What we do
Connect by Music brings safe spaces to refugee camps in which children and young adults can experience safety, peace and comfort while exploring creativity and fostering their resilience and strength. In furnished music containers, sessions are run by local and international, professional music teachers and music therapists. Our local teams bring stability and continuity to the program. International short- and long-term volunteers support our program for specific purposes where it’s most needed. Our sessions are mainly focused on teaching guitar, but we also offer keyboard-, percussion-, singing-, songwriting and advanced music classes as well. Music therapy-based classes are part of the curriculum too, where our focus lies on expression of feelings, improvising, listening to music, mindfulness, movement and music games to improve social and emotional skills, and simply have fun.
Concerts are organized where all students come together and show their work. Interested in supporting us? Contact us here.
Addressing needs
Due to the conditions refugee children and adolescents are subjected to in the Greek camps and the strain their minds and bodies are suffering from, we consider our specialized music program a fundamental and valuable element for this group. When working with displaced and traumatized children, education is the most powerful tool we can use to support and empower them. Education is a vehicle to increase resilience and bring about positive change, by developing knowledge, musical-, social and emotional skills, positive behavior, and healthy bonding.
Music as a tool for growth
According to academic research, music education and music therapy can have a notable positive impact on mental health and wellbeing. Music provides a creative space to self-express, create, grow, heal and learn about oneself. Playing music requires and trains self-discipline, concentration, structured working, cooperative and social skills, skills that are of great importance to displaced children and adolescents.
Music impacts our brains as well on a cognitive, emotional and social level, and it positively affects the areas that are negatively affected by trauma. Playing an instrument gives a massive boost to different areas in the brain and ‘broken connections’ by trauma for example, can be restored. By letting the children sing or giving them an instrument in group activities, we are giving the brain all the ingredients it needs to develop. Want to learn more about this process? Watch this interview of Professor Erik Scherder with Connect by Music.