Sounds Of Change - Project

Children have very limited daily activities here. But making music, this project makes them very happy. It is something new for them. They know each other more because of this … it makes friendship. Every child comes from another country, there are many different cultures and stories. But music makes one. I find this the most beautiful part … In general, you don’t see people smiling here often, because of their history. But when we talk to the children about this musical project, they smile, they say “Oh music, we will play music”. It gives people a positive feeling. Children as well as their parents. If the child is happy, then the parents are happy as well.

Resident in a Dutch refugee centre

Established in 2016 in the Netherlands, Sounds of Change trains aid-workers, psychologists, teachers, therapists and musicians to use the power of music to transform the lives of people living in refugee camps, asylum-seeker centres, deprived areas and (former) war zones, places in the world where people have become alienated from themselves and from each other.

A new BBT Community Grant of £45,000 over the next three years will enable Sounds of Change to develop and deliver a new Training of Trainers course for 75 facilitators at the Sounds of Change Academy in the Netherlands over Autumn 2025.  This will multiply the numbers of facilitators and trainers working in countries including Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Ukraine, who between them will reach around 75,000 people.

A BBT Community Grant in 2021 helped the Sounds of Change Academy to teach musicians and mental health professionals ways of using music and other creative tools to help stabilise and relieve stress caused by trauma for children and adults in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and centres for asylum seekers in Amsterdam and Utrecht.