The final week of training for the 29 new MwB Community Music Leaders

April 2015

To be a MwB Community Music Leader requires creativity. The situations in which we work are fragile and changing. Often resources are limited. Power can go off mid-workshop, a storm can flare up in seconds during rainy season, the mood of the children participating can be high or low.

For 5 days the trainees learned techniques in creating workshops, connecting activities, and adapting workshops according to different situations and the profile of children. On the fourth day of the training, the trainees traveled to a nearby orphanage, working with 60 orphans, where they led an hour-long workshop.

Congratulations to the 11 new Musicians without Borders Assistant Trainers!

Last week, eight young Rwandans were accepted as Training Assistants for our 2014-2015 projects in Rwanda and Tanzania. The eight new assistants all graduated in February 2013 from Musicians without Borders’ Music Workshop Leadership training, and since then have been using music in support work in their communities with HIV+ children, genocide survivors, and other vulnerable children and youth. In addition to the eight young leaders, three Rwandan musicians will also be employed to work alongside our international trainers during the coming year.

As we closed the first week’s training of Tanzania Youth Music, one of the trainees picked up my guitar and began to play and sing the refrain “Storm is over now…”, with an acoustic reggae groove. The group caught the words and the feel, moving and singing along. The words shifted into “Music without Borders…”, each of us…

As we closed the first week’s training of Tanzania Youth Music, one of the trainees picked up my guitar and began to play and sing the refrain “Storm is over now…”, with an acoustic reggae groove. The group caught the words and the feel, moving and singing along. The words shifted into “Music without Borders…”, each of us…