The second Wilberforce Lecture of 2008 will be delivered at Holy Trinity church on Friday 21st November 2008 at 5.30pm by the Foreign Secretary, Rt. Hon David Milliband M.P..

His subject will be “Russia in a changing world”.

At the same event the Wilberforce Medal for 2008 will be awarded posthumously to Anna Politkovskaya, the campaigning journalist of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, who was assassinated in the lift of her Moscow apartment building two years ago.

From the information I have and especially following the recent victory in the U.S. presidential elections of President-Elect Obama, the content will now focus much more on the changing world than Russia and so may prove very interesting.

Unfortunately, the “security” demands of the Foreign Office are preventing us from widely advertising this event until a few days before it takes place, not until next week in fact and clearly we do not want to present Mr. Milliband with an empty church, so if you are at all interested I do urge you to obtain a ticket from the City Hall Box Office. These are available now to those who ask, though you do have to give your name and address. Apologies for these complications but I’m afraid the details of the arrangements are not under the control of the Trustees.

You may also receive a Global e-mail about this event but probably not until the middle of next week.

The Mayor of Freetown, Cllr Herbert George Williams, will visit Hull for Hull’s 2nd annual Freetown Day celebrations.

Mayor Williams is particularly keen to meet and speak to Members of the Freetown Society, and all members are therefore invited to attend an open meeting in the Live Art Space at the Ferens Art Gallery on Sunday 26th October at 12.30pm. The meeting is being held at that location so that Members also have the chance to view the Freedom Trail Exhibition and the Greetings! Wilberforce Women exhibition that will be on display.

For further information please contact Richard Skog on (01482) 613154

Hull City Council has been shortlisted for 2008’s LGY&H ‘Making the Difference’ Awards in the ‘Looking Beyond our Shores’ category for Hull’s inaugural Freetown Day in 2007. The winner will be announced at an award ceremony in Wakefield on 18th November 2008.

October 25th (the anniversary of the twinning link) was designated as Freetown Day as part of the Wilberforce 2007 commemorations. Freetown Day 2007 encompassed many of the diverse elements of international linking, and acted as a catalyst for the development of innovative projects for the benefit of both cities. There were six individual projects that underpinned Freetown Day 2007 - including academic, local government, community, cultural, faith and practical elements that each exemplify the strength and diversity of the link. Partners such as the Council, the Freetown Society, Freedom Trail, Greetings! Wilberforce Women and the University of Chester combined to deliver the series of events.

The shortlisting follows the success of the Sierra Leone National Fire Force project which won 1st place in the 2007 awards:

http://www.lgyh.gov.uk/EnhancingLocalGovernments/Hull+Sierra+Leone.htm

As the 1st anniversary of the departure of the Freedom Trail draws ever close 2 of the Freedom Trail photographers have mounted an exhibition of their work at the Ferens Art Gallery.

Their work is a collection of over 60 photographs out of the 8000 that were shot during the expedition. All of the prints are available to purchase for £20 after the exhibition is over and you can reserve yours by visiting the gallery and filling in the form that is in the Live Arts room there.

Following the unprecedented success of last year’s inaugural 1st Freetown Film Festival, which garnered world-wide praise, the 2nd Freetown Film Festival will take place from the 31st August to 6th September, 2008, and for the first time in broadcasting history, a selected Sierra Leone film will be shown each evening, on national television.

“Last year’s inaugural festival was a great success and we screened over twenty Sierra Leone films at the Globe Cinema to an audience of over 4,000 people over three days,” said a spokesperson for the Festival organizers. Although many in Sierra Leone still do not appreciate the potential economic, social and cultural significance of this type of event, it did not go unnoticed in the global arena. “We received many comments, plaudits, submissions and offers of support from organisations as diverse as the BBC World Service, British Film Institute and international arts, film and media festivals and organizations around the world, and these have helped reinforce our convictions about the necessity to continue to pursue and develop our work.”

This year, for the first time in history, Sierra Leone films will be screened on television by the national broadcaster, SLBS, every evening of the Film Festival Week. A very positive sign of the social and cultural rehabilitation that has been taking place in the post-conflict aftermath of Sierra Leone’s recent decade-long war.

