Sounds of Palestine

Ahmad Al Azza speaks about teaching children to play an instrument.

عربى

1.I'm with Ahmad Al Azza from Sounds of Palestine now Ahmad what is Sounds of Palestine ?

Sounds of Palestine is a program within a Swiss organisation located in Bethlehem, Mainly our headquarters is in Beit Sahour and Ramallah and we have the program called sounds of Palestine where we call it community music , we mix between teaching music and bringing social worker to work with our Palestinian kids.

2.When were you started and why were you started ?

We started in 2011 and we started to give the Palestinian children a chance to have different activities in their life, Especially our target group comes from the disadvantaged children and families mainly from Palestinian refugee camps, from Villages and from poor families.

3.Is that where you were originally located in the refugee camp ?

We were functioning from one of the refugee camps but we had to move after a couple of years because we had a bigger number and also we needed a safe location for the children since we want to give them a different experience in life they live under the Israel occupation all the time, so they need some kind nice and safe location and we found a good safe location in the middle of the city.

4.What is the aim of your organisation ?

The aim of the organisation is to create and produce as much as we can Palestinian musician because we believe that Music make people perceive life and live in a better way.

5.Are there many good Palestinian musicians ?

There are good Palestinian musicians but unfortunately we don't have many professional Palestinian musicians because music is not apart of our daily life and those who learn music learn it as an extra thing and they come from a family who can afford that, for this our target group , the family who cannot teaching their children music we offer to teach them for free .

6.Is this a place for a child to come and actually learn how to play an instrument ?

This is exactly what we give the child, we give the child the opportunity to learn how to play an instrument we teach him also theory and we give him different activities so in the meantime we have several instruments, we have Cello , we have contro bass or double bass , we have violin, we have percussion , we have clarinet, we have recorder, we give music theory and we give folk law dance and we give extra activities like gardening sometimes.

7.Do they give themselves a few years to actually learn these instruments .?

We start with children from 6 years old and we continue with them so the children we take they have to be in the first grade 6 years old then every year they finish a music academic year with us we believe in 10 years they will be able once they are in high school they will be able to apply and be accepted with any European music university, so we are preparing them to be professional musicians, they will pass the audition in the future.

8.How many children attend ?

Meantime we have 110 children

9.How many children have you had coming through the doors.?

We also have lots of requests but our capacity is not more than 110 actually our capacity is 100 but as much as we had pressure we took 10 children extra so this is the maximum meantime because we are like a snowball every year we add another class so when we started in 2011 and 12 we stared with first graders the next year we had first graders and second graders third we have first, second and third now we have first, second , third and forth and we also work with kinder gardens.

10.Do you work with children that have special needs as well ?

Actually Yes since we are community music we do not only take on the skillful children but also we take the children they have different problem like trauma or autism , as long as he could develop himself within years we keep him unless this situation needs very special treatment and we don't give up easily and so far it didn't happen but yes we do work with special needs.

11.It must be really nice to see special needs within the orchestra?

That's true but we are not pretending we are a special needs program but we still take special needs.

12.Is Music a good therapy for them ?

Music is a great therapy for them and we done some research with one of the universities in comparison between children in the same class room, those who are attending the music lessons and those who are not and we found out that those who are attending the music lessons they have become better in focusing and concentrating, they have better marks and they have actually better attitude and behavior in treating other classmates.

13.So you are really changing the whole being of the child ?

To tell you the truth Yes , Especially you could see those children who come from a hard background in their families especially if they attended a loss of their families and stuff , Music lets them behave much better.

14.Does playing a musical instrument increase their self confidence ?

It does, especially we do several performance a year so when you give the child a chance to go on theatre and auditorium and perform in front of 100's of people this will increase also the self confidence that he goes and does something in front of everyone .

15.Do you get the chance to travel with the kids ?

So far not and so far it is very hard to travel, I don't recommend myself to take 9 years old to travel because the oldest kids we have are 10 years old and its a big responsibility to let them go on the airplane what if something gets sick it is not an easy thing , I guess for the age thing..... we never received an invitation to take them abroad but I guess even if we received an invitation in the meantime we cannot do it .

16.Do they get the chance to travel around Palestine

Yes we did travel to different cities in Palestine we went to Ramallah , we went to the north where we had a performance we went to different cities like Bethlehem, Beit Jala and beit sahour yes this we did internally.

17.And your actually providing food for some of the kids as well with nutrition as well aren't you.?

We provide food for everyone because we bring them from schools so we start with food, we give them a very good home made food healthy and warm and we also offer them fruit, Bananas we don't offer them any artificial things with sugar or any stuff because this will affect their behavior and will make them hyper active so we only use nutrition's and natural food .

18.How do the kids feel about coming to Sounds of Palestine ?

To tell you the truth the commitment of children is amazing, their committed to the time , Because it is something they choose it is not like the school, The parents send them or force them to go but the music lesson is something the child chooses himself .

19.What do you want to see for some of these kids in the future from Sounds of Palestine ?

I would like to see successful kids in different aspects, those who will continue to choose music as a career I believe they will be successful but those who use it as a strong hobby they will be doing something else I am very much optimistic to see successful kids in their life with their music skills in their pocket as well .

20.Are you making a difference here in the community ?

I believe of course we are doing this but it is hard now to sense it but in a couple of years yes you will see it .

21.Why do you do what you do ?

Because we believe that music makes people better .

22.What is your prayer finally for the children that are coming here and learning the instruments ?

As I said we would like to give them an opportunity that we ourselves didn't get in the past, Our families could not afford to let us learn and I would like to thank the original organization who are supporting this which is from Switzerland.

23.What is the most favourite instrument that the kids like to play ?

To tell you the truth we give the kids the chance to choose amongst all the instruments by bringing our musicians, playing the same piece in front of them with Cello, double bass , percussion, violin ,clarinet and then we distribute coloured papers with the shape of the instrument and each child will colour the instrument that he likes after he watches all the instruments so mainly I could tell you there is no favorite they just evenly distribute themselves.

24.What is it like for you just to sit and listen to them playing ?

It is really beautiful first and it gives you a motive in life, it is a positive approach especially if you live in Palestine where the situation is not easy for anyone so to see children playing music it is something you really enjoy .