Edongo Band, Kitgum, Northern Uganda
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Africa, Education, Interesting Places, Music, Tim Frakes Productions, Travel
Jim Quattrocki and I were in Kitgum, Northern Uganda, recording a story at the Anglican Cathedral. I can’t remember if this is out of his camera or mine. Either way, it was a great day and beautiful music.
Tags: Africa, Church, Faith, Tim Frakes Productions, Travel, Uganda, Video
Flight to Bukoba Tanzania
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Africa, Education, Tim Frakes Productions, Travel
Wednesday, May 23, 2001 Jim Quattrocki, Kevin Jacobson and I arrive at an air strip in Moshi, Tanzania and board a single engine, fixed landing gear plane operated by African Inland Mission. Andy, the pilot, is a tall, slender American from Boulder, Colorado. It rained the night before – now the clouds began to lift and we took off, flying around Mt. Kilimanjaro and her more rugged sister Mt. Meru. We then head out over the world famous Serengeti Plain, Ngorongoro Crater and Odoval Gorge.
The ancient green grasslands are dotted with huts and animals. The route takes us west across the Serengeti to the southern tip of Lake Victoria, the source of the Nile River and on in to Bukoba, Tanzania on the western shore.
Tags: Africa, African Inland Missions, Bukoba Tanzania, Tim Frakes Productions, Travel
Proud of my Ugandan Friend Emmy
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Africa, Education, Interesting People, News, Peace and Justice, Tim Frakes Productions
I first met Akoch Emmanuel (Emmy), managing an internet cafe in Kitgum, Uganda in 2006. At the time, Northern Uganda was in the final stages of a 21 year civil war that saw hundreds of thousands forced into Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps. More than 20,000 children were abducted from villages and forced to join militants as sex slaves or soldiers. To avoid capture, children would leave their defenseless villages at night and congregate in city parks, back alleys and spartan night shelters.
Emmy lived with his mother and siblings on the outskirts of Kitgum. A bright student, Emmy worked his way into a management position at a store-front cafe on the main street of this dusty, provincial town. Not only did he run the store, he also served as an IT educator for friends and older Ugandan customers unfamiliar with the internet and computer technology.
After high school, Emmy enrolled in Gulu University and studied computer science. Despite considerable financial struggles, the burden of being the oldest male child, (Emmy’s father passed away several years earlier), theft of his computer and concerns about his mother’s health, Emmy emerged from Gulu with a bachelors degree.
Today Emmy serves as the IT manager for St. Josephs Hospital. In June, 2011, he launched their new web site. Check it out! http://www.sjhkitgum.org/
Emmy is a great example of the kind of talent, vision and energy possessed by many young Africans. He is a sign of hope in a world in need of something to hold on to.
Tags: Africa, Education, Justice, Tim Frakes Productions, Travel
Raise Your Voice
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Africa, Carribean, Causes, Disaster, Faith Based Production, Peace and Justice
This is a music video in support of CROP Hunger Walks. Music by singer/songwriter K.C. Clifford. Following the January 2010 earthquakes in Haiti, I recorded footage that Church World Service used in this video. I even noticed a shot that Jim Quattrocki and I recorded in Tanzania more than a decade ago. Great to see this stuff put to good use!
Tags: Africa, Church, Haiti, Hunger, Tim Frakes Productions, Travel, Video
Acholi Return to Farming with LWF Support
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Africa, Education, News, Peace and Justice, Tim Frakes Productions
The Lutheran World Federation is helping thousands of Acholi farmers return to traditional village life following 22 years of rebel warfare and child abduction in Northern Uganda.
Tags: Acholi, Africa, ELCA, Farming, Kitgum, LWF, Tim Frakes Productions, Uganda, Video
New LWF Office Ready to Open in Kitugum, Uganda
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Africa, News
Tags: Africa, Tim Frakes Productions, Uganda, Video
Returning to Uganda
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Africa, News
Sunday morning after a meeting in New York with Intersections International about an upcoming shoot in the Middle East, I leave for a short return visit to Uganda for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Two years ago I produced a documentary about the Acholi people in Northern Uganda and their quest to forgive a rebel movement that killed thousands and forced them into internally displaced person camps for more than twenty years. Here is a link:
http://archive.elca.org/readytoforgive/
The ELCA now has an opportunity to have this program air on ABC television this winter. I will be returning to Uganda to update the program and add an additional six minutes. Since the original program, the Acholi people have returned to their villages. But a major drought has struck the region. Crops have failed and people face widespread hunger.
