When: Thursday June 10, 2010

Address: My House
7080 Hollywood Blvd
Hollywood, CA 90028

Time: 9 PM to 1 AM

Host: Comedian Ben Morrison with special guests at 10:30 PM

DJs:

REFLEx
Grant Shapiro
Gavin O’Connor
Jason Kramer of KCRW
Darrel Adams of KIN

Proceeds from this event will benefit the June Port au Prince missions to rescue and restore dignity to the women and children of Haiti (bringing clean water, solar energy, Human Rights workers, child rescue, rehabilitation, education, and disaster relief). To donate to this rescue mission, please click the donate button:

Corporate Sponsors:

Black Card Circle Foundation, ECoEfficiency.org, Blue Angel Vodka, Living Green, World Trust, Events 11, Airline Ambassadors, Seldon Water, FTL Solar Technologies, Green Galaxy, Global Green

PHOTOGRAPHER TASYA VAN REE TO DEBUT THE STILL LIFE AT CELEBRITY VAULT

Proceeds from this event go to AbolishSlavery.org which is targeting
human trafficking in Haiti.

Date: Thursday, February 11, 2010
Time: 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM
Host: Amber Heard
Address: 345 North Canon Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
Phone: (310) 858-7875

BEVERLY HILLS, CA On Thursday, February 11th, photographer Tasya van Ree
will debut a charity photo exhibit at Celebrity Vault in Beverly Hills.
The event will be from 7-10pm. Proceeds from the event will go to AbolishSlavery.org.

Tasya’s latest collection of original work,‘The Still Life’, exhibits the inanimate aspect of the motionless lives trafficked children face. Van Ree uses dolls and props to subliminally express the growing severity of the human trafficking issue of the children worldwide. Her photography captures the unmoving, lost, silent and transfixed life in an immobile state of mind, body and soul.

Abolish Slavery is a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating human trafficking and restoring dignity to victims. They organize and coordinate investigations and field operations to find, identify, and retrieve people from slavery, providing for their safe aftercare and rehabilitation. Human trafficking is a form of modern day slavery in which people, mostly women and girls, are abducted, deceived or coerced into situations of forced labor. Human trafficking is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world.

Slavery in Haiti, pre-earthquake, was the worst in the Western Hemisphere. Since the devastating earthquake that took place on January 12, 2010, its the worst human rights pandemic in the world today. The children of Haiti are at even greater risk due to destruction of infrastructure and increase in vulnerability of the population. AbolishSlavery.org is taking immediate action to identify predators and actively protect the children of Haiti.

Contact:

Courtney Knittel
Patricola Public Relations
310.860.9770
courtney@plpr.com
Facebook
Twitter

More information:

The Celebrity Vault
Tasya van Ree

About the Artist:

Visual interpretation of feeling has always been an implicit subject of photography, and in Tasya van Ree’s movingly beautiful still-lifes it becomes explicit, visible, as never before. Her photographs demonstrate that objects can bear witness to invisible ideas and emotional truths. This exhibition of photographs, rightfully titled ‘THE STILL LIFE” visits a new series of original work done by celebrated Los Angeles based photographer Tasya van Ree. This powerful and important set of photographs documents the severity of this growing issue affecting children across the world. Using dolls to represent children, Tasya exhibits the inanimate aspect of the motionless lives that these children face. Unmoving, captured, lost, silent, transfixed in an immobile state of mind, body, and soul. These images express their captivity, and presents them to the human eye in an extraordinary attempt to unravel the human heart. These dolls document the imprisonment of life within the world of deception, exploitation, prostitution, pornography, along with other detrimental acts of involuntary servitude. Every photo tells a story, encapsulated in one image, a tale of children trafficked in inhumane ways. The startling truth of what goes on in the world today.

