Laying Down the Bones

Recently a handful of poets came together in Albuquerque to record themselves reciting poems they wrote that were inspired by the stories of Sudanese refugees living in Chad. The works were also in response to bones they created for the project which connected them to these stories.

This is a new initiative we are launching called Laying Down the Bones that we hope will catch on with poets and performers all around the world as a way to tell refugee stories and connect activists with survivors and other activists.  Our goal is to collect these video testimonies from people all over and post them on-line to share with everyone in our community.

Through this initiative we are committed to laying down the bones, the stories, and the substance of what makes us human and what connects us as individuals to a larger global community.  Like this project, this initiative strives to be a reminder that we belong to each other; the bones and the stories serving as a testament to our common humanity.   We call on you to be a part of this initiative and to share with us your activism and your inspiration, and to highlight a survivor story that needs to be heard.

The poets were connected to these refugees through I-ACT which is a program of Stop Genocide Now and whom we have partnered with to bring survivor stories to bone-making advocates on our website. Survivor Stories

Later this month I-ACT will be traveling to Chad where they will show this video to these refugees and record their response to the poems and the project.

This partnership means a lot to us and we are excited to find out what these particular survivors make of these bone-making advocates who were inspired to tell their stories.

Soon we will post these video recordings on-line but until then I wanted to share with you a work by Don McIver that was inspired and written for Adef, who is living in Chad with his wife, Achta, and four children.