This December 10 will see the coming together of four advocates, Caroline Collasso,
Dolorosa Tulkar, Sergio Pinto De Santana, and Gautam Malgaonkar, all from the Human Rights
Law Network, or HRLN, with the motive of putting together some of Goa’s fine
entertainers for a cause; celebrating International Human Rights Day, and all
that it stands for.
However, the root of every cause and every event lies in the
process of its ideation. Delving deeper into the process, Dolorosa says, “We at HRLN felt that it
was easy to put forward a message on rights of women, children, prisoners,
race, anti-war and so on through song, rather than giving speeches to
commemorate International Human Rights Day. Songs can help carry a serious
message across in an entertaining way. The theme for the day, ‘Our Rights, Our
Freedom…Always’ will echo throughout the concert.”
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
Speaking on how this endeavour, simply titled, Human Rights Concert,
differs from other social concerts, Caroline says, “For the first time, all the
performers will be displaying their talent while incorporating the theme of
Human Rights, and carrying through messages on social issues. For example,
songs like ‘Heal the World’ and ‘Get Up, Stand Up’. We have been rather stringent about
this, to the point
where there were some performers that wanted to be a part of the show, but who
wanted to play regular songs, as they did not want to learn the ones we had
selected. This led to us dropping them.”
And the planning of the artistes’ roster was meticulous
almost to a fault, having already decided to drop those that weren’t willing to
work in keeping with the outline of the event. “We spoke to many known artistes
and told them of our cause. It was very encouraging and
heartening to see many well-known members of the musical fraternity come
forth with the level of enthusiasm that they did, absolutely free of
cost. Singers like Crystal
Farrell, Lester Rodrigues of A26 and Ashly Fernandes of Purple Rain immediately
came forward. Bands like Brothers in Arms also agreed to perform. Talented
Children from Care and Compassion, a shelter home for orphans will also be
showcasing their amazing voices. Ian, from Funk Factory, not only agreed to perform, but was
willing to learn new songs and also provided us with a list of relevant songs
that we would have otherwise have missed out on,” says Sergio, discussing the
plan for the concert.
With logistics being a stumbling block to these sorts of
endeavours, it is quite heartening to see the level of enthusiasm that is being
shown by many members of society. “It was an amazing experience to see how
socially-conscious people pitched in to make the concert a
reality. The biggest boost came from the event management company, ‘Bulls
Eye Entertainment’, who sponsored the major expense of sound, lights,
stage and stalls, Sushant Tari (TPT) also stepped up by sponsoring the decor
and generator. Every singer is performing for free and various spot
prizes have also been donated. Advocate Amit Palekar immediately
donated towards the expenditure incurred,” Dolorosa says.
The question though is,
will this endeavour be
able to raise the awareness that it aims at generating. The team certainly
seems to think so, with Gautam adding, “The performance will carry the message of human rights through
songs which is a very effective medium. We are also aware that music is a
universal language and cuts across all sections of society. Also, various NGOs like Sangath, CRG and
Sethu will be putting up their stalls to disseminate their informative
material.”
Human Rights Concert
will be held on December 10, 2015 at Garcia de Orta in Panjim