Tasya van Ree has always been intrigued by the everyday wonders of the visual world. The sense of expansive awareness that for van Ree is a prerequisite to photography enables her to capture the small everyday flashes of insight that come when we are open to them and often go before we can fully grasp or appreciate them. Her extraordinarily vivid images are also a testimony to her eye for form and composition. Her photographs are infused with romanticism, darkness, intimacy, and a certain lyrical quality. They also capture the essence of the people, the landscape, and the intricacies of both the animate and inanimate worlds, and are a sort of meditation in seeing the powerful testaments between the relationship of human presence and transitory nature. Van Ree’s works are both formally vigorous and eternally evocative. Van Ree has consistently produced a highly compelling body of work on varied subjects. Her photographs have been exhibited widely, and are included in numerous private collections.

If you are unable to attend the event, and would like to make a donation, please click on the donate button. You can also text to give. Text Freedom (plus $ amount) to 27138. Please Click here for the invitation.

Education includes events, speakers, literature, media, film, still images and music that will inform the public about the genocide and slavery in the Sudan. Speakers at our events include three time World Press award winner Ron Haviv, New York Legislators, leaders of Save The Children, Amnesty International and other partner organizations. Artists that have participated at our events include George Clinton &P-Funk, Talib Kweli, Immortal Technique, Rejectionist Front, Women of the Calabash and others.

Advocacy includes utilizing the education component as a mean to prompt action that can end the suffering in Sudan such as divestment from all public and private entities doing business in the Sudan, targeted sanctions on members of the Sudanese government, enforcement of UN resolutions to provide a robust peacekeeping force and a no-fly zone.

Rock To Save Darfur provides financial support to the following organizations: Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, Christian Solidarity International, Jewish World Watch, Darfur Peoples Association of Greater New York, American Jewish World Services, SaveDarfur.org and others.

RTSD has a special earmarked program with Christian Solidarity International to continue their critical work to liberate slaves from the Sudan. Hundreds of men, women and children have been liberated through this program. Fund donated to our partner organization provide water, food, mosquito nets and medicine that have helped save thousands of lives. Additional donations provide clothing and school supplies.

RTSD produces concert benefit events and empowers Student Take Action Now in Darfur chapters, university student activities programs, other not for profit organizations and concerned individuals to co-produce events by providing resources as required including artists, speakers, audio/visual materials, literature, promotion, funding and/or other support.

In addition to RTSD’s work for Sudan, Rock To Save Darfur co-produces events that help other humanitarian efforts including Haiti, Burma and The Congo.

For more information about Rock To Save Darfur:

How to help end the genocide and slavery in the Sudan
How to join the community
How to create your own event with RTSD

Please go www.rocktosavedarfur.com for music videos of the band Rejectionist Front performing
“Fifty Dollars” about slavery in Sudan that intermixes live performance with footage of slave liberation. Also, visit www.world2be.com for more information on the film “Tibet: Beyond Fear and Eyes of the World.”

Contact Information:
go to: www.rocktosavedarfur.org
contact@rocktosavedarfur.org or call (201) 863-1010
Rock To Save Darfur is sponsored by World2Be Productions

IMG_8187One of Burma’s main rebel groups has pledged to stop using child soldiers in return for outside aid in an effort to enhance its international credibility.

Leaders of the Shan State army (SSA), one of several ethnic insurgent groups battling the country’s military junta, have signed a memorandum of understanding with Abolish Slavery and International Operations Centre for Children (IOCC), two western non-governmental organisations, to prevent minors serving in its forces.

Burma has the highest number of child soldiers in the world – about 70,000. A Human Rights Watch report in 2002 found widespread forced recruitment of boys as young as 11. Subsequent reports say the number of child soldiers in Burma is largely unchanged despite international condemnation.

International law prohibits the recruitment of children under 15 and the use of child soldiers has been recognised as a war crime under the statute for the international criminal court.

In Burma, the national army is the biggest culprit. Flouting the country’s own laws that prohibit any recruitment of under 18s, the army apprehends boys at public places such as markets and bus stations, using threats and violence to force them to join. Once trained, children as young as 12 have been sent to fight against ethnic insurgent groups.

Rebel groups also forcibly conscript children. The United Wa State army, the biggest rebel force, has the largest number. The Kachin Independence army is the only armed group to recruit girls. The SSA and the Karen National Liberation army have policies against recruiting children under 18, but do not turn away children who actively seek to join.

