Thursday, February 05, 2009
Creating Harmony by Nottingham STAR
Not only do STAR groups campaign and offer practical support, an important part of what we do is to raise awareness of refugee issues. Nottingham STAR put on Creating Harmony to do just that. Read about this amazing event as reviewed by Nottingham STAR’s Sophie Ivil.
At the end of 2008 Nottingham STAR launched its first big event of the academic year. We organised Creating Harmony together with Nottingham Refugee Forum to bring together the refugees and asylum seekers with both the students and local Nottingham community.
The evening was a spectacular success and a great party. We enlisted the help of as many willing people as we could find both students and refugees. Together we cooked up some delicious food to serve and organised the artists.
Different local refugee poems were read to all in a quiet interlude and two fantastic local bands: Cambasemba and Monos Sonicos played great sets of world music. The Africultural Drumming Society had everybody up on the dance floor drumming, clapping and shaking musical instruments.
Nottingham’s Rise Up! Radio took musical recordings from the event and interviewed Adam, a Sudanese Refugee and some star members who talked about STAR and future plans. This has been broadcast on ‘The January Show’ which is available to listen to and download from Rise Up! Radio. The evening finished with some great music from the local Zimbabwean Band.
We were able to put on the evening at very little expense. We had suggested donations on the door for those able to contribute and all of the proceeds from the night plus some money we raised during the term was used to pay the refugee artists, volunteers and cooks. There were many new faces at the forum that night and a great deal of support from the local community. We were able to use all of the sound equipment for free and the local bands played at no profit for everyone’s enjoyment.
The most exciting achievement for the evening was successfully bringing people from all walks of life, from babies to grandparents, and watching everyone dance together! This was what we had set out to achieve and it was a great start to a new year for Nottingham STAR. As a result we have some new STAR members and exciting new projects for 2009 including a refugee radio show to begin in our new regular refugee-led social evening – ‘The Tuesday Night Project’.
We would love to hear your news and about the awareness-raising events, campaigning and practical support projects you’re running. Send us your reviews, articles and photos for the website!
Posted by STAR team on 05/02/2009 at 10:23 AM
