Music for Peace
Music teacher Liz Shropshire bought her plane ticket to Belgium with plans for a backpacking trip through Austria. Instead, after seeing news footage of the refugees fleeing Kosovo during the war, she decided to volunteer. She packed up suitcases filled with donated instruments (pennywhistles, drumsticks) and boarded a plane for Europe.
Six years later, the Shropshire Music Foundation has established programs in Kosovo, Northern Ireland and Uganda. The goal: teaching children something beyond war. Giving them pride in themselves. Giving them a choice.
"These kids are growing up with no reason to do anything but hate," she said. "But if they do hate, they're in prison all their lives. A lot of this program is letting these kids know they can make their own choices."
The younger children learn how to play instruments (small ones that they can keep in their pockets, that no one can take away). The teenagers learn how to teach a music class. The volunteers (all Kosovo teens, numbering around 30) run the program while Liz is in the States, trying to raise money and donations for the foundation.
The change in the teenagers -- going from children traumatized by war to teachers of other children -- has given Liz hope for the future of Kosovo.
"It's these teenagers who are changing their country," she said. "When I watch them teach right now, it almost makes me cry. They're such good teachers. And they say, 'I can do something for my country now.'"
Liz wants to expand the program to other places scarred by conflict -- Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Palestine and Israel. She hopes that by teaching children something other than hate, a new generation will grow up committed to peace.
"This is just a little music program, and we're not going to change the world tomorrow. But by helping these kids to choose peace, we may be preventing these conflicts from happening again."
She believes peace is possible. Not everyone has to change their lives and start a music program in another country (although Liz says she is "so rich because I get to do this amazing job.") But it will require small commitments on the part of everyone -- volunteering time, starting conversations, teaching their children peace.
"There's so much that could be done," she said. "We're only going to fix it if we all start doing what we can."
posted by Sammy @ 10:11 AM
1 Comments:
Thank you for writing about Liz. Guess what: someone needs to bring music to kids in DC as well. I am a volunteer assistant violin teacher in a DC public school, which shows how pathetic things are: I can't even play the violin! And we have only a few, borrowed old instruments - try to teach a 5 year old proper form on a full-size violin. Watch a kid practice on his arm while he waits in line to try out one of the few instruments we have... Anyone out there with violins to donate, or who can actually play a violin and who would like to teach? At any rate, hurray for Liz for showing a better face for America than what our foreign policy provides, and woe to us for cutting music out of our own public schools. Your disgruntled prof., M
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