Christian Elliott, of the IOCC, who signed the agreement with Lieutenant Colonel Kon Jern, a SSA commander, said the reason behind the insurgents’ anti-child soldiers pledge was international credibility.

“They are looking for brownie points any way they can and in return we will provide them with educational material for teachers and children, including books writing materials, computers and distant education opportunities,” Elliott said.

The Shan area once used to be a major producer of heroin but the rebel groups have made an effort to stamp out production as part of the drive for international respectability.

Elliott, who made the arduous trek into Burma to sign the agreement, said the SSA has between 2,000 and 3,000 soldiers.

The rebel group has also agreed to provide evidence of human rights abuses by the Burmese army in the form of video and photographs. The material is to be displayed on the Abolish Slavery website in support of the SSA’s to help the people of the Shan state, in the east of the country.

Home to several ethnic armed groups, Shan remains largely outside central government control.

Burma has been a part of my life since my college years when I was first invited to Southeast Asia for anti-trafficking work. Aware of a student movement in Burma that had smuggled cameras and freedom newspapers inside the country, I was excited to support their work and hear the mystical tales of jungle adventures and bazaar superstitions. When I started crossing the borders into the deep jungles of what was being called “Myanmar,” I didn’t realize then how this small county’s struggle for freedom against an oppressive military regime would become a lifelong passion, inspiring in me the notion of redemption. Redemption for all of us…to work together and liberate the lost and persecuted ethnic minorities hiding along the borders of Thailand, Laos, Burma, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

In the 1990’s, Burma’s military junta violently imposed marshal law over its people leading to mass protests spear-headed by a strong, non-violent leader advocating for peace, Aung San Suu Kyi. The protesters, mostly students, were risking their lives for the right to freedom, and their massive public outcry led to international attention forcing the military junta to call for a general election. She won the election; however, the results were systematically nullified and Suu Kyi was kept under a mysterious house arrest. She has remained under various forms detention for almost 20 years.

Meanwhile, through our missions, we were bringing in aid and developing relations with the Karen, the Shan, and the Wa tribes. Our Memorandums of Understanding (MOU’s) with the ethnic army commanders implemented a “no child soldier” policy, which then allowed us to bring in medicinal, educational, and nutritional support. Over that period Aung San Suu Kyi remained under house arrest, and she was silenced from speaking in public. The West and its politicians only kept a drone of protest alive, but didn’t put any real teeth into a solution. They called again to have the political prisoners released but, were subjugated to endless talk and delays.

I have seen first hand the wildly unjust oppression of the Burmese army, and in those jungles my life changed forever, because I have emerged with a better understanding of what Aung San Suu Kyi was trying to accomplish. Here is a woman who has sacrificed her own freedom for the hope that others might someday have justice and democracy.

While watching this unfold at the time, I had no idea how long she would remain imprisoned. Where was the public outcry? This struggle for freedom would transform into a world movement 20 years later, which was longer than I had anticipated.

Inspired by her grace and conviction, we rounded up as many colleagues who were also moved to action by her perseverance. As Suu Kyi’s story just recently became more prominent in the United States, I realized much hadn’t really changed in the last 20 years since her election. The first question most American’s unfortunately asked was, “Who is Aung San Suu Kyi?” Tragically, it seemed as if society had actually decided to let her and Burma go down the toilet with all of our freedoms and ideals of democracy attached to them. We couldn’t let her message of FREEDOM drown in a sea of rape, child soldiering, murder, enslavement, imprisonment, torture, and human trafficking could we?

While with Amnesty International, Jack Healey met Aung San Suu Kyi. He had spent 30 years advocating for political prisoners. Jack pioneered a campaign for the on going Burma movement with Jeremy Woodrum and Tim Hardy of the US Campaign for Burma. Joining this movement was Rich Leger and Sandy Kikerpill of AbolishSlavery.org, and Brian Sirgutz and Ryan Scott of Causecast.org, a non-profit online networking site synonymous with Youtube and Myspace, but for activists and causes. Brian Sirgutz, Jack, and I discussed approaching the artist Shepard Fairey to create a portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi, as a campaign poster for the movement. Shepard Fairey was renowned for his legendary, “HOPE” portrait of Barak Obama that had been immortalized across the world over the past year.

