"Dream for Uganda" is a film in which music will be the thread, the backbone, and the vehicle of narrative. Music will take the viewer from scene to character, from storyteller to mentor and from Ugandan to Canadian.

Filming will take place over two weeks in October 2014 as the film makers follow a team of volunteers working at the Cambridge Secondary School, in Kampala, helping the school to enhance their performing arts program and establish a library.

Mitch Pollard, a recent graduate of Fanshawe College and videographer, will join the film makers in bringing his own perspective to the film. Mitch will work closely with his fellow travelling companions Zac Widarski and Bryan Beerbaum, sharing western style rock music with the Ugandan students, which they fell in love with during their first visit to Canada. The Ugandan and Canadian youth will collaborate on a piece of music which will be recorded in a Kampala studio and used as background music for the film.

Waterloo Region's Grand River Film Festival has confirmed they will screen the film at the November 2015 festival, the first time organizers have made such an offer BEFORE the documentary is shot. Everyone's belief in the Dream for Uganda project and the Cambridge Secondary School has been incredibly powerful.

Alas, all this comes with a price. Hard costs that can't be avoided despite the efforts of the kind-hearted and benevolent include:

• Equipment rental.

• Editing.

• Pre/post production facilities.

• Hiring of local Ugandan talent and production personal.

• Narration.

• Dvd packaging.

• Airfare.

• Gratuities.

We have worked hard to keep costs down, and you can be guaranteed of the dedication, commitment and expertise of the film makers involved.

Additional Information:

Dream for Uganda: Enriching the lives of Ugandan youth by providing access to the performing arts program at Cambridge Secondary School, Kampala.

In October 2012, while wrapping up a volunteer teaching gig in Uganda, Canadian arts journalist, Valerie Hill, visited Cambridge Secondary School on the outskirts of Kampala.

Tired, sick with the flu and deeply disturbed by everything she had witnessed in the poorest regions of the country, that one visit to the high school on her last day in the East African country changed everything.

First, it was the steady beat of talking drums as students from the school's performing arts program danced and sang their way into school's meeting hall where they greeted their Canadian visitor. The teens' bodies moved at impossible angles, at impossible speeds, thrilling everyone in the room but even more than the performance was the determination and sheer joy on their faces. These are kids who have survived extreme poverty, homelessness and servitude, losing parents and grandparents to HIV/AIDS, children abducted and forced to be child soldiers. They were lost children now found by an amazing school that has been able to tap into their creative cores. Until they were given a chance to learn and perform, these kids had never experienced that wonderful sensation of self worth, of achievement, understanding that they matter. That single, life affirming performance sparked an idea in Hill: bring the kids to Canada.

In 2012, Hill and her friends formed a small committee, Dream for Uganda and raised enough money to bring eight students and two teachers to Canada for a two-week performance tour of Southwestern Ontario, each performance stunning audiences with their abilities.

Earlier this year, Dream for Uganda became a registered non-profit organization with the mandate of supporting the school's performing arts program thereby providing much needed income for this struggling, self-supporting school which had been founded by a retired nurse.

Next step would be providing opportunities for Canadian youth to share their skills with the students and to learn the heartbeat of the drums, the rhythm of thousands of years of African history and bring that knowledge back to Canada.

On October 13, 2014, three newly graduated students from Fanshawe College will travel with three founding board members from Dream For Uganda to volunteer at the school for one month, in what will be an unprecedented life experience for everyone involved.

Two of the youth are musicians and sound engineers the third a film maker. All three will be working closely with the students at Cambridge School in this cultural exchange, teaching them the western style of rock music that the Ugandan students fell in love with on their visit to Canada.

The Ugandan and Canadian youth will also collaborate on a piece of music which will be recorded in a Kampala studio and used as background music for the film.

The entire experience will be filmed in a feature length documentary by professional film makers: Paul Campsall of MetaMedia and Paul Francescutti. Both men have filmed documentaries for NGOs in Africa but this is the first time they have agreed to shoot a documentary just on faith that there will be money to pay their expenses.

In a second act of faith, Waterloo Region's Grand River Film Festival has confirmed they will screen the film at the November 2015 festival, the first time organizers have made such an offer BEFORE the documentary is even shot. Everyone's belief in the Dream for Uganda project and the Cambridge Secondary School has been that powerful.

The festival has also requested Dream for Uganda bring a performing arts group from the school to Canada for the opening of the film festival and screening of the documentary.

A notation in the U.S.-based Dance of Hope Project, Heartbeat Children program describes the importance of the arts to Africans: Music and dance have been part of the African lifestyle since the beginning of time. In Africa music is a language through which people talk and express themselves and dance tells us stories that are part of the everyday life; the joys, sorrows, dreams and much more, a way of bringing people together in all situations, to celebrate, work, mourn, eat and live as a family.

In a country where most schools are focused on sports, Cambridge Secondary School is unique in its emphasis on the performing arts and as word spreads around the country, families with the financial resources to pay tuition will enroll their children, the fees helping to support children from families without resources. Dream for Uganda is taking all the cues from the school, helping in whatever way is needed. This is a Uganda project being supported by Canadians with considerable cross cultural exchange.