Music is a language.

Using music to work with young refuggess frees us all of the language barrier.

We have been working with a fantastic group of young people in Hull.  They are young refugees supported by the Two Way Street programme.  The young people are mainly from Sudan and Congo with some from Syria.  They are all very open to learn and take part but language is a barrier between us all.  However by skipping over any explanation of what we are doing in our workshops and just getting on with making the music the young people have found it easy to engage.

During these sessions we have created a song without communicating verbal instructions.  Instead we have shown the young people how to play, or they have shown us.  We might have an idea and then they talk about it in their own languages and develop it into something else, before playing it back to us.  

Slowly we have built our own kind of language that is simply about playing music together.