While already being in an uploading mood, I wanted to share this photo with you. It is from the Masanga Village, Sierra Leone, just by the very same Masanga Hospital that’ll receive the ambulance once our journey has come to an end. The photo was taken when I, Søren, visited the hospital in August 2009.

We had a lot of fun making the movie and we are really proud to present the final result. By making this movie, we wish to outline the journey, underline what Ambusanga is really all about – and we of course want you to see where we are going. And thanks to Anders Toft, aka. Neon Girls, for the lovely soundtrack.

Have fun watching the movie and listening to Søren’s speak and Anders’ tunes!

Oh, and we’ve created a Youtube channel as well – right here: http://www.youtube.com/user/Ambusanga
We’ll use it for any future movies, video clips or to highlight other relevant videos – so make sure you subscribe to it

But we decided to make a small movie prior to the departure, to show you and everyone else where we are going. There’s a small teaser right here – and we’ll post the final result here and on YouTube once it’s done:

As 2009 came to an end, we were extremely ambitious about our (this) blog. We planned to update the blog at least once a week. But as this is the first blog post in 2010, you may already have guessed that our update strategy hasn’t been that successful

However, as we’ve all been extremely busy with our normal jobs, well, the blog hasn’t received the intended attention. Until now, because the Ambusanga project is still very much alive.

For now, we are planning and researching – and last week we met up with Nanna, a friend of Søren and Joe, who also happens to be a really skilled illustrator. So she is now doing a logo for Ambusanga, which we are really thrilled about and looking forward to show to everyone!

Søren and Tue

• Søren Bo Steendahl: Søren is the founder of the project and the managing project leader, having close contact to the Masanga Hospital and a wide variety of other stakeholders.

• Carl ‘Joe’ Johannes Borris: Joe co-founded the project with Søren and has been a vital part of the project from the very beginning. Besides his role as a project manager, he’s quite the writer and networker.

• Tue Czajkowski: Tue is our skilled cameraman who’ll document everything, thus making sure that our journey to Sierra Leone will be perpetuated.

• Martin Jacobsen: Martin works with various planning, coordination and copy writing and will be our ‘man on the ground’ in Denmark when the team leaves for Europe and Africa.

• Morten Risom: Morten is our mechanical wizard, capable of fixing everything – regardless of time and place. In addition, Morten is an experienced traveller and has volunteered at the Masanga Hospital.

If you want to know more about us, the Ambusanga project or if you have an idea or the like, please feel free to post a comment or contact us via ambusanga@gmail.com – we’re always looking for new input and inspiration!

Therefore, it’s time for an update:

- First of all, I had a very interesting experience at the exam table, where I presented my findings and the outline of a project based on one ambulance being the spine of a documentary movie. One of my learning goals in this process was to be challenged professionally and act in unknown areas. The movie should reveal what the different departments in the EU are actually working with, how their every day look like and thereby tell the story of those who are ‘the distributors’ of the National Charity Support (Ulandsbistand in Danish). The movie was meant to dig into the UN work in Europe. An area I knew nothing about. And a presentation format (documentary) I knew nothing about. My role would therefore be as a project leader, which I was during the build up of the final project. However, the examination showed that these areas were unknown for me, and that 2-3 months is not enough to understand and infiltrate all the different UN departments and their work, and to build the network to create a documentary movie – get hold of funding for the equipment and the trip and the ambulance all at the same time… The beauty of the examination at the Kaospilot is that the feedback is minded to carry the project further on. I had censors from DR and UNDP to read my report and ask questions at the green table. I past the exam and left with a new strategy: To start all over again… 

- As I do love the thoughts and intentions of this project, I couldn’t just leave it. But it wouldn’t work out to make a documentary about the UN. A lot of the work I had done during my time working for the project started to return.  Different people interested to hear more contacted me. I went to meetings with production companies, web agencies and journalists. I also met with another organization named Wheels Of Action (WOA). It turned out that they where planning the same trip, just on bikes, and we started to talk about the possibilities of us riding together. Personally, I prefer collaboration to competition, especially when it is based on the same values. Therefore, Ambusanga and WOA are now looking into how a joint collaboration can look like and how the project will turn out then. WOA is currently based in Tanzania, and the Ambusanga team works from Nørrebro, in Copenhagen, Denmark. 

