Could This Whistle End the World's Biggest War?

Every now and again someone experiences something that for a brief moment, causes their world to stop spinning and then forever changes life as they know it. Some keep these transformative events private; others share with friends. And then there are the unsuspecting crusaders who feel compelled not only to share their story with the entire world, but also to act on what they’ve seen. Such is the tale of Falling Whistles founder, Sean Carasso.

About 10 months ago, the 27-year-old from Los Angeles accompanied his friend Blake Mycoskie of TOMS Shoes on a light-spirited educational humanitarian trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But like any story worth hearing, something went awry. Carasso came across a military camp for young boys. Boys, all under age 15, who had been abducted from their homes, beaten, forced to kill. Boys living in their own excrement and digging ditches for 20 hours a day. And most horrifying of all, boys who not yet old enough to hold guns, who are given whistles and put on the front lines as human shields: the Falling Whistles.

That evening through tear-filled eyes, Sean blogged about what he had just seen, and with little faith left in humanity, forwarded it to family and friends. He had no idea his words were about to inspire thousands to say, “What can I do?” Since then, Falling Whistles has worked tirelessly to address the immediate needs of the children in Congo. And to ensure those efforts are not made in vain, Carasso is determined to assemble the coalition that could very well end the world’s most massive conflict.

Tonic: Tell me how the Falling Whistles journey started.

Carasso: Blake and I went on this fun let’s-go-change-the-world thing. Young people out to have a good time, drinking every night. Just having fun. We give 50,000 shoes away. It’s actually a pretty extraordinary moment covering someone’s feet with shoes. It builds connectivity in people in some very interesting ways. Sitting on the floor, covering someone’s feet — its kind of a Jesus washing people’s feet thing. It’s interesting. I don’t think I expected that.

Tonic: Is this where you came across the boys?

Carasso: I really wanted to get lost. There’s that great quote, “If it exists on a map, it doesn’t really exist.” So I went wandering, got lost. I ended up in Northern Uganda and then Congo while Blake stayed in South Africa. I’d heard that the biggest war in the world is in Congo. I really didn’t know any details, and knew that if that was the case — if the biggest war in the world is happening and I didn’t know anything about it, that was a problem in and of itself. I needed to go learn. So the idea was to go in for a five-day exploratory trip to start learning, asking questions, get as good of an understanding as I could in a few days and make some contacts so I could stay in touch. And at the end of those five days, we ended up discovering this illegal prison for kids. It was basically a military prison.

Tonic: That must have been an unbelievably powerful moment.

Carasso: That day, the "Falling Whistles day," was in a moment of total and complete vulnerability. One of those moments when everything stops and it’s like, "OK, this we have to do something about." I haven’t really gotten to a place to where I can explain it. My ambitions, my desires, my dreams — all went away.

Tonic: I’d imagine so. Now how do you go back to L.A. and drink beer and eat fish tacos?

Carasso: 100 percent. It’s never quite the same. It sounds so cliché but its reality is what it is. Lauren Hill says, "fantasy is what we want, but reality is what we need." It was one of those moments of crushing reality coming into full perspective. This is the world we live in: Half the world is un-free; half the world is free. I’ve lived the life of half. Then there’s this whole other half I don’t know anything about and now I’m seeing it face to face. And at this moment in time I can’t do anything about it, but I know that doesn’t always have to be the case.

Tonic: What were your next steps?

Carasso: We ended up exposing the prison to the United Nations, the kids got pulled out and ultimately the prison got shut down. It was a pretty intense day. And I wrote that blog that night, just through tears. Bawling. Thinking no one’s ever gonna read this. No one’s gonna care. What are we gonna do? Just out of this sense of despair. I sent it out to 150 friends and family and it just got forwarded and forwarded and forwarded. Tens of thousands of people read it. We got this overwhelming [feeling] of: What do we do? That day put me onto this wild ride. I ended up staying for another few weeks.

Tonic: What happened when you returned to the United States?

