“Make Music. Not War. 2” 4.–14. April 2023, Garlstedt, Germany

/ PROJECT REPORTS, YOUTH EXCHANGES ABROAD

There is hope in this world of conflicts, and young people believe that together they can create a brighter future.

Their message is clear – drop the weapons and take on an instrument or use your voice to urge for reconciliation and peace building. 50 young people from countries affected by conflicts among which: Israel and Palestine, Serbia and Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia, and Poland and Germany, occupied our lovely KulturHaus in the period of 4th until 14th April 2023 and here is where this story began.

As part of the Erasmus+ youth exchange Make Music. Not war. 2, these youngsters got to know each other’s music, culture, traditions and food, and got a better understanding of the national conflicts and possible solutions. Very quickly, they created strong bonds as an example that it is indeed possible that we can live in a world of friendship and joy.

                        

Once the strong bonds were created, the magic happened – in only one week, our amazing participants squeezed out their creativity in four different international bands. Each of the bands created a peace song in their genre, which all together will add to a peace album later on. We created a professional studio out of our seminar room, where professional music producers recorded their new songs! For most of them this was the first time to be part of such creative process in the field of music. 

                                   

                                   

 Check out the peace songs of the bands created during the project on the following links:

Creating the songs was definitely not an easy process. It took a lot of energy, laughter and tears, but it did not overwhelm their spirit.  It gave an additional inspiration and participants continued the magic – playing and singing for locals of Garlstedt around the huge Easter fire, performing as street musicians in Bremen and rocking on the peace concert in TAU pub where they shared the magic with the audience which was dancing and singing along.

                 

The young people of this exchange got an opportunity not only to experience what it means to be a musician, but also, on a more subtle level, what it means to be a human – to share and help others, to understand and accept differences, to recognize and solve a conflict and to use creativity as a powerful tool to spread the messages of peace, friendship and altruism. 

The end of this project meant only the beginning of the true change – powerful words and melodies started their journey through the universe and the youngsters brought the ideas and inspiration to their homes to share them with their peers. We want to believe that peace is possible. MAKE MUSIC NOT WAR will continue and next spring we will host another army of the soldiers of the light that use music to fight against the dark mindsets of the world. 

They also recorded a well-known cover song from U2 – One in order to send a message of hope for peace. Each of them recorded their voice, instrument or video out of which we put a music video together that will forever be a testimony of young people believing that there is hope for peace in the world. It starts with young people. 

Make music. Not war. 2 is a follow up project from the successful implementation of Make Music. Not war which happened in 2017.
Check out our other video and audio documentation on the following links:

Make music. Not war. is a multinational youth exchange co-financed by the Erasmus+ program and the KJP Program from the German Federal Government. 
 
erasmusplus