As the footwork was underway for our Burma campaign it was April, and a lot had been going on in Southern California. The first African American had been elected President of the United States, financial markets were collapsing with the mortgage lending debacle, and the biggest music festival of the year, Coachella, was blowing up the desert. I had plans to go to Coachella with my girlfriend, Jennifer, and our friends for the weekend. We all looked forward to putting work aside and clear our minds with the music. Little did we know, a series of events would make the dream of Aung San Suu Kyi’s message come alive again, this Summer.

While enjoying a show backstage an old friend, Flea from the Read Hot Chili Peppers, had come over to say hello and encouraged me to stop by and see my old colleague, Perry Farrell. At first I was reluctant to approach Perry because of past emotional grief, but with encouragement from Jennifer and friends, and Suu Kyi’s message burning in the back of my head, I agreed to see him. Although we had resolved our differences, I knew I had to put the awkwardness aside and go to my former best friend who I haven’t spoken with in over 2 years. As we walked over to the other stage, I had no idea who we’d also meet.

Perry came off stage after performing with his wife, Etty, and made his way over through the entourage of people to give me a hug. So there we were, everything that broke us apart in the past had disappeared like a mirage. It was good to see him again, and I realized how much time passed by noticing how tall his boys were now. After reconnecting, Perry turned to me and said, “I have someone I’d like you to meet,” and introduced me to Shepard Fairey. “Aaron,” Perry said, “I have been telling Shepard about the work to free slaves.”

“I want to use my art for freedom,” Shepard said. I could hear the sound of drums in the distance, and a desert wind breezed cool…“Would you paint the Aung San Suu Kyi portrait?” I asked. Shepard and I joked about how hard Brian Sirgutz had been trying to get him to do the portrait. Jack Healey and Brian and been a force to be reckoned with, and now it looked like Shepard was nodding he was going to do it. “We’re only asking for them to let her speak,” I said relaying lines Jack Healey had prepared me with. “Let her speak, and let’s see what she has to say.” Perry smiled confidently and hugged us goodbye.

As if it had been pre-written by the hand of fate, the dream and the campaign for Aung San Suu Kyi’s message of freedom was gaining momentum. Over the next few months, pressure and attention on Burma would build from all sides. The ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) formed its Human Rights body, which currently threatens to expel Burma, and Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton has insisted on Aung San Suu Kyi’s unconditional release. The stage was being set, and I thought to myself,

“We can win this campaign!”

About the Author:
Aaron Cohen has established a modern-day Jubilee movement to forgive debts and free slaves around the world. Human rights activists have lauded his efforts to personally identify and rescue thousands of trafficking victims from places such as the U.S., Israel, Egypt, Iraq, Sudan Ecuador, Columbia, Cambodia and the Junta-ruled Myanmar Burma. Cohen received the 2008 Prize for Humanity from the Immortal Chaplains Foundation, and was recently honored with a U.S. Congressional Certificate of Merit for his public service. For the most up-to-date information on Cohen’s book and anti-slavery initiatives, follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AaronCohen777.

About Abolish Slavery:
Abolish Slavery is a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating human trafficking and restoring dignity to victims. It organizes and coordinates investigations and field operations to find, identify, and retrieve men, women, and children from slavery, providing for their safe aftercare and rehabilitation. Abolish Slavery’s coalition work brings together the top professionals in the movement to combat slavery and human trafficking to better advocate for the rights of victims. For more information, visit www.abolishslavery.org.

