The project in summary

Development and implementation of music and artistic workshops in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The project in detail

Introduce and use the power of music in refugee camps and asylum centers to allow minors, accompanied and unaccompanied, to start a post-traumatic resilience process, transcend cultural and language barriers and facilitate their integration among the local communities in which they are now located.

  • 3’832 children, youth, adults, and parents (1-18+), out of which 40 children without a migration background, and 118 Unaccompanied Boys and Single men (18+), participated to 283 artistic and music workshops organized inside the Usivak and Blazuj TRCs (Sarajevo), the Borici TRC (Una-Sana Canton), the Daily Center Puz (Tuzla Canton) and the Children’s Center Grbavica (Sarajevo);
  • 17 Bosnian musicians have been trained to join the music workshops developed by the mobile music unit “Music Bus”;
  • 14 Bosnian teachers have been trained to the Welcome Notes Training.

In 2018-2019, Musicians Without Borders (MWB), also with Alta Mane support, designed and implemented the new curriculum Welcome Notes Europe, starting to transfer it to young musicians and local teachers (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, Greece, and Italy), and consolidated important partnerships with organizations operating on the ground, with the aim of integrating the Curriculum into their various migration emergency programs. In 2022-2023, MWB focused its intervention primarily in Bosnia-Herzegovina by collaborating with two Bosnian arts organizations – War Childhood Museum Sarajevo and Superar BiH  – and, to this end, between February 2022 and December 2023, has developed the following activities:

  • activated the mobile music unit “Music Bus” which ran 247 music workshops, inside the Usivak and Blazuj Refugee Sites (Sarajevo Region), the Daily Center Puz (Tuzla Canton), and the Borici Refugee Site (Una-Sana Canton), reaching 2’331 minors and young adults on the move (1-18+ years) and 118 Unaccompanied Boys and Single Men;
  • organized 16 music and artistic participatory workshops, run by Superar BiH inside the Usivak Refugee Site, and the Children’s Center Grbavica (Sarajevo), reaching 271 minors and young adults, out of which 40 without a migration background;
  • organized 20 visual arts workshops, run by War Childhood Museum Sarajevo inside the Usivak and Blazuj Refugee Sites (Sarajevo Region), reaching 151 minors and young adults on the move and UASC (1-20 years);
  • coordinated six online meetings to modelize a common methodological arts-based approach to consolidate the current Curriculum of the three organizations and guarantee the self-sustainability and replicability of the program in other migration and emergency contexts in Bosnia-Herzegovina;
  • organized, in collaboration with Superar BiH and War Childhood Museum Sarajevo, a training curriculum intended to 14 Bosnian teachers from 10 primary and secondary schools of Sarajevo, Bihać and Velika Kladusa to train them in the use of arts-based methodologies and practices to promote the integration of minors with a migration background into educational and school contexts in Bosnia-Herzegovina;
  • organized a training curriculum intended to 11 Bosnian musicians, already operating in the country and in migration contexts, to guarantee the replicability and self-sustainability of the project across Bosnia-Herzegovina.