Iain Cameron's Diary
"Click here to access the Fruitful Album" - Click here to visit Music for the Highveld Project


The Highveld Project

Get your own
 diary at DiaryLand.com! contact me older entries

2002-07-24 - 8:07 p.m.

Here's another extract from Parky's account published in the Daily Telegraph of his adventures in a township in Johannesburg. Grace is Grace Sibeko who I met in Guildford with Lynne Coull a few days before they flew back to South Africa to help MP find his way round:

"Wednesday: no water, no electricity - yet everything is beautiful

Today, Grace takes us to meet Given. He is 16 years old and still at school. His mother died of Aids two years ago. She was a single parent. Given is now mother, father, protector and provider to two young brothers aged 13 and 10. The boys sleep in one narrow bed in what is no more than a corrugated shed with a primitive paraffin cooker, a small stove and a picture of the Virgin Mary on the wall. They have no running water and no electricity. There is no money for food or clothes. They exist because of Grace and her organisation.

Winter is coming and cold winds swirl through the camp. The brothers scavenge for newspapers. Paper is their only source of fuel. Given is an intelligent boy who wants to continue his education. It is his only hope, his only means of escape. I ask him what he wants to be. He says "A doctor".

I look at Grace as she translates his answer and she reads my mind. Later, she tells me: "You should not be surprised. We must never stop hoping".

That evening, with the sun going down, we film Given and the local football team in action. Our bodyguard, the Newcastle United fan, is on the touchline, no doubt scouting for talent. The teams play in a haze of dust which, added to the drifting smoke from the evening fires, filters the view across the township to the setting sun. Our bodyguard says "There is an African saying: At this time of day, everything is beautiful".

Alan Whicker always reckoned that if you wanted a crash course on the country you had just dropped in on, listen to talk radio. I did and they were interviewing young South Africans living in the townships. One was asked to describe himself - Broke, black and living in a shack he said."

Derek Ridgers and I are debating advertising strategy. I have asked him to design posters and/or flyer to get people to look at the site www.kwase-kwaza.org which takes its name from the project that Grace is leading. Derek has experience as a professional in advertising. He is forcing me to think through the "AIDA" model. Awareness might make people Interested enough to look at the site but what is the Action we want them to Decide to take? My answer is that the action might take a number of forms - one of which could be buying the Plundafonix CD - but they might decide to do a number of other things. Indeed Peter Chatterton who is building the site wants to offer a number of different action suggestions. My favourite one at the moment is asking people to mail the URL to five friends. Robin confirms that it takes about 500 or so visits before you get any evidence of someone forming an intention to buy - so building traffic is the key.

I have just downloaded Chapter 1 of a report that the UN prepared for the AIDS Conference at Barcelona. It contains a summary of "new thinking" on the world situation in 5 key points:

1/ The global epidemic is at its early stages and the overall pattern will not be clear for decades

2/ In every country where HIV transmission has been reduced it has been amongst young people that the most spectacular reductions have been achieved

3/ The whole community has to be mobilised to make any progress - stigma must be eliminated and action taken both by Governments and other social actors, communities and individuals

4/ Access to care and treatment isn't an optional luxury anywhere in the world

5/ HIV AIDS has economic, political, social and cultural dimensions and action is needed on each of these to bring about changes in the disease situation.

More at http://www.unaids.org/barcelona/presskit/barcelona%20report/chapter1.html

I had an amazing time between 5.30am and 7.00am this morning - working on Face. I took the MD recording I had made last night and loaded into Cubase on the more powerful PC - added some D-Horn line and then brought in some "found" vocals - mostly Asian. I mixed back to MD and then began some final mixing using some flanging, compression. a 7 band graph. There are times when things happen fast and of course you have to wait a bit before you can tell if the are any good.

I got another prospective sale � 2 CDs. I decided to mail the URL to some old skool chums using the Friend ReUnited site. (That site was how I got in touch with Chris Wallis.) This current prospect shows that the FR site can take awareness to a decision when the individual concerned has a suitable predisposition - some prior knowledge1. I managed to get quite a few sales in the Department in a similar way� stressing the value of the proposition (most of the money goes to the front line) and playing off people�s curiosity about the performers.

My existence on the FR site up until now has been disguised � wrong name, wrong year. This meant I could approach people that I wanted without disclosing my presence to everyone.

I have just been watching Crimewatch - there was a serious crime just off my road re-enacted. It took place on the day of the Queen's Jubilee. I can't even remeber what I was doing.

Plan A seems to be back on the agenda - its quite hard keeping faith over these gaps in activity.

Today I attended a course from the training contract we let a couple of months ago. I mailed a colleague involved in selecting the contractor to say that I thougt we got the right people. I was impressed with what they managed to achieve in three and a half hours.

I listened to Mick Beck's jazz trio - Something Else - this morning. Oh dear thats another of the people that I know that I can see as an influence on what I am doing now.

previous - next