Canada’s Youngest Rock Band
2012-08-08 Leave a comment
Brothers Dubé LIVE – Aug 24 – 8pm – ALL AGES
It’s FREE (if you’re under 18) BUT you need a ticket to guarantee a spot.
GET YOUR TICKET HERE AND PRINT IT.
Are you over 18? If so, get a ticket, AND we will accept donations for TYPS (Take Young People Seriously). Here’s a taste of some of what’s to come…
“LIKE” us on Facebook and JOIN our mailing list to keep up to date!
2012-04-08 2 Comments
Today we went to Kenscoff, back into the back of the truck for another drive through Haiti…
We visited Our Little Brothers and Sisters Orphanage
and played a show…
After the show, we ate and slept with the orphans, to get an idea of what life is like for them.
2012-04-07 2 Comments
Click to see PHOTOS OF DAY 5
Today we got up at 4 am, to catch the early morning in Port-au-Prince. It was pretty cool… Later in the morning, we visited the home of our chauffeur, the tent city of Champ de Mars, and the House of Hope Orphanage in Gressiers. It was a very long day, and in the heat, it was tiring. We filmed those three locations and are learning more and more every day about the ways people can help in Haiti.
On our first stop, we went to Armand’s (our chauffeur’s) house. He has three kids. His home was destroyed in the earthquake, after which he slept in the street for some time. He is now trying to rebuild a new home and needs sand, cement, paint, and the labour to finish it. The total cost for completing his home would be $500. In the meantime, he lives in a tent with three beds. His sons go to school and he pays for their education. Anderson, his 18 year-old son, is in grade 3, lives in a shed, and sleeps on a piece of folded carpet. The shed leaks when it rains. To us, it’s crazy to imagine our garden shed as an incredible ‘upgrade’ for Anderson. Anderson loves singing. He’s into reggae and loves Sean Paul.
Armand’s access to water will be shut off soon because he owes payments. He has a vehicle that he would like to fix but can’t because it would cost $1500 that he doesn’t have. Armand has a job and earns money, and is slowly dealing with the realities of life that so many around the world deal with… making the sacrifices to improve our conditions.
Armand then drove us to the tent city of Champ de Mars. We walked inside the city with our cameras to film and interview people. The experience was a little frightening. Things can get out of hand very fast in any situation like this and we had to be careful. We found a man who agreed to allow us to interview him and film inside his tent. We got his name on camera, but we haven’t reviewed the recording yet. While we interviewed there was lots of activity around us, so we were a little distracted and will later see how the interview turns.
After Champs de Mars, we drove to Gressier, a 20km ride from Port-au-Prince, on the coast. We finally saw the sea and also caught some cool street art (we hadn’t seen ANY) along the way at the Port-au-Prince cemetary! We toured the House of Hope and interviewed the owner, Alice. Alice was great at answering all our questions and helping us better understand the orphanage, its projects, and their next steps: getting 50 beds and mattresses into the new girls dorm.
We then drove home, went for a swim, posted, ate and went to sleep, after the rah rahs moved around (there’s lots of street parties now because it’s the Easter holiday). A rah rah (Ra Ra, Ra-Ra, has different spellings) is a spontaneous street party with music that just moves around the neighbourhood. Check it out in the video below.
2012-04-06 2 Comments
2012-04-06 Leave a comment
Prime Minister Stephen Harper kindly supported our work and gave us a commendation for our work in Haiti. Someday, we will get on stage with him and do a gig. He does play music!
We continue to accept donations here: Click to Donate.
2012-04-05 3 Comments
Click to see PHOTOS DAY 3
Today, we drove 2 hours into the mountains of the plush central plains of Haiti, along an insane mountain road that would make our logging road to the cottage look like an expressway…. we went in the back of a pickup truck, in which we now logged many hours, like a second home.
We visited the villages and villagers of Baille Touribe, an impoverished farming area. Here, we are handing out supplier donated by our schools, Ecole Secondaire Garneau and Ecole Etoile de L’Est http://vimeo.com/39917491. Here’s a Gloucester Hornets jersey being handed out to a very happy child.
Met with the Kanpe people, learned what they are doing for children and to educate families about medicine, managing finances, agriculture, and business to become self-sufficient and autonomous. Kanpe has an excellent approach to helping people – teach a man to fish and he eats for LIFE.
