to the woman who was in charge, “Who can I talk to about filming here?” She looked at me in despair and replied “How should I know…I have only been here for an hour”. In that moment I realized that my group, having just arrived into the chaos, was second in command already, by only 59 minutes.

We’d been given “toys” to distribute yesterday to the children by a local NGO, but the toys turned out to be garbage. Literally. The toys we’d been given were the garbage of Cape Town: broken pieces of plastic that kids in Cape Town had thrown away that we had to give out anyway to the refugee children because they’d been promised toys and we had nothing else to give. Kids were clamoring for these broken pieces of plastic. It broke my heart. I watched a little boy of about five hold a broken piece of plastic in his hands trying to figure out how to play with it. Another, about six years old, held just the wings to a model airplane. Another the remote to a remote control car but no car. He asked me “Is there car?” I had to reply that there wasn’t. He looked so sad. I felt entirely helpless.

I sought out the military commander of the base and asked for permission to film interviews with the people there. To our surprise, he granted permission, telling me that he’d been ordered by his commander to let in all press who asked. He’d been advised of our presence as well by the director of the Trauma Center for Survivors of Violence and Torture, who we’d interviewed two days ago along with a man named Muhammad who had been imprisoned by the South African government for fighting against apartheid, and placed into solitary confinement and sensory deprivation for months. The granting of permission was a huge surprise. It was a turn of events that completely inspired us. We left heartbroken about the children and the broken toys, but inspired to come back today with new purpose.

We left the camp and went out last night and bought toys. A hundred tennis balls. A dozen packages of soap bubbles. Crayons and pens and paper, and coloring books. And today we went back, armed with those toys, our film cameras, and entirely open hearts.

We walked into the camp today, presented ourselves to the military, and walked past the gates. We gave out all the toys. We juggled for the kids, taught them to draw, learned to draw from them, laughed and played with them. We took hundreds of photos. And then we interviewed them. And their older brothers and sisters. And their parents. And this is when the bottom dropped out of the world.

Everyone has a story. Not everyone gets to tell their story. Today we listened, filmed, and felt the depths of many people who would never have been heard from otherwise. People who have seen things no one should ever see.

We met Musa, age 31 from Rwanda, who had fled the genocide in the mid 90’s to South Africa, only to be attacked here for being a foreigner. He told me that the gangs tricked him. They spoke to him on the street in Xhosa, one of the native South African languages. When he couldnt reply, because he didnt understand, they stabbed him in the face, and in the back.

We met Danny, from the Congo, who at age eleven offered one of the most profound interviews I have ever had the chance to be a part of. I say that without reservation. Danny told me at one point before the interview: “In Congo, the people were shooting, killing and burning us. Here in South Africa, they are killing and shooting and burning us. Nothing is changed. I do not know why.” No eleven year old in the world should know of such things. Danny dreams of becoming the president of the United States someday. His interview might very well be at the core of what gets edited from this trip. We can hardly wait to get started with all the projects we have in mind.

We met Owen from Zimbabwe. Owen has advanced degrees in chemistry and molecular biology. He is 29. He fled Zimbabwe because of threats of violence and because the economy there has collapsed. A bottle of cooking oil costs $300 billion Zimbabwean dollars there now. That is not a typo. It costs that much if you can find a bottle of oil on the black market. Most people can’t and the store shelves are empty. He told me that Coke is more common than bread, but no one can afford Coke. With his advanced degrees, Owen still struggles to maintain hope. He is in the camp because his neighbors in Cape Town threatened his life for being Zimbabwean.

We met a man from Congo who is in the camp alone because his wife and children were killed before he left his native country.

We met a refugee who told us “I have no hope.” We met a refugee from Zimbabwe who after the cameras stopped, said to me sadly “We will die in here.” Dozens of other people stopped us to talk and tell their stories. We did interviews nonstop for nine hours. As we talked to these people we realized again and again that these were not Congolese, or Rwandans, or Somalis. They were people. Like you and me. People with loves and desires and fears and families. We tend to think of people as different because of their skin color, their poor English, their nationality. We grew up watching tv commercials for the starving Ethiopians and Africans and had ingrained the idea that these weren’t people, but rather things to pity, to send change to and then to forget, having done our work. If it hadnt occurred to me before, today it finally did: these are people.

We took photos and listened deeply, and connectedly, trading contact information, and planning for revolution in the hearts and souls and lives of these people. The followup is already underway and is very real. Some of the people we met did not go to bed hungry tonight.

Today was the beginning of communication, transformation, discovery. I am not the person I was when I woke up this morning. Neither are the students we brought with us. We had a discussion tonight with the students and shared reflections on the day. In 90 minutes of talking we barely scratched the surface of what we’d felt.

As I type, I am sitting on the floor of the hostel in which our group is staying. Everyone in my group has gone to bed. It is 2:15 in the morning and we need to be up in a few hours to go and visit with and interview a group who is doing AIDS outreach in rural areas.

The only people awake right now are this group of tourists who are staying here who just stumbled drunk into the hostel after a long night of partying. They are talking loud, looking for cigarettes, disconnected. They are talking about things which do not exist to me. These people do not live in my world anymore, or rather I do not live in theirs. My world is and will be the world in which Musa lives. And Danny. And Owen. And the boy who yesterday had only a remote control for a car which would never come, but who fell asleep tonight having laughed and played all day with a new tennis ball.

This is a world not made of us and them. It is made of us and us, with the us other than ourselves just existing with different faces…with different names, different languages. We live on a planet with 5 billion other ourselves. And they are waiting, for you, for me, to tell their stories to in hopes of being heard. They are waiting for help from those who have the ability to help them, because they have been attacked and hurt in body and mind and can no longer help themselves. The world they live in is very real, inescapable.

In the words of Muhammad who we interviewed here, “I can not sit still while there are those who sleep on the streets tonight with a sheet of cardboard for a blanket and a brick for a pillow”.

There is only an offering of the self. There is the intersection of compassion and creativity and inspiration and direction and focus and intensity and courage. Everything else is lifelessness and the void.

I love you all.

Greg

Update 4 - 6/6/2009: Donate online to help the victims of violence in the Youngsfield Refugee Camp through the work of the Center for Survivors of Violence and Torture, based in Cape Town.

Donate online to directly help the refugees in the Youngsfield camp, as well as those served by the Center. Your donations go to buy vouchers for food and clothing as well as psychological/emotional support services for those youth and parents traumatized by violence. Full documentation authorizing me to accept donations on behalf of the Trauma Center is available on request. Use the website contact form and you will receive a copy of the letter authorizing collection of the donations.