Our training programs share the knowledge and skills of Musicians Without Borders’ trainers with individuals from a variety of musical levels and backgrounds who are actively involved or wish to be involved in different programs combining music and social change.

Our courses are based around three focal points, using practical music activities to illustrate these points:

• MWB’s five working principles (safety, inclusion, equality, creativity, quality)
• The biological, social, and psychological effects of music on our nervous system and tools for self-care to help monitor your own well-being;
• How the principles of peace education and nonviolence can orient music activities towards social change;

Goals:

• You’ll gain knowledge of the three focal points of the training;
• You’ll experience the application of these focal points to practical music-making;
• You’ll be equipped to prepare and facilitate music activities;
• You’ll expand and strengthen your leadership skills.

To join our musical leadership training, you should have:

• Informal or formal musical training 
• Comfort with singing and performing simple rhythmic patterns
• Experience leading music workshops 
• Experience or intent to use music to contribute to community-based initiatives

Our training programs address skills across four subject areas: pedagogical, didactic, musical, and workshop leadership.

Pedagogical skills refer to the behavior and attitude of the workshop leader. Strong pedagogical skills can enhance emotional and social well-being, receptiveness of participants, and feeling of safety within the group. These are crucial in (post) conflict areas. The workshop leader uses didactic skills to transfer knowledge and build competence within the group. This refers to the how of leadership. Workshop leadership skills define the preparation needed to carry out a workshop. This involves the preparation of the structure and content of the workshop, ensuring optimal environmental conditions, and taking an inventory of the materials needed.

We focus on how to use music as a tool for peace-building and social change. We do not provide musical instruction per se, rather we use musical activities such as drum circle facilitation, singing, movement, songwriting, and improvisation in order to illustrate and fully utilize the power of music and nurture a culture of nonviolence.

Musicians Without Borders trains (adult) workshop leaders to work predominantly with children and young adults and teach others to do so as well, with the understanding that introducing skills related to cooperative music making and nonviolence at a young age can help to influence social change across generations. While some activities that we use in the training are child-oriented, we encourage our trainees to think creatively to adapt these activities for their own target groups through small group work. We also see the inherent value of playfulness that is embedded in these activities as useful skill sets to explore across age groups, encouraging creativity, helping to construct valuable problems-solving skills and building empathy among participants.

Musicians Without Borders grounds its approach to peace-building in the conviction that, while cultural differences often come to play a role in war and armed conflict, they are almost never the real root of the conflict, but often the tools of those who benefit from the conflict.

While we often work in places that have been divided along ‘ethnic’ or ‘cultural’ lines, ‘intercultural dialogue’, as it is usually understood, is not part of the practice of Musicians Without Borders. The idea of ‘intercultural dialogue’ implies that the problems of post-war communities have their roots in cultural differences and can be addressed by bringing representatives of the different ‘cultures’ into contact and engaging them in conversation with each other.

To support processes of re-connection without identifying people by ethnic or cultural labels, Musicians Without Borders works to create a neutral musical space in which participants can both identify themselves and relate to each other primarily through music. We take their talents, passions, and potentials seriously and offer them real chances for musical growth and creative development, contact, and connection with individuals they may not otherwise have the chance to meet. We then trust the music to do its work and leave it to them to choose whether, and how, to meet ‘the other’ outside the musical space. What we invariably see is friendships emerging, along with empowerment and a feeling of relief at not being primarily defined by ethnicity, religion or culture.

Yes! Visit our Resources & Publications page to learn more.

The contexts in which Musicians without Borders work are often fragile and challenging. Resources can be limited, and the difficulties faced by people can be extreme. The trust that has been developed with our partners and their beneficiaries is vital, and the well-being of participants in our programs is always our primary concern. When we do have occasional openings in our international projects, we have to consider any placement of personnel very carefully. Therefore, only a select number of training participants may have the opportunity to work as a ‘trainer intern’ within one of our programs. This consideration would be based on a mutual fit between the skill sets of the individual and the needs of the program and would be on a voluntary basis.

Click here to read testimonials and see what past training participants have to say about our courses.

Participants are encouraged to seek out funding sources within their own communities or organizations to cover the cost of participation, however, a limited number of scholarships may be available on request.

We recommend the following funding resources supporting artist mobility:

On the Move

Artists at Risk Connection