Cameroon on freeDimensional

A political refugee returns to his small village in West Africa to build a community radio station that educates and inspires

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Radio Taboo is a development project and documentary film about Issa Nyaphaga, a political journalist in exile returning to his small village in West Africa to build a community radio station to educate his community about subjects that are often too taboo to talk about. Issa was a journalist in Cameroon in the 1990s where he was jailed and tortured for his political cartoons. He is now heading back to his village in Cameroon to build a community radio station to educate villagers about Public health, environmental issues, women’s issues and rights of gay and HIV infected people. Nditam, his village, has no running water, no electricity, no schools or hospitals and no public news service. The film follows his struggle to raise funds, get the materials, gather manpower, build the station, train citizen journalists and make the station work for the betterment of his community. It will be an adventure to travel with Issa as he fights against all odds to create this amazing project. The radio station will run on renewable energy and will feature citizen journalists reporting on local issues to 1 million people in the remote rainforest of Cameroon.

Art For Health @ Project Reach NYC - 31 March 2012

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Art for Health is a charity event that is hosted every spring to support innovative medical projects in Cameroon, Africa. Through art exhibitions, performance, live music, body painting, as well as slam and spoken word poetry, the artist’s creative energy is channeled towards supporting health projects for indigenous communities in Sub-Saharan Africa as well as towards promoting the message of social justice and free expression for people world-wide.

Since 2009, Hope International for Tikar People, founded by Cameroonian native and activist Issa Nyaphaga and the Bush Medicine Partnership, founded by students from Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia have been working together to improve the quality of life in the Tikar villages in Eastern Cameroon as well as other marginalized communities with no access to medical care. Thus far, the partnership has served the urgent health needs of over 8,000 people in the isolated tribal communities of Cameroon.

A project we like: The Impossible Music Sessions

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

freeDimensional is now five years old. Whereas we have a particular way that we actualize art and social justice by hosting activists and culture workers-in-distress in the surplus (vacant) apartments of artist residencies, we often see amazing projects that inspire us, innovate and show new approaches to advocating freedom of thought and expression. The Impossible Music Sessions is just such an initiative! Here’s a clip about Session #3, a tribute to Lapiro de Mbanga, which happened on 16 November 2010 in Brooklyn, New York. Lapiro is Ray Ban outlet currently in prison in Cameroon on trumped up charges because he challenged the president in one of his songs; if you are interested in helping Lapiro keep his spirits up, look here. As you can see we have a new section where we feature projects we like such as The Impossible Music Sessions. We’ll feature a new one each quarter.

Issa Nyaphaga - The Art of Exile {World Policy Blog #2}

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Issa Nyaphaga is known as the ragman of painting. He creates art out of garbage – anything from mud and sand to feathers and human hair. Nyaphaga gives disposed items a sort of renewal.

But his artwork represents much darker story of rebirth. Nyaphaga was raised in a small village in the equatorial forests of Cameroon. After high school, he worked as a political cartoonist for the newspaper, Le Messager Popoli. In 1994, Cameroon’s regime jailed and tortured Nyaphaga for oppositional ideas expressed in his controversial cartoons. Two years later, Nyaphaga escaped Cameroon to seek asylum in France.