Youth Work

My fields of work: Youth Leadership, Nature and Climate engagement, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging, Democracy and Children's Rights. Learn More

Youth Leadership

Music mentor training 2022: Mobile and App Music @ Landesmusikakademie NRW Germany

I had the chance to support this youth project! Film music - how does it work? Here you can get a behind-the-scenes insight into a project of the ongoing music mentor training 2022 in the field of Mobile and App Music🎥📲. During a total of five training weekends and in online parts, the students learn about many other exciting topics: Basics of group leadership | media-supported music making / app music | basics of communication | group music making with and without sheet music | rehearsal work and introduction to conducting | music theory, ear training | arranging | project management and public relations | sound engineering.

The music mentor training will take place again in 2023: Thanks to funding from the Ministry for Schools and Further Education NRW👏. The registration deadline is 20.01.2023, the first phase (orientation phase) will then begin on 10-12.02.2023:

SONGWRITING ONLINE SESSIONS FOR YOUTH LEADERS - ALLSTARS LONDON

As part of the Young Leaders Programme I work with the organization Allstars London providing tools for self expression and collective songwriting in order to help the trainees in their leadership communication skills when it comes for them to work with other young minds. All the work is made online.

Nature and Climate engagement

Nature Notes

is part of our (Me and Fabienne Haßlöwer) proposal to community building and development though the deep connection with the Nature.

We designed a week long retreat for youngsters by the Baltic sea, where we could come together by exploring nature through music. We had amazing experiences in the nature and wrote our own song, had workshops & actions on climate, had excursions (e.g. to the Baltic Sea), and played music around the campfire!

Here some photos! But if you want to read the whole story Click Here to read my blog post about it

Pulso de la Tierra

During the first Corona virus lockdown we felt the need to offer a nature connection possibility to youngsters in the Lübeck area. We worked on connecting to Nature through music making and building emotional connections that would last forever. Here some moments.

Klim'art: A European commission funded project

Creative climate engagement in youth work: Klim'Art

In the EU project Klim'Art, we approach the abstract topic of the climate crisis in an artistic and creative way, thereby releasing energy and motivation for our own climate commitment.

The project was built from creative organizations Tontalente from Germany, Faísca Voadora from Portugal and Schoolclash from the Netherlands.

The main goal of Klim'Art is to jointly develop creative and artistic methods that motivate and empower European young people and professionals in youth work to become more involved in climate and the environment.

Experiencing diversity through music, play and dance

How to present a youth project that spins around diversity without theorising? Well we used storytelling danzification and musification for that. In projects where personal development is at its core, here's some interesting stories about it.

Groove and move Forward

"There are no mistakes, only opportunities for further development." Under this optimal premise, nine music-interested girls and boys aged 14 to 18 met once from November 2019 to March 2020 once once a month on a weekend.

They were guided and accompanied and accompanied by the singer, music teacher and and project planner Fabienne Haßlöwer and Colombian music educator Juan David Garzón.

"I learned a lot and had joy in me after joy in me after every meeting," says 19-year-old Said sums up the experience. to the point. He is originally from Afghanistan and has been playing guitar for three years. "A lot of what I can do, I learned from Juan."

What was new for him now was how to develop music on his own, "how to start and end up at a jam session." He was also heavily impressed by how the play about Mohammad came about, a friend from their group. "We told his story and made up the music to go with it. That was awesome!" And although Said has performed before, "me and the others were and the others were totally nervous City Hall were totally nervous. We put painted color on our faces and wrote what we felt. I wrote wrote freedom," he says.

Also 17-year-old Nommenia, who from Venezuela, has a German father and has been living in Germany for three years in Germany for three years, has taken a lot away for herself from the move forward project. "It was creative, beautiful and cool. I not only learned from my I learned from my mistakes. I also learned how to have fun with other people while making music and that you can be happy can be happy with music." She will probably also remember the performances. "There were really a lot of people were there and everyone felt for our with our story. Some even cried." Text by: Doris Seitz

Music Lab: Experiencing Democracy through music

In this workshop we worked with Teenagers and Children from many different backgrounds to explore and experiment with the concept of democracy. We used many different musical and playful situations where we didn't rationalise upon the concept but we lived it through self expression.

