We teamed with Finnish Lutheran Church to form a unique music group for High-School students, from east and west Jerusalem. They will meet weekly and benefit from guidance of the musician Sami Parkkinen. We will also integrate master-classes by other professional musicians. We will start with joint free playing, in the different styles brought by participants. Later on we will work to consolidate a joint band, a concert and a professional disk recording.
Young people from east and west Jerusalem do not have opportunities to meet and connect. Therefore their attitudes towards each other are negative and prejudiced. This is a general problem but is much more severe with young people, who have less opportunities to encounter the "other" and who are in danger of being incited to use their vivid energies in bad ways. In the last year this reality resulted in a long wave of violence carried out mostly by young people.
The project will bring together high-school students from both parts of the city. We will not target those few young people who are already active in bridge-building, but invite youth who are interested in music and would like to benefit from the musical guidance and training the program will offer. However, in this process they will get to know their peers in the group - as musicians, as youth, as humans. Later on they will work TOGETHER to put together a joint concert and dvd.
Someone who have met the "other" in a real way is changed for ever. Bonds created during the project are bonds for life. Participants will bring their experience to their families, friends and neighbors. they will later perform together, grow and teach others and more. Each group will include ten students and we hope to start two or three groups every year. Indirect impact may reach hundreds and thousands of people.
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