The Niapele Project Benefit Show w/American Mars, Dan John Miller, Gardens, Elizabeth Butters, The Decks, Spitting Nickels, Jawbone, Dooley Wilson & John Roundcity October 11, 2008

The Niapele Project is proud to announce a Detroit-area benefit concert for our projects throughout Liberia, a small war-torn country in sub-Saharan West Africa. The benefit concert will be taking place on Saturday, October 11th at PJ's Lager House at 1254 Michigan Avenue in Detroit's Corktown neighborhood. Performers include Detroit Music Awards' nominee American Mars, Blanche lead singer and songwriter Dan John Miller, the Boston-area's resident nostalgia sufferer and Appalachian mountain musician Elizabeth Butters, Toledo bluesmen Dooley Wilson & John Roundcity, Detroit's one-man band Jawbone, New Detroit's leading avant-garde group Gardens, rockers Spitting Nickels and the energetic pop-rock stylings of The Decks.

Doors are at 6pm and the music starts at 7pm; cover is $8 at the door. Handmade refugee goods such as purses, bags, headbands and more produced at the biggest Liberian refugee camp, Buduburam in Ghana, will be sold for prices ranging from $5-$30. All proceeds from the door and the Buduburam-produced merchandise will go directly to benefit the children of Liberia.

The Niapele Project is a LA-based non-governmental organization that promotes sustainable strategies for the empowerment of vulnerable refugee children through the development of community-based initiatives. All of our projects have direct, meaningful impact on the lives of the local people and are developed and instituted in partnership with local communities, assisting them to fulfill the needs they, themselves, have identified. Present efforts in Liberia include the Abandoned Refugee Children's Home, school nutrition and feeding programs, an assistance program for one of the only schools for physically and mentally handicapped children in the capital city of Monrovia and a vocational work/study program benefiting unemployed and uneducated women.

Liberia suffered from a civil war between 1989 and 1996, and again between 1999 and 2003. Though peace has been maintained in the country for the last five years, it remains one of the poorest in the world due to the complications that arise from rebuilding a government from the ground up. Today, Liberia faces an 85% unemployment rate, acute food and educational opportunity shortages and a near-compete lack of in-country transportation.

Official Website: http://www.theniapeleproject.org