Eight months ago, I would admit that I was among the many ignorant Kenyans
when it came to issues of child and human trafficking in Kenya. This changed suddenly when I received a call from a very talented poet and event organizer, Bernard Muhia who also runs a website www.bernardmuhia.com (catalogs his projects). He wanted me to collaborate with Jaju (a brilliant female poet) and Daddie Marto (Martin Githinji, a renowned theatre performer, entertainer and by far my favourite comedian in kenya) to visit highschools and create awareness with respect to Child and Human Trafficking via poetry and comedy. A projected termed as Fern Poetry. This went on successfully and below in one of the pieces i composed.
I am a guest poet visiting,
talking about human trafficking,
A painful thing for many but me,
I know you're wondering why but, see, You see what I have read I've said,
When I've led,ive made people see the inner essence of knowledge, that no wage increase
For teachers can page in life's scriptures!!! Features of homeless children snuck out the country, beaten, starved, the weak butchered every week to feed selfless individuals, Who own vast plantations,
I wish I could just plant stations of mass destruction and annihilate them but that's me, quite unprofessional and truthfully out of my reach, but what should we do??????
Read...read like those lives depend on us!! Read like we are their last hope for salvation,
Read like it is our blood bonded brothers and sisters affected,
Read like if we all don't read then we will all suffer the same fate!! You think I don't share the misery??? I bleed this pain with them like our veins were slit and optically connected!!
Carefully selected are our mothers and sisters sold to prostitution obviously against the constitution offering contribution to sexual slavery and distribution of money to their so called owners a.k.a pimps a.k.a culprits born to rot in the dip pits of hell
And abyss of torture!!! With their deep feet covered with lava!!!I would like to see how their deep pits or rather pockets of worthless paper will take them out of this situation filled with moral degradation. Who are their targets????
Young boys and girls snatched out of their ignorant mothers care who had apparently no idea we live in a dangerous world.
Young men and women starving in the streets convinced of a happier life only to be battered and kidneys sold to India where suddenly "it is more deserved" Funny how!!!
But If we read, if we acquire the right knowledge,
The ignorant mother would know better, The children will know where it is safe to go,
The street dwellers would have enough knowledge to keep them from joblessness and unnecessary struggle!!
We would significantly reduce cases of child and human trafficking let us read!!! Let's us read!!! Let us,.,,,,,,,,,,, read!!! We know this is happening but we are not directly affected just like we can't see air but we know the wind blows!!! But what if that typhoon hits your home??? And one of your own is abducted by those tycoons?? Let us read!!! Let us read!!!
Now, Fern Poetry has gone a step further and collaborated with Africa Sanaelimu to bring you,
A BLUE HEART: JOY'S STORY
A Blue Heart: Joy's Story is a play about Human Trafficking, coming to Kenya National Theatre on 24th March and at the Braeburn Theatre on 8th March 2012
Description
Fern Poetry and the Africa Sanaelimu art Ensemble have come together to develop a play titled ‘A Blue Heart; Joy’s story, to create awareness on human trafficking. The play is about Joy, a young girl who goes to live with her aunt after her parent’s unfortunate demise, giving birth to a gripping saga. A Blue Heart; Joy’s story brings together narration, poetry, music and dance. Bernard Muhia from Fern Poetry has written the poems in the play while Mike Kasongo from Africa Sanaelimu Art Ensemble has choreographed the dances and the music. The music is from traditional African drums beaten to a perfect rhythm to reflect the various moods of the play.
This play has been featured on the United Nations website http://www.ungift.org/
Charges are Kshs. 200 for students with School ID and Kshs. 500 for Adults. For tickets kindly call Noella on 0720302364 or El Poet on 0700393931. 5% of proceeds go to Kenya Red Cross and another 5% goes towards creating more awareness in informal schools.
The title is inspired by the Blue Heart Campaign against Human Trafficking launched by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) which is mandated to create awareness on human trafficking. UNODC is also working to make the ‘blue heart’ an international symbol for human trafficking. The United Nations defines human trafficking as “The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation".
Website
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Wow! This is powerful.
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