Welcome Notes BiH

Beneficiaries (2022-2025)

• 7’773 children, youth, young adults, and adults, participated to 584 artistic and music workshops organized inside 4 Transit and Reception Centers (TRCs), and 3 Safe House in the Sarajevo, Una-Sana and Tuzla Cantons, as well as the Children’s Center Grbavica (Sarajevo);
• 11 Bosnian musicians participated to the Welcome Notes Training;
• 14 Bosnian teachers participated to the Welcome Notes Training;
• Over 300 people, including local community representatives and staff from partner organizations.

In 2022-2025, Musicians Without Borders (MWB), also with Alta Mane support, has primarily focused its intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina and, in collaboration with two Bosnian cultural and arts organizations, War Childhood Museum and Superar BiH, and with Caritas BiH, has developed the following activities:

• activated 3 Welcome Notes BiH Teams which, on a regular and ongoing basis, implemented 548 music workshops inside the TRCs of Usivak and Blazuj (Sarajevo), Borici and Lipa (Una-Sana), as well as inside the Safe House Margina (Tuzla Canton), Sarajevo, and Bihać, (Una-Sana Canton), reaching 7’351 people (0-35+ years);
• organized 16 music and artistic workshops, run by Superar BiH inside the Usivak TRC and the Children’s Center Grbavica (Sarajevo), reaching 271 minors and young adults;
• organized 20 visual arts workshops, run by War Childhood Museum inside the Usivak and Blazuj TRCs, reaching 151 minors and young adults;
• organized, in pilot mode, a Rap Weekend Workshop inside the Safe House Sarajevo, reaching 5 unaccompanied minors;  
• organized, in collaboration with Superar BiH and War Childhood Museum, a training curriculum intended to 14 Bosnian teachers 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 BiH;
• 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 BiH;
• organized 1 Follow-up Training reaching 7 Bosnian teachers, already trained in 2023;
• contributed and participated in 6 Advocacy Special Events, during which 11 minors performed live, reaching more than 300 people, including members of the local community and staff from parter organizations.

In 2026, MWB, in collaboration with Caritas BiH, and with the aim of strengthening the psychosocial support network within the Bosnian Reception System, intends to organize, on a regular and ongoing basis, the music workshops inside 3 TRCs (Usivak, Blazuj and Lipa) in the Cantons of Sarajevo and Una-Sana, as well as in 2 Safe House for unaccompanied minors (Sarajevo and Bihać), and to pilot an innovative model of psychosocial support and empowerment based on Rap music. In parallel, intends to replicate the music workshops in the Tuzla Canton to continue reaching the different population groups on the move, and, at the same time, extend its intervention to other socially and health vulnerable groups to address the needs of the local community.

Musicians Without Borders