Buy A Whistle, Save A Life
In the Congo, boys as young as eight have routinely been used as soldiers by Laurent Nkuda’s rebel army in its brutal war of resources with the Congolese government: those not big enough to hold a weapon are given whistles and pushed to the front to “scare” the enemy and draw fire. Those who try to flee are shot at from behind. Feigning death is the only way to survive. So, what does this awful exploitation of children in the Congo have to do with Brooklyn? Moved to action by what he saw when traveling through the area in 2007, Sean Carrasso decided to do something about it. And so the Falling Whistles campaign began, a fund- and awareness-raising initiative that seeks to bring an end to the use of child soldiers in equatorial Africa, selling wearable silver whistles, the funds from which go directly to groups in the Congo trying to better the situation. When we asked Ouigi Theodore, owner of the wandering fashion block party that is BKCircus, why he thought it was important to carry the whistles, he summed it up pretty well: “People everywhere should be concerned about people anywhere suffering.” (Whistles also available at ID Brooklyn. Visit FallingWhistles.com for more info.)
Photo Abby Ross