Using Music to Help Heal Sierra Leone Youth
After being wracked by a ten-year civil war, the problem of healing in Sierra Leone is challenging. This is especially so for the tens of thousands of children who were caught up in the conflict and are now returning to school, but who feel disillusioned, distracted, and marginalized.
In an effort to meet this challenge RESPECT, in association with the iEARN Sierra Leone, and Peace Pals Education Network (PPEN), have been collaborating with Bryan Berkett of "Jozoor" to find some innovative ways of bringing young Sierra Leonans together.
Mr. Berkett has founded Rappers United by Beating AIDS, a musical project he says gives youth the tools they need to help themselves. He believes by writing and recording music, children in Africa become more engaged with AIDS education than they otherwise would and are more likely to absorb the information.
"Sierra Leone was so appealing because they have such an intense musical tradition," says Mr. Berkett when asked why he chose to establish a project here. "Music has always been powerful in Africa. Recently I saw a documentary on how music was instrumental in bringing down the Apartheid system in South Africa."
Mr. Berkett says a detailed curriculum has been designed allowing the staff of local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to educate young people more effectively about both AIDS and refugee issues, and then to turn this information into songs. He hopes these songs can then be distributed through the iEARN network, which reaches around 100,000 young people in Africa.
Marc Schaeffer, International coordinator for RESPECT, says he finds the work Mr. Berkett has been extremely interesting and in the near future they hope to collaborate on a recording studio in Uganda.
Such a studio can consist of as little as a suite of software, a good quality laptop and some ancillary hardware such as a microphone and CD-burner. This can be put together for around $2000 US. Mr. Schaeffer says that RESPECT's partners in Sierra Leone have shown a particular interest in a studio for recording songs written by students about peace and their experiences of the conflict.
Both Mr. Schaeffer and Mr. Berkett point to the ease with which the projects can be replicated and sent to other schools and NGOs interested in communicating important issues as one of the greatest strengths of the program.
Although the projects are an inexpensive way of reaching potentially hundreds of thousands of young people throughout Africa, the money still needs to be raised one penny at a time. Donations can be made on the RESPECT website through PayPal. Donors can earmark their contribution by sending a follow-up e-mail to donations@respectrefugees.org. Mr. Schaeffer says programs researched by volunteers for Sierra Leone have so far been well reviewed and he hopes RESPECT can continue to work with Mr. Berkett's organisation to expand access to musical approaches to raising awareness on key issues.
"There has been a sort of convergent thinking between our two projects," says Mr. Schaeffer. "We are now working out plans for how we can best pool our energy and resources to start making this project happen now, and then to watch it grow."