Welcome Notes BiH

Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina
Runtime: 2018–Present

Bosnia and Herzegovina sits at the edge of the EU, and has become a critical entry point for those fleeing conflict and crisis in Asia, and Africa. It lies on a migration route fraught with danger and hostility. A stop-off on the path to safety for people who have been forced from their homes.

Welcome Notes brings music into reception centers across Bosnia and Herzegovina. Three flexible music teams move where they are needed, following the rhythm of displacement.

+ Music workshops given

+ Participants in music-making

We’ve been here before

Musicians Without Borders has worked here before. Twenty-seven years ago, our Music Bus brought music to children in divided communities and refugee settlements across the country. Today we return, using that experience and bold new collaborations to support today’s refugees.

In our Welcome Notes BiH workshops, children, young people, families and vulnerable adults pick up instruments, join drumming circles, sing, dance, write their own songs.

In places designed for waiting, they refuse despair.

“I felt like a human. The musicians looked at me with respect. not as a refugee, or an immigrant,
but as a human.”

Mission

Every week, working in partnership with Caritas BiH, the Welcome Notes BiH team of music leaders brings music to children, young people, adults and families living in temporary reception centres and safe houses across the country. The programme creates spaces where people can connect, express themselves and begin to recover from the experience of displacement.

Mental health and psychosocial support through music Weekly music workshops with children, youth and vulnerable adults, living in temporary reception centers and safe houses, in the Tuzla, Sarajevo and Bihac regions. Music workshops provide moments of relief, creativity and connection for people navigating profound uncertainty and trauma.
Building Local Capacity Together with community organisations and cultural partners, Welcome Notes BiH trains musicians and practitioners in our music leadership methodology and in hip-hop facilitation.

Impact stories

Love song from the concrete borders of europe

“Toward the end of one workshop, Jasmin began improvising softly on the guitar while the rest of the group accompanied him with a light rhythm on the tarabuka. The atmosphere became calm and intimate. At that moment, one participant spontaneously began singing a well-known Moroccan love song. As the entire group was from Morocco, the song immediately resonated with everyone, and we allowed the moment to unfold naturally. His voice was gentle and expressive, and the room shifted into deep attention.

Recognizing the significance of what was happening, and with the singer’s consent, recorded the song using a microphone and laptop, adding guitar and mandolin accompaniment. Around thirty residents gathered quietly around us. There was complete silence; time seemed to pause as everyone listened.

The recording became more than a musical act — it was a moment of recognition and affirmation.

Afterward, the singer was visibly moved. He told us that no one had ever done anything like this for him and that he would remember the moment for the rest of his life. For the group, it was a shared experience of pride, belonging, and cultural connection; for him, it was a deeply personal moment of dignity and validation.”

Music Leaders, Bihac