No Strings in Kabul

Hugo Speer, star of The Full Monty and who is taking the lead role in a major new BBC drama series this summer, will arrive in Kabul in early July to promote awareness the No Strings landmine-awareness film which will be distributed around the country with the help of specially designed media bikes.

Hugo, a No Strings patron, will spend five days visiting street kids’ projects in the region and introducing the 40-minute film alongside its Newcastle-based founder, Johnie McGlade.

No Strings is a UK aid agency which uses puppetry to get across life-saving educational messages in various parts of the developing world. In Afghanistan, its work is aimed at keeping children alive in a country littered with landmines and unexploded bombs after almost 30 years of conflict.

ChucheQhalin is a tale loosely based on the story of Pinnochio that uses specially-made, culturally-sensitive puppets based on Afghan folklore. Chuchi is a little carpet boy who must learn to get to school and back safely, without being lured by two evil ‘djins’ into looking for treasure in old, deserted houses and so on, before he can become a real boy.

The film will be distributed around the entire country by mobile cinemas, transported on lorries. More innovatively, it will also be taken to remote outreach communities by motorbikes which each have their own sidecar containing a screen large enough to be seen by upwards of 500 people, and a generator.

	Johnie McGlade (founder) and Hugo Speer (actor) sporting organic cotton t-shirts from The White T-Shirt Company

The eRanger media bikes, the brainchild of a British company The Ranger Production Company sponsored by Prince Bandar Bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia and supported by Nelson Mandela, were provided as part of an ongoing donation programme by sponsors’ of the Ranger Production Company. The visit is a key one as it will demonstrate the enormous versatility of the vehicles and the huge scope for educational humanitarian programmes.

The off-road bikes are combined with specially designed and built sidecar units, and the company is also donating two ambulance units and bikes.

Hugo, who lives in North Yorkshire, will star in Sorted, a key six-part drama series about postal workers, which goes out on July 16.

He said: “I believe very passionately that an organisation like No Strings can help a large number of people in various developing countries, and we are working on new educational projects all the time.

“We’re also delighted to be the first NGO to work alongside eRanger. It’s been an amazing coincidence as I live in the same village as their chairman, Robert Deacon Elliott, and just happened to get into a conversation about it at our local pub. It’s almost as if the media bikes were made for this project, and it means that children even in more remote areas of Afghanistan will receive this hugely important safety message about landmines.”

The White T-Shirt Company felt strongly that they wanted to be involved with this awareness campaign and are supporting Johnie and Huge with their No Strings trip. They are also kindly supplying them with their great organic cotton t-shirts, which they're currently sporting whilst riding around on their motorbikes in Afganistan.

For more information about the organisation, please visit the No Strings Website on: www.nostrings.org.uk >>