Interviews
In 2019, BBC journalists Vibeke Venema and Britt Yip filmed a live performance of Love vs Trauma, included footage from the Hooray for Hollywood film, and interviewed Raven Kaliana about her puppets, performances, trauma education workshops, and human rights campaigning. The video was featured on BBC News.
Before 2014, there was little public awareness that trafficking crimes took place in America. Raven Kaliana travelled to New York to present her film Hooray for Hollywood at the UN Commission on the Status of Women event, and was asked to interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times. He had written books and articles on the topic of human trafficking in Africa, but had never researched crimes of this nature in the USA. Raven showed him Hooray for Hollywood and asked him to look into statistics for trafficking and child sexual exploitation crimes in America. He published some very shocking statistics, indeed… The article led to more public awareness that America is unfortunately one of the world’s major producers of child exploitation materials and that it has an extensive trafficking problem.
Raven Kaliana provided testimony regarding the life-threatening crimes perpetrated against her throughout her childhood, and explained how she works to raise awareness about crimes against children through her puppet play and film Hooray for Hollywood with its post-show discussions. This article went ‘viral’ and was syndicated and reproduced in news publications around the world, and translated into many languages. The article led to invitations to show Hooray for Hollywood and speak at the United Nations in Geneva, BBC Woman’s Hour, BBC World Service, Oxford University, and New York University.
Changemaker Magazine, published by Initiatives of Change (IofC) International, interviewed Raven Kaliana about her past collaboration with IofC. Working with a team at IofC, Raven produced an awareness-raising event in 2013 at which she screened Hooray for Hollywood and participated in a panel discussion on the prevention of crimes against children. This event was attended by UK Home Office, London Assembly members, and major NGOs working to protect trafficking victims and exploited children.
Shirish Kulkarni, an award-winning journalist with Monnow Media and Bureau of Investigative Journalism, interviewed Raven for research on Storytelling in Journalism. This looked at her experience using puppetry to help facilitate public awareness and policy change. She suggested providing more historical context and showing the community responses of those involved with an issue, instead of just focusing on the crisis itself, to empower problem-solving approaches in news viewers or readers.
In December 2019, Raven Kaliana presented Hooray for Hollywood at the Taiwan ECPAT international conference on preventing crimes of child sexual exploitation. Raven gave an interview to Right Plus, a human rights publication. In February 2020, Right Plus published a 4-part report combining Raven’s testimony and puppet-based awareness-raising work on these issues with information on the legal loopholes in regards to these crimes in Taiwan. Raven followed up with 2 online presentations of Hooray for Hollywood to Taiwan prosecutor conferences, coordinating with ECPAT, which ran a series of workshops for educators and police on this issue. This was brought to the attention of lawmakers, police, prosecutors, and judges, who began to research the issue and to work towards policy changes to better protect children.
Get in touch
To enquire about commissioning puppets for your production; puppetry coaching for performers; puppetry performance in your show; teaching puppet-making or shadow puppet workshops; shadow puppet animations for films, television commercials, or music videos; presentations of the Hooray for Hollywood film; or booking performances of Love vs Trauma with associated workshop.
Please email Raven Kaliana at puppets@ravenkaliana.com or fill in the following contact form: