The Music Bus

The Music Bus tours villages, refugee settlements, and schools of eastern Bosnia, running music and dance activities for children who live there. This provides an oasis of creativity and inclusive community building for a generation still deeply divided along ethnic and national lines.

Description

For the last three years, a team of Musicians Without Borders Bosnia and Herzegovina (MwB BiH) members, including musicians, dancers, teachers and trainers in non-formal education have been trained to work in the Music Bus Srebrenica project. These young musicians and dancers are working in and around Srebrenica, in villages, Collective (refugee) Settlements and schools, offering regular music and dance activities where children from different ethnic backgrounds meet in a neutral environment.

The basis of this project is the inclusion and active participation of children and youth in music and arts activities and inter-cultural dialogue. It focuses on the distribution of a new message of tolerance, equality and peace through the creation of positive mechanisms, which diminishes the negative political climate and eradicates acts of provocation.

Children in Srebrenica and in the collective settlements around Tuzla grow up in a post-war environment. Most children who attend Music Bus workshops were born during the war or just after. They are the so-called second generation. They don’t remember the war but they can feel its influences all around them. Most young people want to leave Srebrenica because they don’t see any prospects for a future there. Many children are growing up with poor social skills, which is negative for sustainable peace.

By organising activities in the Collective Settlements and Tuzla regional schools, we are building a bridge between the people now living in Srebrenica and refugees now living in the Tuzla area, but gradually returning to their original home. We see positive reactions from children returning to Srebrenica and they are better prepared to reintegrate into their new environment.

Aims / Objectives

The major aim of this initiative is to advance peace, equality and tolerance through the understanding of cultural diversities, similarities and complexities among Srebrenica’s children and youth. This will be done though development of music and related cultural activities for children from different ethnic backgrounds.

Children between the ages of 8 - 15 do not have much cultural exposure in school, because the educational system is poorly organised and under funded, with cultural activities seen as secondary in importance to learning to read, write, and do mathematics. Because of this, children are subject to the influences of mass media, which emphasises ethnic identity and membership. Violent communication can be a consequence of such influences. The Music Bus is an alternative, providing serious cultural exposure and training in aesthetic forms. These practices also reinforce non–violent communication, ease of social re-integration, tolerance of differences in others and the creation of possibilities of peace for future generations.

Playing music, dancing and playing games are activities through which children can develop their social-emotional skills, physical coordination, musical and intellectual skills. Children do not have the opportunity to develop these skills when they are in school or in their communities. Through this project we provide children with opportunities and instruments so that they can creatively express themselves. These experiences serve as an alternative to the poverty of the school system, which lacks music and dance teachers and recreational activities. This is especially true in the rural and collective settlement areas of the Srebrenica region.

How it is Articulated

This project gathers children from several regions to come to one place where they can play interactively, share ideas, put on joint performances and make new friends.

Children from collective settlements in Tuzla do not have the possibility to meet and play with children from different ethnic background in the Srebrenica region and vice versa. Having this in mind we made conditions for easier re-integration of children once they return to their home town. For example children living in the collective settlement in Tuzla are internally displaced persons from Srebrenica. With this project they will have an opportunity to make contact and befriend children living in Srebrenica. This is the gap that the project fills and hopefully make a solid base for children’s reintegration.

The activities organised by the Music Bus give children the chance to develop their musical skills. In most projects we work toward a performance. The performance means a lot for the children: it gives them a feeling of pride to have shown their parents and the community what they know. Applause and compliments are the reward for working hard.

The process leading up to the performance is very important. During this process, the Music Bus team works on the following goals:

• Children develop their musical skills;
• Their social-emotional development is stimulated;
• Children learn to listen to each other and work together;
• Children learn to respect each other;
• Children develop mutual trust;
• Children grow in confidence;
• The ability to concentrate is increased; and
• Children learn to express themselves in an extra-linguistic way, through music and movement.

We observe that the workshops have a major impact on the children’s development. The safe environment and clear structure provide them with an opportunity to heal and develop. Long-term, this will create a generation better equipped to maintain peace.

While these activities give children a chance to have fun and express themselves creatively, they also are designed to contribute to socio-emotional development, to physical and emotional health, to self-esteem and to the development of empathy.

Activities are open and free for all children, but the program is especially designed to help children who have grown up in an environment that is affected by conflict, experiences of trauma and ethnic tensions.