Look for updates here and on my Facebook Page.
Tags: Africa, ELCA, Forgiveness, Lutheran, Tim Frakes Productions, Uganda, Video
Saul Ebema: An African Faith Odyssey
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Africa, Faith Based Production, Non-Profit, Spiritual Journey, Tim Frakes Productions
After his family was murdered in Southern Sudan’s second civil war, Saul Ebema began an odyssey and profound spiritual journey that took him from life as an orphaned African child soldier to seminary at the Northern Seminary in Lombard, Illinois.
Tags: Africa, Child Soldier, Faith, Spiritual Journey, Sudan
YouTubeing East Africa
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Africa, Education, News, Peace and Justice, Tim Frakes Productions, Travel
Internet video is changing the world. As developing nations leapfrog old communication technology in favor of new, digital Internet based forms of telling the story, a window of opportunity opens. In the fall of 2006 I was in Kitgum, Northern Uganda shooting footage for a documentary about forgiveness in the aftermath of war. During our visit, we shot, edited and uploaded short video clips from a tiny, phone line connected Internet café on the dusty streets of Kitgum.
Later conversations with staff from ELCA Global Mission and the ELCA World Hunger Appeal led to a grant, which allowed me to purchase four high-powered laptop computers, video cameras and software.
In March 2008, George, a web developer friend Len Mason, myself and five East Africans from Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Madagascar will meet in Nairobi. We will spend four days at the Methodist Guest House, shooting, editing and uploading video clips to the Internet. When the workshop is over, the team will return home with their equipment, charged with the mission of teaching others how to use it.
Originally we planned the workshop for January 2008. However, the post election violence in Kenya forced a postponement. The chaos underscores the need for clear communication. By March, we trust things will have calmed down and our project will move forward.
The East Africans I have met are smart and technologically savvy – they just don’t have the right tools. Equipped with proper technology, perhaps African can begin to solve problems on its own.
www.frakesproductions.com
Tags: Africa, Education, Youtube
ELCA News Release: Uganda: Ready to Forgive
Posted by timfrakes | Filed under Africa, Award winning video, Faith Based Production, Peace and Justice
CHICAGO (ELCA) — NBC television stations and affiliates will begin broadcasting “Ready to Forgive: An African Story of Grace” on Dec. 2. The 60-minute documentary about the faith and spirit of the Acholi people of Northern Uganda is a production of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
Through 21 years of war, death, rape, torture and child abduction, rebels known as the Lord’s Resistance Army forced two million people into internally displaced person camps. Yet, the Acholi people are united in a belief that the only real solution is reconciliation and forgiveness.
“The program was recorded on location in Northern Uganda,” said Tim Frakes, writer and producer, Tim Frakes Productions, Lombard, Ill. “In this story, the Acholi people offer lessons of forgiveness that we can learn from,” Frakes said. “Most stories from Africa emphasize western nations helping Africans,” he said. “This is an example of Africans helping us.”
The host of the program is Immaculee Ilibagiza, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and author of “Left to Tell: Discovering God amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.”
“The Acholi people of Northern Uganda have been through so much and to be able to capture this amazing story of forgiveness and reconciliation was truly a blessing. Now our task is to bring their story to a wider audience,” said Ava Odom Martin, director for public media, ELCA Communication Services.
“If the Acholi people can forgive the Lord’s Resistance Army for the torture and massacre brought upon their community and get on with their lives, then hopefully someone else may be touched by their action
and find forgiveness for an injustice done to them,” said Martin.
The ELCA is one of 35 member communions of the National Council of Churches of Christ U.S.A. (NCC). The NCC is a founding partner of the Interfaith Broadcasting Commission (IBC), which provides television programming to the affiliates of three major broadcast television networks. NBC’s “Horizons of the Spirit” provides four hours per year for documentaries produced by the IBC faith groups.
Martin said “Ready to Forgive” will be available for broadcast through May 31, 2008. “Please contact your local NBC station for specific dates and times in your area,” she said. The production was made possible in part through a grant from Faith and Values Media, she added.
– — –
Information about the television program, “Ready to Forgive: An African Story of Grace,” is at http://www.elca.org/readytoforgive/ on the ELCA Web site and http://www.frakesproductions.com/ on the
Internet.
Tags: Africa, Forgiveness, LRA, Peace, Uganda