At Baille Touribe, we met the principal who is building a school. The construction workers get paid by Kanpe, but the principal volunteers his time. The school opens on April 12. 350 kids attend the existing school, 400o more need schooling.
Outside the Kanpe location, we saw the cholera tents where thousands of people were treated for the deadly disease. Of those thousands who were treated, 8 died. We got a tour of the whole place, with LOTS OF DETAILS!!! Details are important because without them, there’s a risk that people don’t know where their money goes. We know where the money goes… Kanpe was very helpful in letting us understand.
We distributed more of the school and personal supplies donated to us by École secondaire catholique Garneau and L’école élémentaire catholique L’Étoile-de-l’Est. The people who received the supplies were absolutely delighted. For them, this was a very big thing, so important and helpful, we are grateful to participate in this whole thing.
By the way, Kanpe totally rocks… their philosophy, their attitude… we loved the time we spent with them. Big shout out to Kanpe!!!
2012-04-04 2 Comments
Click to see PHOTOS DAY 2.
Today, we got up at 4:45 in the morning to video record the amazing sunrise, and the beginning of our family’s day. Then we met Kim, a CBC reporter, at the United nations (UN) post near the airport, and then we met Ruben from MAIS (a Brazilian organization that does NGO work in Haiti). Hooking up in Haiti isn’t like hooking up in Canada… Traffic plays a big role in deciding if and when you get to a destination, so it’s important to manage things with your cell phone.
Ruben took us into an impoverished area, where we met Remy who runs the Haiti Music School, located in Clercine. He started teaching music to kids in the camps WITHOUT INSTRUMENTS…. Imagine how hard that is, teaching music theory without instruments to kids in an impoverished camp. Remy REALLY believes in music. One day, some musicians (of course!) heard about this and said, “Hey wait, you should really have some music equipment!!!” and gave him some instruments. These musicians were The Ortega Brothers from Brazil – three brothers who help the world through their music – sound familiar? When we arrived at the music school, Remy asked us to give a workshop to the kids, who come mostly from the tent city of Pax Villa. We showed them how to sing and play “Bye,” a tune from our album. Remy wanted us to stay and eat with the children, but we had to leave to travel to Thomonde to visit the good folks of Kanpe. This means we must come back to the Haiti Music School someday soon…
Oh yeah, a cool moment of the day was when the kids in the music school all sang the chorus of Bye together in harmony. Here is the location of the school on Google Maps: http://maps.google.ht/maps?q=18.574001,-72.288188&hl=en&num=1&t=k&z=20
We were invited to play at the Hotel Oloffson where Arcade Fire played in March 2011 BUT we were SO bagged, we couldn’t even jam. We had to crash cuz we were getting up at 5 again… it’s worth the work though.
2012-04-03 2 Comments
With the help of the Haitian Ambassador’s letter and the RCMP in Port-au-Prince we cleared through the Diplomatic Lounge with every single bag. We forgot one last bag because we were too tired to remember that it didn’t have a group ticket.
Staff at Air Canada were awesome every step of the way…. can’t thank you all enough… The ground crew were high fiving the kids on the runway!!! Flore, the Customer Service Manager in Ottawa has been fabulous. She called our coordination team at home to ensure that we received the tag number for that last bag. The message got through. The staff took us into the special bag area and we found it… Yay! Flore continued to stay in touch to ensue that everything went fine for us in Haiti. Folks at AC came together to help us by waiving our baggage restraints, checking our barrage of supplies through and just being supportive!!! We felt the love. You might hear our thanks again before this trip is over.
Today, we met the family, Marcel and Marise Fleurant Tislin and their children, who we are filming “a day in the life” with and we went out to enjoy a dinner together to get to know each other. After dinner, we came back to our hotel, Le Marcelin, all 13 of us flying through the night in the back of a pickup truck. What a great ice breaker!
2012-04-01 Leave a comment
We would like to thank people who kindly gave music instruments so that kids in Haiti might have a lift up:
To ensure that the kids in Haiti really get all that they need, we decided to donate our entire studio equipment. This includes an electric bass, electric guitar, microphones, microphone stands, a complete drum kit, and keyboard. Much of this equipment was used to busk to raise money over the past two years… we know we’ll busk again and people will help us to replace this equipment. Things always work out…
