Music for Change - ready for the next phase

The room was pulsating with music, voices, and good vibrations as the first phase of the Music for Change project culminated at the Platform in Amman.

By Lise Olivarius

06. February 2011

Music for Change is launched in collaboration between ActionAid Denmark  MENA office and CDC Zarqa. The concert was the result of a two months pilot period in November and December, when seven highly committed local music teachers have facilitated a number of workshops for a group of Zarqa youth. The fact that this project so far has been a great success was obvious – the arrangement was held up by the performing music teachers’ engaging enthusiasm, and the whole room ended up clapping and singing along.

Staccato-beats of rap mingled with the well-known, languorous sounds of traditional Arabic singing , and exactly the cultural exchange is one of the programme’s purposes – as well as the broadening of cultural horizons.

The musical quality was high, but the main goal of Music for Change is not to educate technically skilled, professional musicians. On the other hand, music is here treated as a tool; a media and means of self-expression, social development, and general civic engagement. An example of this is the lyrics workshop that resulted in socially critical and humorous texts evolving around injustice on multiple levels - from the trivial trials of a broken water pipe in a refugee camp to social segregation in the city planning of Amman.  A long-term goal and dream is the production of a music demo, but in general, the process is more important than the product or result.  

This evening, the teachers were performing, but it cannot be stressed enough that Music for Change first and foremost is the young participants’ own project. The programme’s main purpose is to open marginalized young people’s eyes to their own potential for self-organization and change.