Look To The Stars News: Witness

Peter Gabriel Hosts Focus For Change Concert

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:15:00 +0000

Music legend and human rights advocate Peter Gabriel hosted the 7th Annual Focus for Change benefit dinner and concert at the Roseland Ballroom in NYC Thursday, November 10, for Witness, the international human rights organization.

Peter Gabriel. Photo Witness via Flickr

Peter Gabriel To Host Charity Dinner And Concert

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Music legend and human rights advocate Peter Gabriel will host the 7th Annual Focus for Change benefit dinner and concert for Witness, the international human rights organization on Thursday, November 10th at the Roseland Ballroom in NYC.

The event will feature performances by Rodrigo y Gabriela, David Crosby and Graham Nash, as well as other special guests.

The evening celebrates citizen activists from around the world who are fueling revolutionary change with the use of video, technology and social media. This past year saw incredible movements spreading across the Middle East and North Africa with the help of Facebook, YouTube, video and text messaging, as well as a rise of a new generation of young activists, who are tech savvy and hungry for social transformation.

Peter Gabriel Dedicates Song To Murdered Activist

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:30:00 +0000

Former Genesis singer Peter Gabriel dedicated a track to a murdered human rights activist at this year’s WOMAD festival in Wiltshire, England, during the weekend.

Gabriel played Biko – a song he wrote about South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko – for Chechen Natalia Estemirova, who was brutally killed earlier this month.

Estemirova worked with Russian human rights organization, as well as Gabriel’s own Witness organization, which empowers people to transform personal stories of abuse into powerful tools for justice, promoting public engagement and policy change. Gabriel hopes to raise £100,000 for Witness – which encourages people to use video and online technology to expose human rights violations in their communities – at the WOMAD Festival.

Peter Gabriel To Receive Amnesty International Honor

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Peter Gabriel is to receive a special award for his humanitarian work today, September 10.

The 58-year-old singer has been named as the recipient of Amnesty International’s 2008 Ambassador of Conscience Award, an acolade that recognizes exceptional individual leadership in the fight to protect and promote human rights. Inspired by a poem written for Amnesty International by Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, the award aims to promote the work of the human rights organization by drawing attention to the work high profile people carry out, and former recipients include Nelson Mandela, U2, Mary Robinson and Vaclav Havel.

Gabriel is well known for his work with human rights around the world, and first worked with Amnesty when he helped organize the Conspiracy of Hope Tour with Bono in 1986. He went on to found Witness, a video community campaigning for Human Rights, and more recently became a founding member of The Elders – a private alliance of senior global figures who want to launch diplomatic assaults on the globe’s most intractable problems – along with Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Richard Branson, and Jimmy Carter.

Time's 100 - Peter Gabriel By Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu

Fri, 16 May 2008 10:57:00 +0000

Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu wrote about Peter Gabriel’s contributions to humanity for this year’s Time 100 list:

“I did not know Peter Gabriel from a bar of soap when I met him for the first time on his friend Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island in the Virgin Islands. But within moments, he had charmed me. I heard him sing his Biko, which still moves me to tears each time I hear it, as we stood round the piano he was playing. He volunteered to give me my first swimming lessons and was a great hit with two of my grandchildren who met him there.

“What is his secret? He has a heart—in our part of the world, we would give him our highest accolade and say, “He has ubuntu.” It is that marvelous quality that speaks of compassion and generosity, about sharing, about hospitality. Peter founded WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance), presenting 50 festivals in more than 40 countries and conducting workshops in schools around the globe. He is a passionate human-rights advocate who participated in the 1988 Human Rights Now tour, and he co-founded Witness, which provides cameras and computers to activists.

Radiohead Joins Child Labor Awareness Campaign

Fri, 02 May 2008 12:05:11 +0000

With a 20-year history of raising awareness for human rights and environmental causes, Radiohead is no stranger to the activist scene. And now, in partnership with MTV EXIT (End Exploitation and Trafficking), the band has released the “All I Am” video to bring child labor practices into the spotlight.

“It’s cool that MTV is taking this up, because normally, this is something I only get to talk to people about who are considered ‘extreme left-wing’ or whatever, but it’s good it’s hitting the mainstream, because I don’t consider it a left-wing issue; I consider it a political-stability issue,” he told MTV UK. “I think if [the campaign] does one good thing, it would be to make this concept of slavery — which is what it is — less taboo. If they can make it something that is OK for us to talk about, and for politicians in the West to actually accept that this is an issue, well, then we’re doing a good thing.”

There are currently more than 2.5 million men, women and children who are forced, defrauded or coerced into various forms of labor or prostitution. Radiohead recommends checking out Amnesty International, Witness and The The Fair Trade Resource Network to learn more.

Bono's Fishy T-Shirt Benefits African Farmers

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 09:41:00 +0000

Bono has designed a new T-shirt for charity, joining a host of other celebrities in an on-going and major charity campaign.

The 47-year-old singer from U2 is the 25th artist to design a shirt for Hard Rock Café’s Signature Series clothing line, an initiative started in 1990 as a way for musicians to raise money for charities of their choice. Sales from the shirts have raised over $6 million for a variety of causes.

Bono’s creation, available for $26 from the Hard Rock website, features his stylized drawing of a fish soaring past the moon, and is adorned with the words “Fish Can Fly”, as well as his signature. 15% of the proceeds will go to the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Conservation Cotton initiative – a scheme designed to lift African farmers out of poverty by providing education on proper land management, organic cotton growing techniques, and wildlife conservation. The shirts will also support the trade for aid ethos of EDUN, the conscious consumerism fashion label founded by Bono and his wife in 2005, by being made from 100% African cotton and manufactured by African garment workers.

Mexican Stars Launch Venture For Social Justice

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 20:40:48 +0000

Mexican actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna have launched a production company that will focus on documentaries addressing social justice issues.

The co-stars of the acclaimed 2001 movie Y tu mamá también held a $300-a-plate gala dinner in Mexico City on August 11 to announce the venture, and to benefit two charities:
Mexico’s Commission for the Defence and Promotion of Human Rights and Witness, an organization founded by singer Peter Gabriel that promotes the use of video and film to document human rights abuses.