I’ve been working with the people of the OASIS Centre for a few months now.
The project has been extremely wide and varied with a very transient clientele – due to the nature of what happens in asylum seekers lives.
There have been people from Iran, Nepal, Kuwait, Algeria, The Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, ……..etc
The music has been totally amazing with many people arriving bursting with music and song and really wanting to share the music of their countries. Some are professional musicians who possibly at first, find it slightly strange that in the music group everyone is participating on an equal footing..though most are completely comfortable with adding their voices and rhythms to this mini temporary community of the music group.
The sessions have followed a rough pattern of me arriving and traveling round the centre – usually people are finishing their lunch – I chat to as many as possible – usually carrying a drum so that I can use body language and convey what I am inviting people to join in with – to those with little or no English language. In the interests of equality within my sessions I have always tried to add songs from around the world that everyone will be able to approach equally no matter what their language or skills in English – however recently I have come to realize that people are really desperate to learn English and so have added a few more English songs into the mix whilst retaining the songs from around the world.
Many people have shared songs from their homeland – quite a lot of people seem to know of “Waka Waka” the Cameroon – Shakira adapted song used as a world cup anthem when it was in South Africa some years ago!
Throughout my time with this project I have taken part in 2 benefit concerts concerning refugee centres and the refugee council. (In Cardiff and Newport)
The first one some of the OASIS centre users actually came and performed which was a total joy!
My community choirs from Cardiff were invited to perform at both events which was really heart warming as they turned up in force adding their voices with genuine concern to the situation. Over £1600 was raised between both events.
Tracy Pallant and myself successfully applied for money from the “Pears Foundation” for the project to continue – with a slightly different feel – we now move into the new faze with “A Pot of good Vibes” beginning, whereby we have music – chatting PLUS food/ drink aspect from different cultures. We look forward to having an Ethiopian coffee ceremony, some Zimbabwean food…… etc