allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Roli Odeka - Orchestra Amazon That Feeds Hope to Hopeless Children (Page 1 of 2)

Roli Hope Odeka is one of the very few notable Nigerian art ambassadors who is doing the country proud in the outside world.

Based in Milan, Italy, her name does not strike any strange chord to anyone who is conversant with the classical opera lyrical music and poetic recitals. But she represents that specie of composers that are endowed with musical creative talents writes Benjamin Njoku.

Though, almost choked by a punctuated beginning, Roli Odeka has etched her name in gold as one of the very few African composers and performers, who has broken barriers of race to make her marks in the international front. Apart from being a music composer, she is also a writer, poet and painter. When she is not composing, she is either writing or painting her thoughts on canvass. She came to lime light as soon as she discovered the enormous creative endowment locked up in her bones.

Roli was a victim of single parenthood. As a child growing up in the early 50s, she was traumatized by the divorce of her parents. Her formative years, she narrates, witnessed daunting challenges that suppressed her vision as a child. However, she continued and continued to listen to the voices in her mind, which she calls her invisible friends, and which, to her, served as a guide and source of inspiration.

Nonetheless, what she missed in terms of true parental love, and acceptance from home as a child, she got in the atmosphere she finds herself today. Now, she is on a vengeful mission of sorts, determined ever to leverage on these experiences to make soothing impact in the lives of children, many of which are still being scorched in the heat of multiple deprivations.

Roli was in Nigeria last weekend to launch her Roli H. Geiger Foundation. The launch of the Foundation, held at the Muson Centre, Lagos, featured a musical performance by the international composer with her Child Ambassador Classical Orchestra. During the launching, the Delta State born composer narrated the essence of her pet project.

"The foundation is to help promote the alleviation of the practical problems and other diseases on children and young people and the application of the principles of medicine, psychology, skills development, culture and attitude change to current socio-economic and moral problems through publications, advocacy and mobilization, poverty alleviation/economic empowerment...."

The Foundation, according to her, is an offshoot of Odeka's milk of kindness for the less privileged and down trodden children, especially Nigerian children. The motto of the Foundation tells it all, " Hope for the hopeless".

Roli Hope Geiger Foundation is sure to usher in hope for children who, otherwise, would have lived their lives without hope. Beyond her artistic involvements, Roli's consuming passion for the alleviation of the plight of the less-privileged children of the world is unmatchable.

Her foray into the despised world of the less privileged also promoted her humanitarian gesture. Hence, her decision to use her music for positive change and development of humanity. Her activities in this area have earned her an award of Diplomatic Adviser of First World Embassy for Children (Rome, Italy) and European Personality Prize(2005) by the Council of Rome.

She says, her Foundation is prepared to network with other governmental and non-governmental organizations, community based organizations, cultural and missionary societies towards curbing and cushioning the scourge of poverty in Nigeria and beyond " I believe in creating new things. I talk about the child because, it has to do with my childhood experience. That's why I wrote my auto-biography, "The Revenge of the Child".

The book tells about the story of my growing up in a difficult situation, where I have to face the world all alone. Those are some of the things that inspired me to think about the child. We have a lot of children suffering not only in Nigeria, but also, across the world."She said.

Roli indeed is in this sense using her resources and art to fight for the rights of the child. According to her, "In my music career, I try to reflect my African identity. All I have got with my identity is what I have got with the music that I made. What I made is the classical music that represents my great ancestors that came through the Delta region. They met with the black women and later produced mixed races. Those are the things that actually formed my gene. I don't need to go to any university to do what I have to do. I knew I could do that when I was only four years."

"Continuing, she said, "But it took me about 45 years later to uncover my hidden talent. My people couldn't understand me. My spirituality, my way of creating, my art and my paintings all come from nowhere, but from God. Actually, I can do things either through dreams or through what people here call divination. I think, it comes from God. Once, one is touched by the angel, one will no longer be a normal human being anymore."

"I don't want to be a normal human being, because every normal human being frightens me. For my paintings, my inspiration comes from above and dreams. There are three ways to my paintings; deriving from dreams, from waste-tissue papers emanating from cleaning my lips, and using whatever design that comes forth as an artistic medium, and finally, that of medium that comes from the bottom of coffee.

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