I am Stella Wadiru, a third-year ethnomusicology doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh. My passion is understanding how music functions in the lives of refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). I wish to take a career trajectory of promoting music and dance for post-conflict and disaster recovery in affected nations in an African context. Earlier in 2010, I researched Acholi popular music in the peace process in northern Uganda, which resulted in a series of musical projects for peacebuilding among war-affected youth in the north of Uganda.

For my doctoral dissertation, I proposed to examine how songs and dances function in the lives of South Sudanese refugee women and youth in the Adjumani district in northern Uganda. When I visited Adjumani in the Summer of 2022, three South Sudanese refugee youth artists re-counted how music, dance, and drama helps them narrate their experiences and cope with trauma resulting from violence and forced displacement. The musicians also described how musical performances have promoted the re-imagining of their lives. They wish to pursue careers in music, dance, and theater. They requested to learn basic songwriting, stage management, vocal techniques, music marketing, and promotion skills to enhance their ability to tell their stories.

As someone interested in using my research to benefit communities,  I pitched an experience-sharing workshop with the South Sudanese refugee artists to understand their challenges in the fundamentals of musicianship and gain deeper insight into the songs that tell their stories. With the support of the Humanities Engage Pitch-Your-Own Summer Fellowship, from June 14th to 16th, 2023, I organized a successful experience-sharing workshop for refugee artists. After that, I had a series of follow-up interviews with the artists to discuss their songs.

I worked under the very profitable Lutheran World Federation’s (LWF) curacy. I appreciate the Humanities Engage brilliant idea enabling students to work with an existing host organization. This approach allows students to tap into the existing networks of the host organization to access relevant interlocutors and services. I knew only five refugee artists in the Adjumani district. Mobilizing over twenty artists for a workshop within a short period would be elusive because the musicians live in different refugee settlements and hardly interact. The LWF already had a talent identification program that registered over 450 South Sudanese refugee artists in Adjumani. Patrick Ajavu, the community services officer, quickly identified twenty active artists from the 450. We also attracted eight extra artists to the workshop because LWF advertised the program on their WhatsApp group. The musicians represented Dinka, Kuku, Madi, Nuer, and Acholi ethnic groups from Alere, Agojo, Maaji, Pagirinya, Boroli, Nyumanzi, and Ayilo refugee settlements, where I will research my dissertation. These musicians pledged to mobilize youth groups whose songs I will observe and analyze for my doctoral thesis.

During the workshop, musicians shared experiences in songwriting, music marketing and branding, vocal techniques, and intellectual property rights. Refugee artists also sang songs inspired by their personal experiences of war and displacement and explained the stories behind the songs. The video attached to this blog shares some details on th Experience Sharing Workshop highlights I developed.

I had petite knowledge of the experiences the popular artists shared through music because most songs are in their native languages I do not speak. I tasked each musician during the seminar to write and translate song texts into English. I was able to identify common themes in the songs, including 1) concerns about refugee welfare, 2) Advocacy for peace and unity among South Sudanese refugees and between refugees and host communities, 3) Educating communities about the dangers of gender-based violence and violence against children-all relevant to my doctoral thesis.

The vocal training and songwriting exercises during the workshop were efficient means to assess the artists’ challenges in singing techniques and rudiments of music composition. I immediately designed a bi-monthly mentorship program for refugee artists to continue practicing vocal techniques, songwriting, and online marketing. This program challenged me to think of new ways of teaching musicianship to talent-based artists. For example, I downloaded simple, exciting voice drills from YouTube to motivate mentors instead of the more technical exercises usually conducted in formal music training. Further, together with Patrick Ajavu, we developed short and long-term project proposals for training the refugee artists in the fundamentals of music. This experience further developed my skills in project proposal writing.

Kudos to the Department of Music for the leadership they provide as well as Humanities Engage for providing fellowships to doctoral students. I encourage all Pitt’s postgraduate students to value the Humanities Engage Immersive fellowships, as it allows them to apply their academic and research knowledge to benefit communities beyond academia. All departments should incorporate immersive experiences in their research activities to produce all-around scholars. As a person interested in using my ethnomusicological knowledge to grapple with community problems, this experience was immeasurable! I had an opportunity to put my ethnomusicological training to fulfill the needs of talent-based South Sudanese refugee musicians.