What is Project Home?

Project H(Om)E is a 6-week arts-based peace and reconciliation tour through South Asia, meant to help unify two nations which at one time were one. Hawah and Shahid—the founding directors of H(Om)E—are artist-activists with familial origins in Pakistan and India, yet personal origins in England and the United States, respectively.

Project H(Om)E shall consist of street theatre, speaking engagements, musical performances, poetic verse, and workshops on art, activism, and forgiveness. Each component is designed to inspire Pakistanis and Indians—Muslims and Hindus—to resign any hatred and animosity towards one another in favor of recognizing the multicultural ideal represented by their shared cultural history.

Since Shahid and Hawah have the experience of being born and raised in the western world, they have a message to those now living in South Asia from their perspectives as children of the Diaspora. While a race toward "development" increasingly contorts the policies and cultures of nations in the developing world, they wish to share their views on the costs of industrialization. They hope that through their stories, depicting the destructiveness and alienation of materialism pervasive throughout western culture, they can help build resistance to it in other parts of the world.

In addition, the artists will share the perspective of-and as important, mere news of-citizens organizing for peace and justice in the United States. The effort will entail serving as cultural ambassadors on behalf of the great number of other Americans who are working to stop war and hegemony.

Who will be touched by Project H(Om)E?

Our target audiences are youth (ages 17 - 35) of Pakistan and India. Their experience and encounter with H(Om)E shall encourage them to maintain independence from a western-focused culture and economic system. It will also inspire them to find tangible, creative ways to proactively create alternatives to violent cultural norms.

The tour's impact will extend well beyond its 6-week duration. It will promote the arts within Pakistan and India by employing indigenous social networks, entrepreneurs and artists, and building capacity among those supporters. The tour will both encourage and concretely assist these partners to develop their art and resistance to oppression and violence. The ultimate aim is building an international cadre of peace warriors, who explore conflict transformation in their respective communities by creating positive atmospheres to facilitate communication through artistic-interpersonal and inter-community empathy and solidarity.

What is Project H(Om)E currently looking for?

H(Om)E is seeking an accompanying entourage/ band. Including Shahid and Hawah, H(Om)E will comprise a core team of 8 who will remain with the tour throughout its 6-week duration.

H(Om)E is seeking a diverse balance. The following positions are still open and available:

• 3 position openings for artist-activists who live and work in Pakistan (these individuals will be flown to Mumbai, India to convene with the H(Om)E team)
• 3 position openings for artist-activists who live and work in India (if necessary, they shall also be transported to Mumbai, India to convene with the H(Om)E team)
• Available openings for artist-activists from neutral countries able to fund their own travel and participation

Job Descriptions:

Media liaison / Event coordinator:

This project participant will have two sets of responsibilities, with corresponding sets of qualifications:

• Outreach to local and regional print and broadcast media before, and upon arrival at, each destination on the tour: this individual shall research news outlets, prepare and distribute advisories via email and an internet-based blastfax service, and make available press packets to media attending project events.
• Identify, contact, and liaise with arts and activism networks in the various places where the project is scheduled to visit: the liaison / coordinator will schedule events, organize event promotion, and coordinate venues in each city (including a combination of shared venues at which the project will be part of a previously scheduled bill / event, and separate events in which the artists will be the headliners seeking local talent). This individual shall travel with the tour and take primary responsibility for identifying and communicating with local guides and hosts in each destination.
• Qualifications: Applicants should have prior experience with marketing and promoting (possibly with a Public Relations Firm), and should ideally have access to extensive radio, television and print media contacts. They must also have prior experience including traveling and touring, as well as managing a band, performer(s), or traveling circus. This individual will be actively working on the project for 4 months preceding the arrival of the H(Om)e team.

Local guides:

Small stipends will be available to project participants to help identify arts and activism networks in the various places where the project is scheduled to visit. They will assist the event coordinator with planning events, organizing event promotion, and liaising with venues in each city (including a combination of shared venues at which the project will be part of a previously scheduled bill / event, and separate events in which the artists will be the headliners seeking local talent). They serve as the artists' "guides," and will assist in liaising with local hosts in each destination. They must have well-developed social networks in their respective cities, and preferably, prior projects with synergies for the tour (such as organizing human rights or peace groups).

Film / Documentarian:

This project participant should have prior experience producing a documentary film. They shall film, write and photograph over the duration of the 6 week tour. Their primary responsibility will include documenting performances and other events, ideally in formats viewable directly via internet. This functionality would enable a video blog available globally. Their work shall continue for up to several months after Shahid and Hawah return to the U.S.

Musicians/ Artists:

The H(om)e team will hire at least 4 artists to tour with the group (ideally at least one Pakistani and one Indian musician). The musicians must be skilled improvisers, and open to pursuing a fusion among multiple styles. They must have some product (e.g., a completed CD or book) representing their prior work as an activist/ artist/ organizer. They should also have some experience traveling and performing before large audiences. Ideally, they will provide H(Om)E access to their own promotion networks. In addition to 2 musicians to travel with the team, H(Om)E is seeking local artists for discrete stops along the tour on an ad hoc basis. Consideration will be given not only to an artist's musical talent, but also their ability to help facilitate the conflict resolution aims of the tour by virtue of adding demographic diversity and broadening social networks.

