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Rapper brings hope to Kurdish refugees

With fighting increasing in recent months, more Kurds in Turkey are seeking refuge in temporary camps. But a 27-year-old Swedish-Kurd is making the people’s lives there a bit more bearable – with his rap music.

Listen to the report by Jodi Hilton in Diyarbakir, Turkey:

Rapper brings hope to Kurdish refugees

 

Fans greet Serhado backstage before his performance

Serhado performs at an election rally for Kurdish party candidates in Diyarbakir

The musical festival stage where Serhado and others performed at Mahkmour Camp

Date

Tuesday 11.12.2012 | 14:25

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Music keeps Argentine kids in school

Music education can help at-risk kids stay in school and out of drugs and violence, research indicates. And keeping kids off the streets is exactly what the Caacupé Music School, a free, after-school program in Buenos Aires’ 21-24 Shantytown, aims to do. For the past six years, four paid teachers and four volunteers have given lessons in singing, guitar, piano, violin, and a host of other instruments. They hope to instill a love of music in their students and keep them in school.

Listen to the report by Eilis O’Neill in Buenos Aires:

Argentina music school

A freight train passes the Villa 21-24 shantytown

A freight train passes the Villa 21-24 shantytown in Buenos Aires (Copyright: JUAN MABROMATA/AFP/Getty Images)

Date

Wednesday 12.09.2012 | 13:12

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Rapper twins shrug off stigma of albinism

Twin brothers Clifford and Rene Bouma stand out in their community in northern Cameroon. Not only are they accomplished rappers, they’re also albinos – a rare condition affecting people from all ethnic backgrounds where the skin lacks pigmentation. In Cameroon, albinos still face a great deal of discrimination, based on fear and misinformation. Clifford and Rene, both 25, use their music to restore their own self-confidence, encourage tolerance, and give hope to other albinos around the world. Today, they are both university students: Clifford studies anthropology and Rene political science.

Listen to the report from Ngala Killian Chimtom in Yaounde, Cameroon:

Rapper twins shrug off stigma of albinism

Rene and Clifford Bouma

Rene (left) and Clifford Bouma rap for tolerance

Date

Tuesday 04.09.2012 | 12:30

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Rapping for better future

Columbian rapper Diana Avella has made a successful career for herself challenging gender stereotypes. Now, through her hip hop music, she is inspiring young girls to do the same. Through a network she runs, Diana is helping young girls achieve the same self-confidence she has. Watch this DW video to hear Diana’s story.

Date

Thursday 21.06.2012 | 08:59

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Deaf guitar teacher shares joy of music

Some experience music through their eyes, others use their ears, says Mischa Gohlke. He was born with a hearing impairment which borders on deafness, but that hasn’t stopped him from learning to play the guitar – and teaching music to others with hearing impairments.

Listen to the report by Julian Bohne:

Deaf guitar teacher shares joy of music

Mischa Gohlke

Mischa Gohlke and band

Mischa Gohlke and his band at a festival in Kiel

Read more about Mischa Gohlke.

Date

Tuesday 01.05.2012 | 11:15

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New Delhi woman unlocks power of music for street kids

A young woman in New Delhi opens up the world of music to at-risk kids. Many of them have been traumatized and abandoned, but Faith, 23, gives them self-confidence and new skills with her organization, Music Basti.

From reporter Aletta André:

The moment we walk into the Kushi Home, Faith Gonsalves is surrounded by girls who demand her attention. “Didi, didi,” they yell at her: “Big sister.”

More than 100 girls between the ages of six and 14 live in the Kushi Home, in an industrial area in the southern outskirts of India’s capital New Delhi. Some of them might be orphans, some have run away from their homes, while others have families incapable of taking care of them.

Faith, a 23-year-old from New Delhi, has earned her popularity. For the past four years, she has been devoting most of her time to children like the girls living here, by teaching them music.

“The far majority of the children that we work with have been sexually abused,” Faith told me just about an hour before reaching the home, when we first met in a café in one of Delhi’s wealthier areas. It is impossible not to remember this while looking at all those girls, running around the playground, posing for my pictures and demanding attention from their didi.

A singer and music-lover herself, Faith knew that music can help children immensely, not only to enjoy life and forget their problems, but also to develop communication skills and to boost their confidence. To teach music and music appreciation to so-called children-at-risk, she decided to start up the project Music Basti in 2008 when she was still a college student at Delhi University.

Music Basti now organizes several workshops in singing and playing instruments every week, the occasional music performance and even launched an album with songs by the children last year. The project works together with dozens of other organizations and has worked with a few hundred volunteer teachers and musicians. It reaches out to more than 400 girls and boys in places such as Kushi Home.

