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This blog was written with contributions from members of our Welcome Notes BiH team working in Bosnia. We are incredibly indebted to them and the fantastic work they do every day to bring moments of safety to those who need it most. Welcome Notes BiH collaborates with the BRAT project (Balkan Route: Reception in Transit), with our partner Caritas BiH.

Bosnia & Herzegovina is a crucial part of the Balkan Route, one of the most common routes used by people in forced migration, seeking safety from war, poverty, and climate change into Western Europe. Since 2018 the region has experienced an increased influx of refugees and asylum seekers who stay in the region for short periods of time. Safe houses in locations like Tuzla are vital safe spaces where families and individuals can stop for a time during the incredibly traumatic route.

Musicians Without Borders works in these locations, to provide music workshops and activities for people on the move via the Balkan Route. We do this to provide relief and respite, to help individuals escape from the traumatic experiences they are both going through, and fleeing from, and to help build a sense of community, safety, and connection in these often chaotic and tense locations. 

Our Welcome Notes BiH team works extremely flexibly in reception centers and safe houses across Bosnia, adapting to the needs of each day as they come. From one day to the next it might be different: 1 person may turn up looking for an instrumental lesson, or 30 people may arrive. The increasing popularity of these activities is testament to their effectiveness and importance, as more than 80% of people staying at these locations have joined our workshops, whether as a participant in a group creative session, or as returning musicians looking for instrumental lessons.

Workshop leader Almerisa Delić providing 1-to-1 instrument tutoring with a Safe House resident

Tuzla has been for many years an important point of the Balkan Route. Due to its proximity to Serbia, many people on the move enter Bosnia and Herzegovina through the Tuzla passage. However, due to lack of government cooperation, this region offers almost no assistance to people on the move, and only a few independent organizations such as the Margina Safe House offer care and assistance, making this Safe House a crucial point of support in the region. The Safe House has capacity for 35 beds, and usually hosts users for short periods of time, until they continue their journey towards Sarajevo or Bihac. As a location that receives people who have just entered the country–often exhausted and in vulnerable situations–it is a key strategic point for our music workshops to provide essential psychosocial support, stress relief, human connection, and a warm welcome. 

As Fahrudin, from our music team in Tuzla, tells us,

“The ultimate success, undoubtedly, lies in the heightened enthusiasm of the users. Music workshops, besides providing physical relief, often involve thought-provoking games that stimulate group dynamics, significantly impacting every aspect of the participants’ personalities.”

This is hugely important. For people living through the stress of the refugee process, sharing often overcrowded emergency locations with people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, having a space to be able to share one’s life stories and experiences can be enormously beneficial in making people feel safe. After these sessions, we are told that people feel more comfortable in the safe houses, that they have a transformed means of living together and sharing the space.

Usually, the experiences of people staying at the safe house is incredibly fleeting. Groups are likely to stay a maximum of 2 or 3 days before moving on and continuing their journey. In some cases, however, some people stay longer periods of time, due to health issues or injuries that they must recover from. This was the case of people like Amir and Hamza (names anonymized to protect privacy) who stayed at the Safe House for around 3 months. Originally from Syria and Morocco, their journey to reach Tuzla was long and exhausting. Due to physical injuries they prolonged their stay in the Safe House and delayed the continuation of their journey, a time to recover physically and emotionally. This was a great opportunity for our team to get to know them in a more meaningful way than is often possible in these locations. The groups worked together, making music in workshops that became personalized, a deeper level of working together. 

Before moving on from Tuzla, Amir and Hamza left our team a handwritten note:

“First of all, I want to congratulate you on your enjoyable work and I wish you a happy life. The great work you do brings joy to our hearts and makes us forget the problems we went through. As you know immigrants went through difficult circumstances, but when we arrived in Bosnia, especially Tuzla, we felt comfortable as if we were among our family, and you makes us feel that we are not immigrants. Thank you very much. Professor you are a truly wonderful person and music truly makes a person calm and helps to forget problems. Thank you for everything.”

This is why we do the work we do, in locations like the Margina Safe House in Tuzla on the Balkan Route. Whether we make music with someone just once, or whether we create with them over weeks, months, or years, the importance of our trainers being there for people is inestimable. It’s not always possible to create a deeper level of connection like that built with Amir and Hamza in a region with so much traffic into Europe. But when it was possible our team was present, ready, and flexible to adapt to those in need.

Fahrudin Šehmehmedović and Almerisa Delić, using the body and movement as the best tool there is for wellbeing and self-regulation.