Source: Wave To The World

Source: MJNI

Wave To The World is the dream of 2 men who grew up in the outer Western Suburbs of Sydney who know what fighting against the odds is all about. Mark Filby and Stephen White met through a mutual friend at Christmas 1997. By January 1998 they had talked through their concept of trying to help the Paralympic Games. They felt that, as their city of Sydney was host to the Paralympic Games, something should be done to raise awareness of this event. For too long Paralympians had gone unnoticed in the world media.

In 1992 Mark had put together a project to aid the Australian Paralympic team to get to Barcelona. Called Aussie Gold, the project involved a music CD that featured the cream of Australia's music talent and was backed up with street fairs, concerts and a school mufti day, all of which raised over a million dollars for the team members to get to Barcelona. During this event, Mark's brother who was disabled, passed away. Mark has a deep connection to the Paralympic Games.

Subsequent stories of athletes with no legs on skateboards in pubs selling raffle tickets to get a fare together to represent their country motivated these two Sydneysiders to start ensuring that this situation would change.

The concept of Wave To The World was born in January 1998. During that year Mark and Steve discussed the project with the Sydney Paralympic Organizing Committee and were given the authority to chase their dream. Wave To The World became an "Official Fundraising Project" of the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games.

Mark and Steve then put together the plan to go to the USA to develop Wave To The World. They turned to Sydney friends Roger Danne and Mal Fraser-Clay to assist them in their endeavours and as a result Mal Fraser-Clay became the third director of the Wave To The World project. Their mission was to convince the world's biggest celebrities to support Wave To The World; a task that turned out to be much more difficult than anticipated.

In the USA, Mark and Steve soon discovered that the Paralympic Games had very little profile and that wherever they went they found most people knew nothing about the Paralympics, despite the fact that the 1996 Paralympic Games were held in Atlanta. After 10 months of effort a breakthrough finally happened when they met actor Joey Gian, who opened up his contact list and became a passionate supporter. From there, actor Cylk Cozart opened up another stream of contacts and these two stars became Wave To The World's first Ambassadors.

A chance meeting in Jerrys Diner between Mark and actor Corey Feldman saw another stream of contacts become available. Corey opened his heart and life to the project and called on his friends.

During these incredible few weeks, doors were opened and some of the most giving people in the world pledged their support, among them Emmy Award-winning director Lane Shefter Bishop and her producer husband Andrew Bishop. These two wonderful people, along with Tomaczek Bednarek and Jodie Sisson, burst into Wave To The World with a dedication and commitment to make this project even bigger than Mark and Steve dreamed. Their goal was to capture the entire event on video and produce a documentary and a music video.

However, it was Rebbie Jackson from the world's biggest showbiz family, who was the angel that Wave To The World was waiting for. The rest is now becoming history.

An Official Fund Raising Project Of The Paralympic Games

One breakthrough occurred when Filby met Rebbie Jackson, the eldest sister of the famous Jackson music family. Rebbie and Filby became fast friends and soon he was at the Jackson family house on a daily basis gaining support from other artists with their help. Katherine Jackson, the mother of the famous superstars, took Mark in and did interviews and testimonials to camera, something the rest of the family were amazed by. Katherine had Polio, she understood what Mark was trying to do.

From a call from Katherine to son Michael came a video testimonial from the most famous Jackson. Michael put on a Wave To The World T- Shirt and participated in the video for the "Spirit of Life" song. Rebbie participated in the song and the video as did brother Jermaine Jackson who also was the executive producer of the song "Spirit Of Life".

It was Jermaine's influence that finally got Ray Charles to participate. It was vitally important to Filby and White to have a disabled celebrity involved. Filby said, "Ray Charles is a legend. He is everything we are trying to say. He is known as a superb musician not a disabled musician. The Paralympic athletes are superb athletes, full stop."

Filby was accepted into the Jackson household on a daily basis. His passion for what he was trying to achieve touched this family. After being invited into a special family room that Michael gave to the family as a gift, a room full of memorabilia, the history of the family, Filby said, "That was a real honour. To see the history of the Jackson family like that, in a way few have seen, was incredible. These are lovely people. If my mates in Green Valley were told I was here they would never believe it".

Paralympic dream becomes a reality!

Three Sydneysiders, Stephen White, Mark Filby and Mal Fraser Clay had a dream to help change the world's perception of disabled sports. Inspired by the athletes performances and their "never give up" attitude, and appalled by the lack of international recognition given to the athletes by the world media, the three began their incredible mission 18 months ago. The idea was to enlist the world's biggest superstars to stand up for the Paralympic Games and encourage the public to support these incredible athletes.

Steve White said, " If people tune into these athletes performances there is no way anyone can not be inspired. Through this project we hope to assist in delivering the message of self-belief and tenacity to people all around the world. This message is given to us all from these athletes. It is my view that these athletes are the true essence of inspiration and their message is so powerful I believe it can change lives."

The result of the trio's relentless determination against many odds is the Wave To The World Project. The project is driven by 2 music CD's. One is a pop music CD and the other a country music CD. Each CD features tracks from the world's biggest music artists plus special songs that were produced for the project along with 2 music videos. These special songs, "Spirit of Life" from the pop CD and "Wave To The World" from the country music CD both feature a who's who from each musical genre. Bringing so many artists together for the disabled athletes of the world was no mean feat.

A year and a half later this monumental undertaking is complete, and White, Fliby and Clay have honoured their commitment to the Games organisers by the skin of their teeth. They were delayed 3 months by unexpected setbacks, long drawn out contractual negotiations with multi national record companies for the use of their artists performance after the artist had performed and been filmed.

White said, "If we have achieved a foundation for change in perceptions of disabled sports then we have done our job. Through the help of the singers and celebrities who joined the Wave To The World project we hope that this effort lives on for some time and raises funds for Paralympic Organisations around the globe in the future. We were able to get the support of the music artists and celebrities like Christopher Reeves, Michael Jackson, Cuba Gooding Jnr., Jeff Bridges, David Hasselhoff, Dean Cain and Jane Seymour to name a few. They all went on camera for the project. They all wanted to say "come on everyone, check out these incredible athletes". Every one of these celebrities said they were inspired by the Paralympians. All we are trying to do is get many more people inspired, and that will not happen overnight. We have made a start."

Source: Wave To The World