Due to the examination, neither one of the crew-members from Ambusanga have had the time to work full time on this project. The work hours have therefore decreased radically. Our task force team is meeting up once a week to plan the next steps. We are currently working out the final budget for the trip, looking for sponsors, creating the needed network and having fun at the same time. We like what we do, and we are doing it based on pleasure, and a willingness to help others. 

- Apart from serving as an update to the project’s current status, this blog post will also be the start of a series of blog posts – in order to keep you all informed of our progress.

- Again, all comments, reflections, ideas and inputs are of course welcome!   


The last couple of days I have been working pretty heavily on writing my final report for the Kaospilot education. Writing that report has generated various reflections around the project, and me as the person in the project.

I guess that the saying: ‘You have a plan, until you have a new one’ comes from experience… In other words, the Ambusanga project is still very much alive!

- A while ago I got a phone call from Barcelona; “We have 8 ambulances available for your project…” These 8 ambulances then turned into 11, and that’s a lot more than I thought of in the beginning of the project.

- So the project took a turn: From being a “small” project about an ambulance on a road trip making a movie about getting sponsors to support the Masanga Hospital, it has now turned into being a relatively big documentary project focusing on the UN 2015 goals, while still bringing an ambulance to the Masanga Hospital.

- I went to a meeting with Falck about having them as my sponsor for the project and thereby donate an ambulance for the project. It was an interesting meeting with a lot of good talks and questions toward the project and it’s focus. Falck liked the project and found it interesting and essential. Unfortunately they were not able to provide the project with the needed vehicle.

- Neither are the 11 Spanish ambulances capable of getting through the jungle. As they are all front wheel driven, instead of four wheel driven, it would be impossible to even get the ambulances to the Hospital, not to mention that they would be pretty much useless on the roads in Sierra Leone… So now I have to figure out how to use them the best way possible.

- Then I went to a meeting with the Danish International Rescue Federation who have rebuild ambulances and sent them off to Afghanistan. They are now looking into how they can support the project, and I will have a clearer picture after Easter.

- I have also been talking with different film production companies about having them on the team to produce the documentary movie. I have talked to Kong Gullerod a young company with great minds involved, and I also talked to Copenhagen Bombai. Both meetings were a great experience and also underlined the fact that no matter where I go, or who I talk to – everybody seems to like the project, which is a delightfully good feeling that provides me with even more energy and will to fulfil the project.

- On my tour of exploration, I have crossed roads with several interesting projects I think deserve some attention. If you like this blog and this project, you might find these different projects interesting too.

FC Savanna

2015 Rally With A Purpose

Virus Free Generation

Copenhagen Consensus Center

Gmin

By the way: Yesterday we started the recordings of the project, to make sure we have some background information with us when the whole project is over.

I am extremely proud and honoured to present a now confirmed player in the Ambusanga Project, the very famous Danish race driver Jan Magnussen. He is now officially ready to change the Corvette C6-R to an old ambulance for a short period of time. Jan Magnussen is ambassador for the Masanga hospital and that is how I got in contact with him, once again proving that networks turn out to be enormously helpful in project related situations. The photo on the left is taken by Jørn Dalgård Larsen, and I have copied it from Jan’s homepage. Click the image to see the article and other interesting photos. 


The work on the Ambusanga project continues. I have been in contact with many interesting stakeholders and everybody seems to like the idea. My challenges for now are about keeping up with time and getting my thoughts and ideas on paper and create the best possible concept. The criteria for the best concept are:


- It has to be a good story for a documentary movie.


- It has to create awareness and secure future partners for the hospital.

I am trying to keep you up to date through this blog, and I can see in the statistics counter that an average of 6-10 people reads it every day. I don’t know who you are for sure, but if you have any comments, thought or ideas, please feel free to share them. That’s the beauty of the blogging world – it gives you the opportunity to join the conversation – in this case this project. I look forward to hear from you!