Listen to the report:

New Delhi Music Basti

Faith

Faith believes in the power of music

A performance by boys who live in the Unmeed Home, which is run by the organisation Dil Se Campaign

A performance by boys who live in the Unmeed Home, which is run by the organisation Dil Se Campaign

'Khushi Home for girls, which is run by the organisation Dil Se Campaign

'Khushi Home for girls, which is run by the organisation Dil Se Campaign

Date

Tuesday 03.04.2012 | 11:53

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Colombian theater teacher passes down his native culture

Edwin from Bogota teaches theater – but also the ancient values and traditions of his native Muisca culture. He’s stood up to threats from criminal organizations and encourages his students to be better human beings.

Listen to the report from DW reporter Pablo Medina Uribe in Bogotá, Colombia (with contributions from Eduardo Briceño):

Colombian theater teacher passes down his native culture

Edwin in Bogota

From the reporter:

I met Edwin a few months back when I was reporting on a series of threatening letters sent to artistic foundations in Bogotá. When I met him, he was the spokesperson for all of the threatened groups, so he was being harassed by a few journalists and national TV cameras. On TV, he said, “My name is Colombian Theater” and refused to give his real name because, he said, this wasn’t only his problem, it was everyone’s problem.

I still managed to get his number and real name and the way he spoke to the cameras stuck with me. Even in times of hardship, he was very conscious that he had to step up not for himself, but for his community of artists. That’s why I thought of him for the Generation Change series.

I went to visit him in his neighborhood, Bosa, a few months later. It is way out of the city towards the Southwest of the country, so I had passed it many times, but I had never been actually there. He insisted we meet there because that land is very important to who he is, but since I’d never heard a good thing about that neighborhood, I didn’t know what to expect.

When I got there, he started talking about his Muisca heritage and about how the indigenous people are still relevant to the community there. I knew that in other places of the country it is more common to live close to native tribes, but I wasn’t aware that this happens also in my own city.

Edwin and his friend Yohanis talked to me for hours as we discussed not only their work, but also Muisca philosophy. We also exchanged book titles and talked about our work. I told Edwin I was very interested in linguistics, so he and Yohanis gave me some lessons in Muiscogun, the language of the Muisca people, and taught me the deeper spiritual meaning of some of its words.

See the Bosa neighborhood of Bogotá on Google Maps here.

Date

Tuesday 13.12.2011 | 13:25

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Burmese activist risks personal safety for political change

Bo Bo, a 23-year-old Burmese student and musician, left his home behind because of politics. But his group of young political dissidents still advocates for change inside Burma, despite the huge risks.

Burmese activist risks personal safety for political change

Generation Wave's logo

The logo of Bo Bo's opposition organization, Generation Wave

Reporter David Meyers writes about the political situation in Burma:

In 1990, the people of Burma voted in civilian leaders to push their country forward – only to have Burma’s military rulers refuse to concede power. In the past year, the country experienced its first national election since the 1990 poll, yet in many respects, the state of democracy remains as stagnant as it was 20 years ago. Though Burma, or Myanmar as it is officially known, has at least nominally returned to civilian control, the election was widely seen as a foregone conclusion. Opposition figure Aung San Suu Kyi was finally released from her long-standing house arrest following the November election, yet her role in her country’s political future remains cloudy. And though Burma’s authorities released dozens of political prisoners earlier this year – including hip hop star Zayar Thaw, whose politicized music had landed him in prison – almost 2,000 still remain behind bars. Being a political dissident in Burma, then, remains a dangerous job. Members of the anti-regime group Zayar Thaw founded, Generation Wave, are politically active, yet they live under the threat of arrest and carry out their work underground.

Aung San Suu Ky

Bo Bo has a lot of respecct for persecuted Burmese politican Aung San Suu Ky

Aung San Suu Kyi

Posters of Aung San Suu Kyi, which group members look up to, hang in the Generation Wave safe house

Date

Tuesday 23.08.2011 | 14:03

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German musician brings change with song and crowd funding

Fabian from Berlin is raising money for charitable projects by traveling the world with his guitar – and a positive attitude.

Fabian Dittrich

Fabian Dittrich

Listen to the report

Check out Fabian’s Singing for Change website.

Date

Wednesday 10.08.2011 | 14:44

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Colombian youth rock their world

Puerto Wilches in Colombia is a small village where donkey-drawn carts share the streets with cars and motorcycles. Now, 21-year-old Ramiro Caicedo and his friends are using rock music to revolutionize their town.

Listen to the report

Date

Monday 08.08.2011 | 14:35

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