Carasso: When I came home, my buddy Marcus, a street artist, had bought me this really beautiful whistle. He put it around my neck and hugged me and said, “Just keep the story alive.” So I’m wearing this whistle and going into a depression. I don’t have a home, I don’t have a job, what are we gonna do? And people would just ask about this whistle all day long. And, I got to share the story and I realized I was getting to be a whistle-blower. I was getting to be the person speaking out. So we started saying, "Make their weapon your voice." And that’s how we began. So we started selling whistles and generating funds to eventually send to our friends in Congo who are doing really great work, locals, whose goal is to create whistle-blowers out of their generation as well in Congo. Their goal is to create a movement of peace and freedom within Congo. And that’s how it began. We were like, "We can do this. We can sell a million whistles. We can sell 5 million whistles. We could make so many different kinds of whistles and sell it with the story."

Tonic: So what is the story you want people to hear?

Carasso: Congo is this overwhelming issue. It’s the biggest war in the world: 5.6 million dead, at least; 2,000 dying per day; 70 percent of the rapes of the world is in Congo. You have China, United States, France, Rwanda, Belgians, English, the World Bank, the United Nations, the IMF — it’s an insanely complicated problem.

So, how are we going to get a massive coalition to give a damn and be with us? We have to give them a window, a small window in. And that’s the Falling Whistles story. Just read the story and you’ll be with us. We’ll expose the greater issues over time, but first we have to have people’s interest. What we’ve found is that when people wear the whistle, they end up sharing the story over and over again and then they want to learn more, because now they’re a spokesperson for the issue. We have to build a coalition.

Tonic: It does have that effect. It hooked me immediately. There’s something particularly infectious about it.

Carasso: Thanks for saying that. We’re blown away by it. It’s been really amazing to me. It was written in this moment where I didn’t believe human beings cared enough to respond.

Tonic: You said you wrote it through tears, right after the experience. I think there’s power in that.

Carasso: We want to communicate that we don’t want to live our lives in any shape of denial anymore. I think there’s this feeling from all of us that are part of this growing thing, we want to be whistle-blowers because we don’t want to live in denial; we want to live in reality. We want to live in all of it — all the shades, all the darkness, all the brightness, so we can be honest and actually respond to the world.

Living in the solution

Tonic: OK. So you come across these five boys, they get rescued, and then what? Realistically speaking, this is a massive issue. What do you do now, beyond saving these five kids?

Carasso: Let me back up. Here’s the quick story that gives the whole thing context. So that was the day we decided, we’re gonna figure this out. Let’s end this conflict. Let’s save these lives. I start meeting with all these rebel groups and keep digging. And what I discover is, that there’s this mineral called Coltan that’s being mined out of Congo and its being used in all our cell phones and computers. Coltan and all the other complex minerals are funding this war.

I was so angry, that in my back pocket — this tool — has been funding this war. All I did was be born into the culture I was born into. I didn’t choose to perpetuate this conflict. I was just born into it. I felt like such a victim at that moment. But what I realized was that it’s exactly the same situation for these boys. They didn’t choose this world; they were just born into it. These are not systems of trade and exchange that we created, but they are certainly systems that we can change. We have to. We have to create new systems for how we organize and operate our world. And so for us, it’s the conflict mineral (tin, coltan, tungsten, gold) issue that has to be first. It’s the hardest right now. It’s the biggest and the hardest and least known.

Tonic: I had no idea.

Carasso: Nobody does. We have the problem of the escaped children — the emergency immediate need that we’ve got to address, right? The kids escape the prisons and their families reject them because they’ve been so traumatized. Then, the kids form gangs, and the gangs become rebel armies. And the cycle of violence continues. So if we’re ever going to have lasting security in the region we’ve got to address the long-term needs of these kids.

Tonic: How are you going about that?

Carasso: Most of our money is going to help these kids. It’s way more complicated than any of us could imagine. At this point we’re partnering with two organizations on the ground, which are locally envisioned, locally funded and locally run. These people who have nothing, have created out of nothing, amazing response mechanisms to help these kids. These are the most inspiring stories in the world, people who are born into destitution have created NGOs — that’s madness. So we’re creating partnerships with two of these organizations that deal with war-affected kids.

Tonic: So then whistle sales are being allocated to essentially help rehab the kids?

Carasso: Yes. The two groups we’re working with are really exciting. One of them does official rehabilitation and the other does art therapy where they’re creating a place where kids can dance and paint and re-awaken their imaginations. And in the process they’re teaching them about Gandhi, MLK, Mandela. They’re teaching about the history of peace and how it applies to their situation.