CONTACT: Jared Pearman
202-441-0317
jpearman@asiavisionfoundation.org

Best-Selling Author of ‘Slave Hunter’ Aaron Cohen to Speak
at Benefit Featuring New Portrait by Shepard Fairey

Event to highlight Aaron Cohen’s work in Burma with a special exhibit of signed prints of Shepard Fairey’s new portrait of Aung Sang Suu Kyi

NEW YORK (July 23, 2009)—Artists, celebrities, activists, business leaders, and others who share a vision of helping the people of Asia to build more open, just, and peaceful societies in ways that honor their unique cultures and values will be attending a benefit reception on Tuesday July 28 at the Centurion, 33 W. 56th St. New York.

The event, hosted by the Asia Vision Foundation, will highlight the work of prominent human trafficking opponent Aaron Cohen, whose new book “Slave Hunter” has just been released. To support the work of Mr. Cohen and others helping the Burmese people, Shepard Fairey, the artist famed for his “HOPE” portrait of Obama, has generously granted two signed prints of his yet-to-be-unveiled portrait of Burmese leader and Nobel Laureate Aung Sang Suu Kyi to be displayed at the event.

Cohen is a human rights activist who has established a modern-day Jubilee movement to free slaves and forgive debts around the world. On many of his missions in the US, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Sudan, Ecuador, Columbia, Cambodia, Thailand, and in the Junta-ruled Myanmar (Burma) Cohen worked undercover and assessed the phenomenon of slavery from the inside. He was recently named by the World War II Memorial Foundation, the Immortal Chaplains, as the recipient of the 2008 Prize for Humanity for “risking all to save others”, and he was honored with a US Congressional Certificate of Merit for his public service.

Also featured will be the Internet Freedom Consortium, a group of internet companies providing uncensored, secure web access to millions of users in Iran and China as well as Asia Catalyst, an NGO that provides training and assistance to grassroots groups in Asia working for economic and social rights.

“Burma Rebels Vow to Stop Using Child Soldiers”
Shan insurgents get foreign aid in return for halting use of children in country with highest number of underage conscripts.
Guardian.co.uk
By U.K. Columnist, Mark Tran

One of Burma’s main rebel groups has pledged to stop using child soldiers in return for outside aid in an effort to enhance its international credibility.

Leaders of the Shan State army (SSA), one of several ethnic insurgent groups battling the country’s military junta, have signed a memorandum of understanding with Abolish Slavery and International Operations Centre for Children (IOCC), two western non-governmental organisations, to prevent minors serving in its forces.

Burma has the highest number of child soldiers in the world – about 70,000. A Human Rights Watch report in 2002 found widespread forced recruitment of boys as young as 11. Subsequent reports say the number of child soldiers in Burma is largely unchanged despite international condemnation.

International law prohibits the recruitment of children under 15 and the use of child soldiers has been recognised as a war crime under the statute for the international criminal court.

In Burma, the national army is the biggest culprit. Flouting the country’s own laws that prohibit any recruitment of under 18s, the army apprehends boys at public places such as markets and bus stations, using threats and violence to force them to join. Once trained, children as young as 12 have been sent to fight against ethnic insurgent groups.

Rebel groups also forcibly conscript children. The United Wa State army, the biggest rebel force, has the largest number. The Kachin Independence army is the only armed group to recruit girls. The SSA and the Karen National Liberation army have policies against recruiting children under 18, but do not turn away children who actively seek to join.

Christian Elliott, of the IOCC, who signed the agreement with Lieutenant Colonel Kon Jern, a SSA commander, said the reason behind the insurgents’ anti-child soldiers pledge was international credibility.

“They are looking for brownie points any way they can and in return we will provide them with educational material for teachers and children, including books writing materials, computers and distant education opportunities,” Elliott said.

The Shan area once used to be a major producer of heroin but the rebel groups have made an effort to stamp out production as part of the drive for international respectability.

Elliott, who made the arduous trek into Burma to sign the agreement, said the SSA has between 2,000 and 3,000 soldiers.

The rebel group has also agreed to provide evidence of human rights abuses by the Burmese army in the form of video and photographs. The material is to be displayed on the Abolish Slavery website in support of the SSA’s to help the people of the Shan state, in the east of the country.

Home to several ethnic armed groups, Shan remains largely outside central government control.