This machine
kills poverty

Busking for Change packs the underground city
with pro musicians to raise money for War Child

GOING UNDERGROUND: Little Scream (L) and
Simple Plan’s Sébastien Lefebvre at the Eaton Centre

by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“I got my first busking licence when I was 15, but I never actually used it—I was too shy,” says Laurel Sprengelmeyer, aka Little Scream. Last Tuesday, the singer-songwriter proved that her stage fright is far behind her, opening for Stars and an all-star indie rock revue at Ex-Centris to raise money for War Child, an international non-profit organization that assists children in war-afflicted regions.

On March 2, she will be among the 30-plus local musicians flooding the underground city to further benefit the organization, competing with the likes of the Spoonman, the stilt flautist and the Vivaldi violinist we see on the streets and in metro stations every day. “I tend to like performances that are very immediate and raw, that’s something I always appreciated about busking,” says Sprengelmeyer.

Alongside Little Scream, participating musicians include Simple Plan’s Sébastien Lefebvre, Jason Bajada, Florence K, the High Dials, Ladies of the Canyon, David Martel and Winter Gloves.

Since its inception in 2007, Busking for Change has been an endeavour driven by musicians, having emerged from the conception of a music video by Our Lady Peace’s Raine Maida. “He decided to do something a little bit more significant with the video, something that would not only promote the song [“The Yellow Brick Road”] but promote change,” says War Child Canada’s Barbara Harmer. So Maida took to the streets of Toronto for 12 hours, raising enough money in his guitar case, and via online donations, to rebuild and re-staff a school in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2008, Maida’s wife Chantal Kreviazuk led the charge of 40-odd Toronto musicians in the first official edition of Busking for Change, amassing funds to establish a massive youth centre in Darfur. Last year, the event debuted in Vancouver and Calgary as well. Altogether, the project has raised over $150,000.

War Child Canada’s founder and executive director Dr. Samantha Nutt says that no specific beneficiary has been chosen for Montreal’s Busking for Change. Both the artists and individual donors who make pledges online can direct their bucks to the project of their choosing—Nutt hopes that the funds will be split evenly between the three regions most in need right now.

“Haiti is such a huge priority, as is Darfur and the Congo,” she says, hours before her departure for Haiti, where War Child is treating traumatized orphans, and looking into establishing long-term reintegration projects during the country’s reconstruction. War Child primarily aids children, focusing on education and livelihood training, although adults also benefit from training in such areas as teaching, microfinance and microenterprise, as well as literacy and numeracy programs. The ultimate goal is to prevent poverty and violence, both of which plague the three countries at the top of War Child’s agenda.

“It’s hard to say that one crisis is more deserving than another,” Nutt adds, stressing that the latter two are in desperate situations similar to that of Haiti, though they rarely receive media coverage. “These are really difficult decisions that people’s lives depend on.”

MUSICIANS WILL BE STATIONED AT
THREE LOCATIONS INSIDE THE EATON
CENTRE (705 STE-CATHERINE W.), AND
IN BERRI-UQÀM AND PLACE DES ARTS
METRO STATIONS, ON TUESDAY,
MARCH 2 FROM 8–9:30 A.M., 11 A.M.–2
P.M. AND 4:30–6:30 P.M. FOR DETAILS
AND DONATIONS, VISIT WARCHILD.CA.