Making friends when you move to a new place is often weirdly
difficult, especially if your grasp of the local language is a touch
shoddy. But imagine you’ve made that move to escape war or
turmoil ripping your own country apart, perhaps leaving behind
beloved family members. The whole friendship thing suddenly
becomes infinitely more complicated – especially when some
sections of society seem dead-set on making new migrants and
refugees feel totally unwelcome.
Last year, Melbourne’s Christine Leahy came up with a super-simple
way to help address this challenge. What if Aussies harnessed
the power of music – the so-called international language – and
befriended young migrants by taking them to gigs? “We’re seeing
more and more people displaced across the world, and at the same
time, noticing this anti-migrant sentiment – small racism; just
treating them unkindly,” Christine says. “I really love music; I think it’s
a great way to connect and make people feel happy. So the idea was
to take the same groups to a few gigs over six months in the hope
that friendships would remain beyond the program.”
With her ‘Music With Mates’ idea fully formed, Christine just needed
a way to bring the music industry on board, because free gig tickets
would be crucial to its success. Handily, during a stint living in the
United Kingdom, she’d palled up with some dudes who went to high
school with Jebediah frontman Kevin Mitchell (who also plays solo
as Bob Evans). Though she didn’t know Kevin from a bar of soap,Christine fired off an email – and managed to land the famed Aussie
rockstar as an instant partner in her new non-profit.Getting involved was actually a no-brainer, Kevin insists. “Sometimes
with these kinds of issues, they seem so big and complex, and it
can be very difficult to know what you can do. You can feel quite
disconnected,” he says. “But with Christine’s idea, I felt very confident
that I could literally just email people I know and say, ‘Hey, when you’re
playing a show, do you reckon you could donate a handful of tickets for
us to run this program?’ Everyone was very eager to help.”
Since Music With Mates launched last May, dozens of 18- to 30-year-old
migrants and refugees have jumped at the chance to take part. Some
big music names have donated tickets, too, including Paul Dempsey,
Josh Pyke, Pete Murray and, of course, Kevin himself. Pretty much any
musical genre is on the cards – the group has graced pub gigs, club
shows and everything in between. “It’s an introduction to what’s going
on in Melbourne and Australia musically,” Kevin says. “The Australian
rock ‘n’ roll scene is a pretty white place, so I definitely get the feeling
we stand out, but the comments are always really lovely.”
The concept is only small-scale as yet. One teacher regularly drives
her students – teens and young adults from places like Myanmar,
Eritrea and Iran – 30 kilometres into Melbourne’s city centre from
Werribee, so they can hang out at gigs and hopefully make new
buddies. But otherwise, it’s largely just Kevin and Christine, assisted
by a couple of volunteers, taking migrants to shows each month.
“They have no idea who Kevin is,” Christine says with a laugh.
Nonetheless, Music With Mates looks set to grow super-fast, with
loads more Aussies offering to help out. “A lot of people just love the
experience of going to a live gig, and want to share that while helping
people feel happy and welcome in Melbourne,” Christine says. “You
have to do something, even if it’s something really small,” Kevin adds.
“We did this house concert the other week in a tiny place in Coburg.
It’s not going to change the world – obviously we know that – but
geez, it was good to be there and see this positive, multicultural
Australia. That’s the kind of Australia I want to be part of.”music with mates
CHRISTINE LEAHY AND KEVIN MITCHELL
ARE USING LIVE MUSIC TO HELP NEW
MIGRANTS SETTLE IN.
Wor d s Koren HelbigPhotoPaul Hermes.Thanks to The Workers Club Geelong.our project