The Freetown Film Festival is just one of a number of initiatives quietly, but continually, being developed by the Sierra Leone National Film Workshop, a local non-profit organization, run entirely on a voluntary basis by volunteers. It has quickly become respected by many in Sierra Leone and internationally, as the only local filmmaking organisation working to help filmmakers in the development of an indigenous Sierra Leone film industry, and certainly one of only a few organizations able to have achieved so much without any support from government nor international donors.

This year’s 2nd Freetown Film Festival sponsored by kunu.org - a unique new agency launched to protect and promote Sierra Leone’s culture and environment - is concentrating on developing more public awareness and participation in the support of local filmmaking, as well as highlighting the talent and potential of Sierra Leone professionals. The Festival, a week-long focus on Sierra Leone filmmaking, will also include a Filmmakers Forum, which will include lectures, workshops and screenings for filmmakers, discussions about working with investors as well as stakeholders in government, civil society and the private sector towards peace, development and a thriving economy.

“Without doubt, it is now widely acknowledged that film-making is an important part of any culture and can benefit the economy in the form of employment, income generation as well as other areas such as helping to promote tourism and a wider interest in a country,” said a spokesperson. “We are therefore immensely grateful to SLBS for collaborating with us to promote Sierra Leone films across the country. This will allow the whole nation to share and enjoy indigenous films that reflect our experiences, our lives, our cultures.” As it did last year, the Film Festival is a long overdue way of acknowledging the achievements of our country’s struggling filmmakers and is set to create new opportunities for the benefit not only of film-makers, but for audiences, investors, and the country’s culture and economy as a whole.

About the Sierra Leone National Film Workshop

The Workshop is a non-profit organization run entirely by volunteers. It is the only dedicated organisation working with Sierra Leone filmmakers to encourage and support local film production and assist its viable development for the benefit of Sierra Leone’s society, culture and economy.

Contact Details :

Ian Noah
Exec.Director
Sierra Leone National Film Workshop (www.nationalfilmworkshop.org)
Freetown Film Festival 2008 (freetownfilmfestival.org)

admin@nationalfilmworkshop.org

Tickets are now on sale for the world premiere of Disposable People, an exciting piece of multi-media theatre, which will take place in Hull in October.

Disposable People is about contemporary human rights, it’s an event as much as a play with installation art, performing, music, film and live video interaction.

The performance takes place in a the boatshed at Hull Marina.

Disposable People
“It is criminals who see that I have HOPE and that makes me weak to them.
But is is not criminals who brought me here. It is HOPE.”

Commissioned and funded by Hull City Council the play takes the form of a global journey linking the criminality that enslaves and abuses people across our world today.
Its creators are Andrew Pearson and Thom Strid of Croft Creative Productions said: “We couldn’t tackle the challenge of subject matter like this in the confines of a conventional civic theatre. This isn’t about teaching people. This is about exciting audiences, to stimulate them – to make their eyes go wide.”

Performances are at 7.30 pm ech evening from October 15 to 20.

Tickets, which cost £12, £8 for concessions, can be purhcased from Hull City Hall Box Office by calling 01482 226655. Students in groups of 10 will pay just £5 each.

http://www.disposablepeople.co.uk
http://www.croft-creative.com

The Wilberforce Institue for the study of Slavery and Emancipation is calling for papers for a fothcoming conference.

WISE is making a call for papers for its conference on Sierra Leone, taking place on 26-28 September 2008.

The conference theme is Empire, Slave Trade and Slavery: Rebuilding Civil Society in Sierra Leone, Past and Present.

For more information contact Conference Manager Jane Ellison on 01482 305182 e-mail j.ellison@hull.ac.uk or visit www.hull.ac.uk/wise

26/10/2007 - 27/10/2007 - Guildhall - Hull

This conference at Guildhall, Kingston upon Hull, will bring together community-based groups and individuals in the UK who have links with partners or an interest in West Africa. We are holding this conference in collaboration with Freetown Society and Hull City Council.