What else is H(Om)E looking for?

Collaborators in each host city. If your city is one of the places listed on the list of H(Om)e stop points then please contact us and let's discuss how we can support one another. Specifically, we need professors and students from universities to help organize our visit into classrooms and concerts on their campuses, organizations and families to host our stay and arrange workshops for H(Om)E to facilitate.

Artists/Activists from H(Om)E destinations to join us while in their areas. Opportunities are also available to travel with the tour for up to a week to further destinations. We're looking for everything from fire-spinners to dancers to drummers, flute players, and spoken wordsmiths. These H(Om)E team guerrilla supporters will have to contribute solely as volunteers, as the H(Om)E project budget only includes living stipends for the core team of 8.

Project H(om)E Tentative Tour Schedule

December 1, 2006 - January 15, 2007

Below is a list of targeted reconnaissance sites. The number of days H(Om)E will stay at each place is determined by the number of events scheduled for that site. These are potential major stomping grounds -- in line with its improvisational character, H(Om)E may not visit every destination below, and will be adding many others in-between and off the map.

• United States
• India
• Mumbai
• Pune
• Nasik
• Udaipur
• Jaipur
• New Delhi
• Dehradun
• Dharamsala/ Sidhbari
• Srinagar/ Kashmir
• Islamabad, Pakistan
• Karachi, Pakistan

Get Involved

Join the team. For additional information or to receive a collaboration/ application packet please contact:

Contact the H(Om)e Team

To donate and support Project H(Om)E please make checks payable to One Common Unity, Inc.
And send all checks to:

• Project H(Om)E
• 161 Todd Place, NE
• Washington, DC, 20002

All donations are tax-deductible (a receipt will be mailed to you after we receive your check) because of the generosity of our fiscal sponsor One Common Unity, Inc .

Hawah Kasat

Hawah is an artist, author, educator, yoga instructor and community organizer.  He has dedicated his life to teaching about solutions to violence and ways to peace, and has traveled to over 23 countries in the past 9 years to facilitate interactive workshops, dialogues, perform poetry, teach yoga, and speak with those interested in creating a caring, sustainable, and equitable world. 

In 1999, he volunteered as an Americorps community organizer and mentor in Washington DC’s most under-resourced neighborhood, encouraging youth to explore the roots of oppression & non-violence.  After graduating from American University with a degree in Peace and Educational Philosophy, he was awarded a fellowship with the R.F. Kennedy Memorial Foundation to work as a special representative to the United Nations and the World Conference Against Racism. 

Hawah is co-founder/ executive director of One Common Unity, a non-profit organization that nurtures sustainable, caring communities through innovative peace education services, arts initiatives, and media programming.   For 3 years he directed the Peaceable Schools Program in DC’s largest public high school—specifically developing leadership skills of youth and assisting them in dealing with trauma through Alternatives to Violence, Positive Stretch, Deep Breathing & Yoga classes. 

Over the years, Hawah has regularly featured as a speaker and workshop presenter for People to People International, the Congressional Youth Leadership Council and the Children's Defense Fund's Freedom Schools.  He has made appearances on XM National Satellite Radio, BBC, and the Pacifica Radio Network.  He has also been a guest speaker at Yale University, George Washington University, U.C.L.A., University of Colorado, Rollins College, Georgetown University, and Brown University. 

A spoken word poet known as Everlutionary and artist of a diverse collection of paintings and photographs, in less than 6 years Hawah sold over 6,000 copies of his three independently published books: Trails: Trust Before Suspicion (2001), Escape Extinction (2003) and zerONEss (2006).  He will be releasing his second album titled, "CALL" by the end of 2009 and his 4th book, "Write with Water, Dance with Paints," in 2010.

Shahid Buttar

Shahid is a poet, lawyer, scholar, media activist and grassroots political organizer committed to helping kickstart countercultural (r)evolution.

His family hails from Pakistan-via-England, and after immigrating to the U.S. in the late seventies, camped out in rural Missouri until he turned ten. Six years in a suburban oasis recalled shades of Different Strokes, after which Shahid moved to Chicago to begin a personal crusade for his undergraduate education. It lasted ten years, over half of which also entailed a full-time career in investment banking.

In Chicago, Shahid discovered multiculturalism, struggle, hip-hop, the urban melting pot, electronic music, rave culture, and his identity. He graduated from Stanford Law School in 2003, and moved to Washington, DC that fall. Since then, Shahid organized the first impact litigation seeking marriage equality in the State of New York, and participated in a challenge to inadequate federal campaign finance regulations on behalf of U.S. Representative Christopher Shays (R-CT), who co-sponsored the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.

Since 2002, Shahid has organized three independent groups of political artists: the Stanford Spoken Word Collective; the San Francisco Collaborative Arts Insurgency; and the DC Guerrilla Poetry Insurgency. His activism has focused on reclaiming public space, channeling performing arts as a means of both building community among participants, and also spreading progressive worldviews to those who might otherwise remain chained to corporate media. He hopes to see a brighter day in our collective reality soon.