Since mid-2005 MID has facilitated delivery of music, dance and performance workshops inside all of the UK’s IRCs with the aim of relieving the stress of detention and sending a positive message of solidarity to this socially excluded group. The value of these activities is repeatedly confirmed by feedback from detainee participants:
“For me, the workshop is a lifetime experience that I will never really forget. If I feel sad – probably it could be a couple of weeks I feel sad – I will try to relax myself, I will try to reflect on things that have made me happy. These are the things you would like to reflect on. You really remember things like the way you danced, the way you played drums. You can set your mind off from what you are thinking about, about a particular situation and particular time. It goes a long way.”
Detainee participant, IRC Dover
Building on the foundations of its early work promoting detainee wellbeing within IRC settings, MID has, with the support of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, since then broadened its programme to incorporate social justice objectives.
We also use music to create channels of communication between detainees, immigration detention staff, local communities and the wider public. We work with IRC staff to foster good relationships and improve the quality of life for detainees in these difficult, closed institutions. We seek to link the IRCs in turn with people in neighbouring communities, using music-making to bring about a human connection between detainees in the centres and residents outside them, and thereby contributing to integration and social cohesion. Finally, through music-making and constructive engagement with the media, we aim to challenge the widespread negative perceptions of asylum seekers and migrants, both locally and among the wider public.
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“Every time there was a break in proceedings, he didn’t stop, he carried on doing the moves, you know, like doing his own moves off in the corner. Sujata [the facilitator] said that he’d come up to her after the workshop and said, ‘whatever happens to me after this, if I get out of here, whether it’s in England or back in India, I’m going to become a dancer!’”
Detainee participant, IRC Dover