The big picture: my BlackBerry funds the world’s biggest war?

Tonic: As you said, this is the emergency work. What is the long-term solution?

Carasso: The only way to help the children is to end the war. And the Coltan issue — the financial underbelly of the war — is only going to be ended by a massive coalition to politically advocate, and then turn the market. So we need political, new international standards for how we mine and trade these minerals. But we’re also going to need a consumer base that will have the option to buy a conflict-free phone. We’re not advocating people on that yet because we’re still a couple of years away from that.

Most technology companies don’t know how complicit they are in this. Most people just don’t know. So there’s an enormous amount of education that has to happen. And what we’re doing now is reaching out to technology companies to say: "Look this is happening, please be with us on this. Let’s not do name and shame stuff. Let’s not make you the enemy. You’ve been part of it, unknowingly, let’s work together to solve it." And if they don’t, then there may have to be name and shame stuff.

Tonic: How are you getting this started?

Carasso: Nobody knows how this is going to get solved or play out long-term. But we know we’ve got to create the round tables with academics, policy-makers, technology people, miners and activists to work towards solutions. Right now there’s no platform for this discussion.

Tonic: Do you think corporate America is in a position to respond effectively?

Carasso: They (locals) were complaining about the multi-national corporations and their role in Congo, which is severe. Millions and millions of people have died. What they want to do is talk about how bad the corporations are, and the corporate mandates that create the injustices in their lives. And my point was, but you have this incredible upsurge, with Bill Gates being the key player, and it’s happening at the college level. People are entering corporate America with transformative ideas of what our role ought to be. And to me that’s going to be the answer. If you combine ambition, innovation — the rebellion in all of that of entrepreneurialism — and corporate building, with ideas of compassion, humanitarianism and social good. You’ve got a combo that’s destined to have far-reaching implications.

The power of the whistle

Tonic: The whistle is really the key component of your campaign.

Carasso: Whistle sales go to help the escaped children, and by wearing the whistles, you become part of the coalition. And that’s going to be how we’re going to affect it long-term. In the short-term, that’s our answer.

Both organizations on the ground teach whistle blowing to the kids. They teach them how to engage their society and speak out for peace. One of them is through true human rights activism by becoming part of the system. And the other is through cultural dance, music and art. They both believe that it’s important to teach a civilization that they’re in control of their destiny if they work collectively.

Tonic: What are your big next steps?

Carasso: We’re developing the next line of whistles. We want to get them in stores. Whistler societies have been popping up.

Tonic: What are whistler societies?

Carasso: They’re dedicated to human freedom. It’s that idea of people have only ever gone from being un-free to free by speaking out. There are 15 of them already, which have happened on college campuses. And there are two rules: 1) Any idea, no matter how radical, is accepted as long as there’s respect for common man. 2) The idea needs to bridge one of the three demographic divides: race, religion or age. So we want to build out curriculum for that and help educate and mobilize.

Tonic: What can people do to help?

Carasso: Buy the whistles and wear the whistles. It’s easy to discount that — buy the whistle, share the story, right? But this is a really important step. Not just the first step, but an important one to create the foundation of understanding the world we live in. And beyond that we really need donations to sustain our organizations. None of that is funded by whistle sales. We desperately need donors to sustain the organization and the campaign.

We want people to do what they’re good at. We want people to use their talents. You speaking out looks entirely different than me speaking out. My friend the musician is going to use his music. You’re a writer, we want you to write. If everyone contributes what they do, we want people to use what they’re great at and see how they can help.

Tonic: Is there anything else you’d like people to know?

Carasso: I think the biggest thing that we want people to know is that we only exist because of what Harvey Milk called the "Uses." We only exist because friends and family forwarded, and friends and family wore it, and rocked it and shared it. And we’re going to continue to exist that way. We work on an extremely small budget and just keep letting it spread and giving it away. So to us, them responding is of the utmost importance. And not out of guilt or shame, but because we can. Classic Obama: We’re able, they’re not — so we should.

To let your voice be their weapon, visit Falling Whistles.

Photos courtesy of Lindsay Branham.