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Matthew Daniels explores how exiled musicians can help combat racism and prejudice in UK communities.

Working in the refugee arts field is both a huge challenge and a tricky balance between managing perceptions and sharing experiences. Overcoming invisible barriers and negative stereotypes can be extremely hard work, but when it is achieved, it is also extremely rewarding. Sound It Out Community Music is a Birmingham-based organisation that has been established for 16 years and is one of the leading social development agencies for the West Midlands. The organisation has worked in the refugee arts field for eight years, earning itself a reputation for excellence of artistic quality, and for the supportive way in which the organisation works with exiled (refugee and asylum seeker) musicians.

In 2006 Sound It Out set itself an ambitious mission with the development of a new programme ‘Infusion.’ This programme established an ensemble of exiled musicians from across the world, and took them to run workshops and performances in four of Birmingham’s most challenging communities. We also recruited two experienced deliverers (Kate Buttolph and Duncan Chapman) to work with the musicians and two highly experienced exiled artists to provide mentoring support (Zirak Hamad and Mira Yugai).

Following extensive publicity in a range of community languages, a team of eight trainees was identified from a wide range of cultural backgrounds (Albania, Angola, Congo, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Zimbabwe). The programme consisted of 20 training sessions in community music practice, workshop development, performance and delivery techniques.

From January 2007 the ensemble split into two mini-ensembles and visited four communities. Two of the communities chosen (Handsworth and Nechells) are well known for deprivation, low aspiration, gang-related issues and multicultural tensions; the other two communities also suffer deprivation, but are predominantly white, monocultural communities with issues around acceptance of other cultures (Castle Vale and Kings Norton). In all communities, the aim was to combat racism and prejudice towards refugees and asylum seekers, raise awareness of different cultures and promote interculturality.

The Infusion trainees ran a series of music workshops and performances in schools and community centres and engaged with a total of 80 children and 39 parents. Teachers fed back that the children developed a range of skills (amongst them life skills, social skills, teamwork skills, confidence and self-esteem) as well as a positive experience of interaction with people from exiled communities. As one Year 5 pupil put it, “The project taught us to be friends and respect each other.”

The community workshops reached 58 community members and were very successful, with one adult audience member saying “It was absolutely brilliant to see all different community members coming together for a change instead of being at each other’s throats.” Feedback from community leaders in all four communities bore out the appropriateness of the Infusion workshops as a means for combating negative views and stereotypes. In Kings Norton and Castle Vale, where negative attitudes towards refugees and asylum seekers are especially prevalent, the project had a particularly positive impact on local people.

Infusion has since performed at a number of high profile events (including Refugee Week and the reopening of Birmingham Town Hall Festival). Sound It Out has run a further two community events enabling the ensemble to reach approximately 450 audience members, and in late 2007 the organisation received funding to deliver a smaller model of this practice in another district of Birmingham.

The crucial step for Sound It Out now is to develop and build upon this work. We aim to roll the work out across Birmingham in partnership with local communities as a model for raising positive awareness around multicultural and multi-faith issues, as well as being a positive action against the negative stereotypes surrounding refugee communities.

Matthew Daniels is Chief Executive Sound It Out, the Community Music Development Agency for the West Midlands.
e: matthewdaniels@sounditout.co.uk;
w: http://www.sounditout.co.uk