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Mitrovica Rock School worked: students of the school found a place where politics could be shut out and where ethnic identity was secondary. What matters at the Rock School is what you can do, what you like and what you’re like. But then COVID-19 happened.
In Rwanda, music activities and support groups for young people living with HIV have been closed for ten months. We know that when it becomes possible to meet again, support will be more necessary than ever.
As El Salvador headed into lockdown, Armonia Cuscatleca’s staff and teachers knew they had to find a way to encourage creativity and artistry during this difficult time.
“[The trainers] kept telling me that I was important. That made me come a bit closer to other people. I was trained and I became a community music leader, then I started to help children that felt like me.”
“For three years, during the repopulation of the area, they had no school,” Marna recalls. “Families from the rural areas lost most of their income, and could no longer bring their children to the school in town. The families were very concerned, so they came together to solve the problem. They found a group of four teachers to start a small school for the community, and I was one of them.”
Hometown shows seem like a given for any new band. But up until recently, that wasn’t how it worked in Mitrovica, Kosovo.
Our training program for Community Music Leaders in Rwanda has already moved online. Here’s a lesson given this week by Musicians Without Borders trainer Espoir Rukengeza.
In January 2020, we began a very exciting new collaboration across Musicians Without Borders programs, bringing the expertise of the Mitrovica Rock School to Rwanda Youth Music’s team of passionate Community Music Leaders.