Hull City Council has a long standing link with Freetown in Sierra Leone which involves many of Hull’s schools, churches and community groups. This conference will be part of the Wilberforce 2007 celebrations around the abolition of slavery. We are also delighted that John Prescott MP has agreed to open the conference on Friday 26th October.

The purpose of the conference is:- To learn more about each other, to promote and develop community-based links between West Africa and the UK for mutual benefit § To explore slavery in today’s world, focusing on slavery in UK and West Africa.

The cost of the conference will be £50/head or £10 for students. This will include attendance at the conference and meals during the two days but not accommodation or travel costs. For more information please contact Pepi at UKOWLA email: pepi@ukowla.org.uk

For further info please click here :-

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The city has attracted three world-class exhibitions for the final part of the Wilberforce 2007 year.

Slave Britain, a photo exhibition which artfully documents the ordinary lives and everyday locations caught up in trafficking, and Uncomfortable Truths, a new and specially commissioned work by international artists highlighting and uncomfortable relationship between art and design and slavery, both opened on Friday 15 September.

While Anne Frank + You is an audio-visual experience and a journey of fact-finding and self exploration that will open on November 3 at Ferens Art Gallery.

Through interviews with British teenagers to photographic documentary evidence, ‘Anne Frank + You’ vividly brings historic and contemporary human rights issues to life, from the Holocaust and more recent genocide, to racism in football and the plight of child soldiers. Includes a virtually life size replica of Anne’s room in the Secret Annexe.

Slave Britain, which was produced by Panos Pictures in partnership with Amnesty International, Anti-Slavery International, Eaves and UNICEF UK, was first show at St Paul’s Cathedral and comes to Hull from the Edinburgh Festival.

It will run until October 15 at Hull’s Holy Trinity Church.

Uncomfortable Truths, organised by the V & A, London, will run at Ferens Art Gallery until Sunday 6 January 2008.

The cross-cultural experience of the trans-cultural Atlantic slave trade is reflected by the choice of artists who are from the United States, Britain, Africa and Europe, including Fred Wilson, Lubaina Himid, Yinka Shonibare, Romuald Hazoumé and Christine Meisner.

Filming the kids - Conforti School - Calaba Town - Freetown

Originally uploaded by Jon - Cafesociety.org

Wednesday, 6th June turned out to be a nightmare for the Propaganda Secretary of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), Victor Ibiyemi Reider(photo), when desperate youths from his constituency in central Freetown demanded that he must no longer represent them in Parliament.

“Tem don don, Victor Reider yu for go nar doe” meaning, “Time is up, Victor Reider you must leave,” the irate youths sang and chanted repeatedly in front of the party’s regional office at Rawdon Street.

Reider is seeking a re-election for a Parliamentary seat in this year’s Parliamentary elections, but according to a spokesman of the youths, “Victor Reider is proud, he is not a down-to-earth individual and above all, he has not done anything for the Central 2 Constituency.”

The politically charged crowd which was expecting the long anticipated election for the SLPP symbol became disappointed when they were informed that the election had been postponed, apparently because of the seemingly tense atmosphere.

Addressing the disgruntled crowd at the regional office auditorium, a member of the Electoral College, Alex Rogers, revealed that he received a phone call from Vice President Solomon Berewa who informed him that he was worried by the on-going political developments at Central II and therefore deemed it necessary to take the necessary line of action.

Rogers said that the constituency chairman, Eke Halloway, had earlier sent a petition to the Vice President requesting him to take necessary action with regards to that constituency, disclosing that “the VP is about to take action in relation to those petitions.”

He further disclosed that, the VP has summoned the SLPP regional chairman, Alhaji Cole, the National Chairman UNS Jah to his Spur Road Lodge to discuss the ugly situation in the constituency.

With this development, members of the constituency are worried that some behind-the-scene maneuvers are about to take place to retain Reider in that constituency, but according to an irate youth, “that will only lead the SLPP to self destruction in that constituency.”

Repeated attempts to contact Mr.Reider for his reaction have so far failed.