Achievements / Learning points

Achievements:

• The Music Bus has been recognised by local communities and by municipal and school authorities as a valuable cultural, pedagogical and social asset;
• The Municipality of Srebrenica has invited Mwb BiH/Music Bus to participate in the creation of Srebrenica’s youth policy;
• Parents enthusiastically report positive improvements in the behaviours and attitudes or their children;
• Children have increased music and arts experiences. With guidance from the Music Bus team, children have been able to internalise a new way of thinking and a new, more mature approach to problem solving. This is accomplished through children’s natural and continuous observation and participation with others in organised music and other arts practices;
• Children demonstrated increased confidence, and more refined interpersonal skills, for example in conflict resolution and problem solving;
• Through music, dance, acting and painting, children developed different “intelligences”, different modes of meaning, insight and understanding, and demonstrated creative thinking; non-violent and empathic behaviour; and
• Created conditions to break down the labelling forms of ethnic belonging, through willingness to participate in music and dance activities with children from different ethnic backgrounds in a neutral space;

Learning Points:

Children and Youth are naturally curious about their surroundings and are eager to explore. It is not enough, however, to encourage in them the idea of “Live and let live,” which is a passive form of accepting human and ethnic diversity. Rather, it is essential to stimulate an attitude of active tolerance regarding both similarities and differences between them and other people.

Music and Art are usually non-labelling and provide a low-key, less intimidating approach to peace building, tolerance and equality. The arts are often the primary and sometimes the only motivation for children and youth to engage in school or community. The arts reach children and youth in ways that they are appealing to diverse strengths, interests, and ways of social and peaceful engagement. The arts provide new and unlimited challenges and contribute to greater motivation for, and increased engagement in conflict issues.

Geographical Area of Operation

North East and Central Bosnia and Herzegovina

Funding Resources

• Children’s Stamps - Stichtung Kinderpostzegels- The Netherlands;
• Mathias Mueller-Zurich, Switzerland;
• Wilde Ganzen, The Netherlands;
• Musicians without Borders International; and
• The Municipality of Srebrenica.

Organisations Involved

• Partner Youth Program (POP);
• Youth Council;
• Cultural Centre Srebrenica;
• House of Trust;
• Friends of Srebrenica;
• Motherhood;
• Leptir, special needs children organisation;
• Amica

Local Authorities:

• Department for Urban Planning and Development; and
• Department for Youth and NGO affairs.

Stories

The majority of the children in Srebrenica are of Serb background. The teachers are also Serbs. Mirsada, a Bosniak (Muslim) Music Bus teacher, gave the workshops in the school. Mirsada showed that background is not important, quality of the work is. Mirsada was completely accepted by the other teachers, children and parents. During the project ‘Museum of (musical) Traditions’ the children were singing traditional Bosniak and Serbian songs, songs from ‘both' sides.

The percussion group for the performance ‘Butterfly Lessons’ was made up of a mixed group of boys. The two workshop leaders encountered many problems. The children didn’t respect each other; there was verbal and physical aggression, partly based on ethnic identity. The workshop leaders decided to work with the children two hours a week instead of one. One hour they focused on music; in the second hour they worked at training the children in social skills; including team building, learning to respect each other and each others’ thoughts, and learning not to react physically when you hear something you don’t like.

The training worked. The children functioned more and more as members of one social group. After a few weeks the children were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up. When one child said: ‘a priest’, the other children no longer treated this as provocation, as would certainly have been the case earlier.

M is 12 years old and lives in the mountains, five kilometres from Srebrenica. His father is an alcoholic and his mother is ill. Everyday he takes the bus to school. After school he must wait for the bus to take him back home. While waiting for the bus, M hangs around in Srebrenica. He has bad grades in school, especially for behaviour. He is used to being blamed, even when he is not the wrongdoer. He has poor concentration. When things don’t go the way he wants them to go, M immediately becomes aggressive. He killed a cat without remorse. M doesn’t have any real friends.

In April 2005 M attended a Music Bus’ workshop for the first time. He liked playing the drum. The workshop leader recognised his interest and supported him by giving him one of the main roles. His confidence grew, along with his trust in the workshop leader. Besides teaching musical skills, the leader teaches the children how to listen to each other and find alternatives for aggression. M agreed to tell the workshop leader when he feels the urge to start fighting. Then he learned to transfer his aggression to improving his playing the drum. After two months M received an invitation to participate in the summer camp, based on his musical accomplishment. He was grateful but realised at the same time, that he needed to continue his good behaviour. He is doing his best. At school, he is now receiving better reports for behaviour. M feels more accepted now. He has been rewarded for his good behaviour and slowly he has started to trust people. During the summer camp M told the workshop leader that he couldn’t believe he had managed not to fight for such a long time…

D lives in a collective settlement and has health problems; both her learning ability and her physical development are retarded. D always attends the Music Bus workshops, but mostly she is alone. The other children tease her. During the workshops, in which children learn to respect each other, the teasing decreased; D became more and more accepted. In the summer D participated in the summer camp. She still prefers to play alone or stay near the adults, but the other children don’t react negatively to her anymore. Other children have started to help her or invite her to play with them. Now she can learn a dance without being told by other children that it’s better without her.