Refugee Week – Working with new communities
We have noticed a change in our young music communities over the last 3 years with the arrival of young refugees and asylum seekers.
We work mainly in Derby, Derbyshire and Nottingham and we have already begun to notice differences in provision, approach and support in each area and the different methods that young people are using to access music provision.
The good news is that our new communities have been persistent in finding opportunities to make new exciting music and setting our music leaders challenges of how to adapt their skills and practice to diverse styles, languages and influences.
We take up our story referencing three quite different scenarios and groups of young people. We hope that other organisations can share experiences and approaches, perhaps leading to a more consistent and uniform approach to engaging new communities.
Derby
3 years ago we began to work with ‘Roma’ young people at a youth centre in Normanton Derby. We quickly noticed that some of the older participants had a great deal of musical talent in playing keyboards and guitars and enjoyed playing traditional and religious songs. Younger ones seemed to have little interest in taking part and were clearly were interested in Hip-Hop and ‘pop’ culture. We began to run taster sessions targeted at them from our Youth Music funding with additional funding from Derby City Council.
They quickly began to take part in regular sessions on a Friday evening at our studio in Derby and word started to spread about how to access the music provision in their communities. Some later took part in sessions targeted at NEET young people and they gained Arts Awards and Rock School qualifications.
This year the participants have acted as young leaders and mentors on our Nottingham project and shared their experiences and stories.
‘When I make music, when I rap it makes me feel good because I talk about stuff that happens in my life, like about my emotions and stuff, because when I rap I like to talk about world like racism and stuff like this….People in here are just funny, they take care and stuff, they help you with everything’ – Richard,
Nottingham
We worked in partnership with Nottingham refugee forum and the group Writing East Midlands. Work began with a series of tasters followed by regular sessions at our Nottingham studio. Participants came from Eritrea, Sudan, Albania and Kurdistan. Our Derby team of ‘Roma’ musicians supported sessions with engineering and also talked about their experiences.
‘We have been engaging them in writing their own lyrics either in their own language or in English and then we get them to record them and what is really good is that they record them over beats that they have made. They have been doing it solo and also in groups….a lot of the stuff we are doing is about how they are interacting, getting them to talk to us and share their stories through their music.’ Jam-Jam, Baby People music leader.
The success of this project was dependent on the other agencies introducing their young people to new opportunities and organisations and then supporting them with access, transport and general encouragement. The participants continued to access the studio after this initial phase and are keen to do more.
‘This is a very good project, I am doing here music about my family, about my life. I am doing it in 2 Languages English and Albanian.’ - Participant1
‘The best thing is coming here to enjoy the town and get to know other people as well’ - Participant2
Derbyshire
Derbyshire Virtual School has taken and number of unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASC). These are being supported by the Derbyshire Virtual School who are encouraging and supporting them to attend creative projects.
“These young people have suffered unimaginable hardship and trauma in their short lives and we want to do what we can to help them. We’ve formed a partnership to respond to the government request for help and support these young people the best way we can in Derbyshire.” Cabinet Member for Young People Councilor Alex Dale
The young people are accompanied by the Derbyshire Creative Mentors who often organise transport or bring young people to events. We had already worked with young people from these groups on previous occasions and in May 2018 they collaborated with participants on our Youth Music Exchanging Notes Project. The group created new music and began to work with the dance group Rational to develop a potential touring piece exploring the relationships developed by looked after children and their carers.
‘I have been really pleased to see our UASC working with other looked after young people from Derbyshire. The combined efforts and influences of the young people has begun to develop new artistic practice that is unique. It is wonderful to see some of the young people developing confidence and enthusiasm to get involved in a growing number of arts projects’ – Wendy Johnson, Creative Mentor and Project Participation coordinator
Summary
All three models of working have been quite different, the Baby People team and music leaders have had to be flexible and reactive to each group and the organisations that work with them. Key to the success of all three projects was the partnership working with other organisations that were supporting the young people. They offered initial opportunities for tasters and supported the young people in the longer-term projects.
Ongoing engagement was achieved by developing music making activities that were appropriate and accessible for young people. This was developed though negotiation and finding out what the young peoples interests where and what they wanted to achieve.
We intend to continue this new exciting work and are constantly looking for ways for it to continue and develop. We are interested to hear other organisations experiences that will inform our progress and enhance the experiences for this talented new addition to our music community.
