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Amplifying Women’s Voices: Bridging Divides Through Music

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Мьянма
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JPF
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Around the world, young women are often subjected to marginalization on two accounts: as women, and as young people. In Myanmar, many women feel less able to express themselves and share their wide range of knowledge and opinions because of traditional norms and expectations of women’s behaviour. This also has a knock-on effect on Myanmar’s peace process, where young women’s participation remains low. This is problematic as globally peace processes in which women participate meaningfully have been found to lead to more sustainable long-term peace agreements. In order to increase women’s participation in the peace process here, it is essential to amplify their voices and strengthen their capacity to make change.

With this in mind, Turning Tables Myanmar announced that they were running a workshop for women with the theme of “Bridging Divides Through Music” and reached out to potential applicants from across the country. With the support of Joint Peace Fund, Turning Tables conducted a 10-day workshop in Yangon from 1-10 August, bringing 29 young women together who came from Kachin, Kayah, Chin, Rakhine, Shan and Mandalay. This workshop focused on developing musical skills to make positive change and provided an opportunity for rural young women to work with professional music producers at Turning Tables Music Studio.

Darko C, Director of Turning Tables Myanmar, explained that the primary aim of this workshop was to improve young women’s ability to create music to promote peace in their communities and help them to become agents of peace through their music.

“I believe in musicians’ power to stimulate positive change. We have been helping these young women to improve as musicians and hopefully they can project their communities’ voices though their music. We also wanted to create a safe space for them to share their feelings, talk with each other about their daily issues, and develop a mutual understanding.”

The workshop was designed so that the participants could create music that explores topics related to peace, conflict and social issues. It also provided a story-telling session for participants to better understanding each other and help them accept other people’s different perspectives. Professional musicians were also invited to share their experiences and help inspire the participants. After the workshop, Turning Tables successfully held a concert titled “Women for Peace” with these talented young women at the Goethe-Institute, performing their own peace-oriented songs in front over 180 people.

Hung Lay Kone, from Chin state, explained what she learned from this workshop,

“I can see how music has the power to send messages about peace to communities. I know that I can also be a peace maker though my music. As a young woman, I feel that society often limits our ability, but now I hope that I can change this. Women have the power to be a part of the peace process. Before this workshop, I didn’t know about how people from other ethnicities felt about key issues and hadn’t heard their stories. Now, we have become like sisters.”

Hsu Yee Ko Ko, one of the participants who is currently working on gender equality, shared her experience from workshop.

“For me, the peace process is a big discussion that we’re all a part of. Knowing more about peace is important for our band as well, we need to think more deeply about big issues, and this also helps us create more powerful and meaningful songs. I realize that everyone, even musicians need to be tolerant and accept diversity as these things are vital for achieving peace.”