Refugee Week fundraiser for music charity in Salford
Article published: Wednesday, June 18th 2014
For a fundraising gig on Friday, Salford charity Musicians Without Borders has teamed up with the local Amnesty International group to celebrate Refugee Week 2014. The organisation uses music to help communities affected by war, displacement and torture deal with trauma. Musicians Without Borders has been running projects all over the world for 15 years.
International successes include a Rock School in Kosovo bringing Serbians and Albanians together and a Samba project for refugees in Palestine.
While there’s a strong international focus, the organisation also works with around 300 refugees, torture and war survivors in the North West each year, building confidence and working through traumatic experiences in music therapy sessions.
For the last three years, the Stone Flowers project in Salford has helped group members express their thoughts and start to deal with the trauma they’ve experienced by writing and performing their own music. It is run in partnership with Freedom From Torture, a charity offering free counselling to torture survivors.
Group member Lito says the experience has changed him: ‘Performing with the group reminds me of who I am and what I live for.’
The participant-led project is a work in progress and several survivors now see it as crucial for raising awareness for their situations and what they and others have gone through. They aim to promote awareness of human rights abuse and challenge negative preconceptions of refugees and asylum seekers.
The Stone Flowers project members have just been in the studio recording six songs, and plan to launch a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds to record and finish the album.
Nick Jones, Development and Finance Manager of Musicians Without Borders, says: ‘The testimonies and feedback from the participants themselves and the psychotherapists they work with show a reduction in the effects of trauma and isolation, and improved confidence and self-esteem.’
The fundraiser at Sacred Trinity Church in Salford focuses on acoustic music and spoken word with performances by local poet Kieren King, country trio The Lonesome and Penniless Cowboys, Magic Numbers’ Michelle Stodart, Colorama’s lead singer Carwyn Ellis and local up-and-coming singer songwriter Chris Flynn.
It is part of Refugee Week and coincides with World Wide Music Day. Refugee Week celebrates the cultural impact of refugees and campaign for their rights with a nation-wide programme of events, and World Wide Music Day (or Fête de la Musique) is an international celebration of music in over 460 cities around the world.
Alan Wragg
Acoustic Amnesty Fundraiser, Friday 20 June 2014 at 7pm at Sacred Trinity Church in Salford, entry £ 8.80. For more information, see event page.
More: Culture, Manchester, Migration and asylum, QuickKick
Comments
-
Really looking forward to this .
Comment by Anne on June 22, 2014 at 6:51 pm -
Hi there! I know this is kinda off topic however I’d figured I’d ask.
Comment by perfect indoor sauna on August 7, 2014 at 7:29 pm
Would you bbe interested in exchanging links or maybe guest writing a boog article or vice-versa?
My blog addresses a lot of the same subjects as yourfs and I think we could greatly benefit from each other.
If you happen to be interested feel free to send me an email.
I look forward to hearing from you! Superb blog byy the way! -
It’s truly very complicated in this full
Comment by Nelson on September 22, 2014 at 8:48 am
of activity life to listen news on Television, thus I only use world wide web for that reason, and take the most recent news. -
Hey there just wanted to gife you a quick heads up. The text iin your post seem to be
Comment by Orlando on November 23, 2014 at 5:45 pm
unning off the screen in Chrome. I’m not sure if thios iss a formatting issue or something to ddo
with web browser compatibility but I thought I’d post to let you know.
The layout look great though! Hope you get the issue fixed
soon. Kudos -
[…] Article published Manchestermule.com: Wednesday, June 18th 2014 […]
Pingback by Refugee Week fundraiser for music charity in Salford | tacetmusic on December 29, 2014 at 4:09 pm
The comments are closed.
