Welcome Notes NL
In the Netherlands, we bring music to children, youth, adults and families in emergency reception centers. These centers are overcrowded and under-resourced due to chronic underfunding and overly complicated procedures.
Musicians Without Borders’ music workshops offer children and their families moments of expression, connection and joy, that directly counter the silencing, separation and trauma of displacement.
Music as a Bridge to Belonging
In the Netherlands, years of restrictive immigration policies have created an increasingly
difficult environment for people forced to migrate. Designed to discourage asylum seekers, these policies have produced lengthy and unclear application processes, minimal services, and frequent relocations that prevent any sense of stability, isolating people and severing connections with local communities.
In this climate, spaces of solidarity and human connection matter more than ever. Welcome Notes NL responds directly to this need, bringing music programs into reception centers and actively working to counter harmful narratives about migration. Through shared musical experience, these sessions offer people living in emergency reception centers something that policy too often denies them: a genuine sense of belonging.
“We look people straight in the eyes. We make music together, we sing, we dance, we talk.
These experiences are crucial to feeling human, valued, and seen.”
Mission
Every week, Welcome Notes NL brings music to children, young people, adults and families living in refugee reception centres and emergency centers. Through local partnerships and trained music leaders, the programme creates spaces where people can connect, express themselves and begin to recover from the experience of displacement. Current priorities include:
- Music in Reception Centres Weekly music workshops with children, young people, and families provide moments of relief, creativity and connection, against the backdrop of the uncertainty and trauma of displacement.
- Hip-hop projects Series of workshops for young people living in centers for unaccompanied minors.
Impact stories
WORKSHOP PARTICIPANT
“The workshop was really fun! I liked that we could come up with our own ideas and play with different instruments. Making music together is much better than playing alone – you can hear all the different instruments, feel the rhythm, and share ideas. It gave me a real music feeling, an emotion. The best part was getting to know the other kids better. By the end, we became more like friends.”
SUPPORT WORKER
“During your last visit, we saw a couple who were standing there and really enjoying it. A woman crying next to a man playing music.
That touched us and confirmed that music is such a special way to express yourself.”
MUSIC LEADER
“Bringing music into these places – into emergency reception centers and locations where everything feels temporarily suspended – creates a moment of release. For a short while, there is movement again: music is heard, people laugh, and something different enters the space.“
Support us
People
Miguel Ortega Luque
Project Manager Welcome Notes
Lorem ipsum. Ivona joined the program to drive social inclusion and has the talent to strengthen support systems for people with disabilities.
Miriam den Boer-Salmón
Welcome Notes NL Consultant
Lorem ipsum. Espoir joined the program in 2014 and has the talent to teach children how to play the guitar.