Democracy. Isn't that a very difficult topic for a vacation program with children and young people? You might think so. But the experiment of working out democratic principles with music was anything but difficult. Quite the contrary. "We use music as an easy way to tackle difficult fields,".

And so the 15 girls and boys between the ages of eight and 18, with and without a migratory background and with and without previous musical experience, who took part in the MusicLab of LebensKÜNSTler during the 2019 summer vacations, not only had a lot of fun together during these four days. They playfully experienced how democracy can feel - and also sound.

Day 1 was themed "I. Discover instruments and develop your own sounds." Get to know each other. Find my instrument. Looking for topics and discovering small musical building blocks for them. Listening to what sounds like.

Day 2 was dedicated to "You. Listening to each other, learning from each other." The young musicians presented their motifs to each other in teams of two, for example on a violin and a drum, and gave them back from their point of view

On Day 3, an intuitive orchestra was about the "we." "Experimenting with democratic principles, listening to each other, trying things out and communicating with each other. With the orchestra as a symbol for society, discussions were held through music, a conductor was elected or a self-appointed chief conductor was toppled from the orchestra in a sound revolt ", says Fabienne. "We have discovered in the reflection rounds very many topics that are in children and young people's minds" This then gave rise to the song "Girls are strong" by eight-year-old Finja, which three boys accompanied on their instruments and which was played and sung for "Everyone".

Day 4 with final performances in front of friends and family.

This workshop was developed by Fabienne Haßlöwer and Juan David Garzon

Youth inclusion and belonging

International Online Music Youth Exchange

Since I have the fortune of working with so many Youth Projects from around the world I decided to organize an online Youth Exchange with Orchestras, Choirs, Youth Leadership groups, Jazz bands, and music groups from Colombia, Germany, UK and El Salvador. The idea was to meet, play and make music together without even caring about the language barrier. Ant then to organize an online youth music festival (Which will come very soon) in our meetings we had the most fun ever. Its incredible what music and play can do when a bunch of teen agers meet without having expectations! Tontalente in Germany supported this effort!

Orchestras to empower communities

With Tontalente e.V. I conducted and directed the project Stadtteilorchestra Eichholz from 2016- 2018. The Orchestra was in September 2011. Since then, over 400 children and young people have participated. When the project was active, children and youngsters from the city district met once a week to learn to play their instruments and to work on arrangements and choreographies for our concerts.

The objectives of the project where:

To strengthen and empower communities through their youngest members so they are a leading voice
To create a safe environment where kids and youngsters from the district can gather to make music together and overcome the boundaries that separate them.
To bring together musicians from different cultures who live in the district and provide them with a paid job.

Ho it worked:

Separate weekly group training and regular orchestra rehearsals for each instrument
Mixed Orchestra with professionals and pupils
Influenced on the “El Sistema” model from Venezuela.
Aimed to self creative production
Taking advantage of the cultural diversity
Long term cooperation relationships with schools, youth centers, foundations etc.
Continuity is the key
Involvement of the different district associations and organisations (schools, community houses …)
Involvement of youth leaders, volunteer associations
Pop / World Music / Own pieces (German language)

With the Stadtteilorchestra Eichholz we created this song about the feeling of having a new home. After the pain of fleeing home and living all behind, there is a bright future possible.

While I facilitated the communal work in the orchestra as a safe space for creativity for local kids and asylum seeking kids, I conducted a series of interviews and collectively created the lyrics and I wrote the music and produced the song.

During the heavy bombings over Alepo, many children came to school very down and full of sorrow. And through deep searching in the own feelings during one of my lessons I found out how hard was for many of my Syrian students when it came to their feelings for friends that where still there. I embarked in a quest to find out more. I followed a 1 year process research project and inclusive work on friendship during the harshness of armed conflict, and conducted a series of interviews with refugee kids residing in Germany. Based on those stories we co-created this song.

Children's Rights Education Through Music

Together with the Songs For Rights Team I worked with children and teenagers from an asylum seeker living complex in Berlin. In this week long songwriting workshop the kids got the chance to express themselves with regards to the children's rights. You can feel in this video how the kids got empowered by writing their own song and recording their own video! This process was so amazing!