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Children taking part in Oxfam's health promotion program. Photo: Oxfam
Singing for survival
Kaltoum Omer is one of a dozen women who have teamed up with Oxfam to hold weekly music festivals in Shangil Tobai in North Darfur. The concerts bring an afternoon of fun to people who have had fled attacks on nearby villages – but they educate as well as entertain. Photo: Oxfam
As Kaltoum Omer hits the high notes, the crowd erupts. Hundreds of men, women and children join in the song’s chorus – clapping, cheering and singing along to the well-known lyrics. An encore and ovation later, Kaltoum sits down to rest her voice and another singer takes the megaphone to keep the crowd entertained. The concert has been going over an hour in the burning Darfur heat, but the crowd’s enthusiasm shows no sign of letting up.
A crowded camp sheltering 25,000 people from the horrific violence of Darfur’s five-year-old conflict may seem an unlikely venue – but this is no ordinary pop concert. The tunes are traditional, but the lyrics talk of hygiene and explain how people can avoid fatal diseases. Kaltoum is one of a dozen women who have teamed up with Oxfam to hold weekly music festivals in Shangil Tobai in North Darfur. The concerts bring an afternoon of fun to people who have had fled attacks on nearby villages – but they educate as well as entertain.
“Singing is a part of our lives and we like to sing whenever and wherever we can,” says Kaltoum, sipping a small glass of extra sweet tea after the concert ends. “We enjoy it, and the people listening enjoy it, but most importantly our singing now helps change people’s lives for the better.
“We take Oxfam’s advice about good health and sanitation and put it to our own music. You can see the songs changing listeners’ behaviour. The camp is much cleaner now and there are far fewer cases of malaria and diarrhoea. Children wash their hands now without being told. When you tell young children to wash they don’t always do as they’re asked – but when we sing it to them they join in and have fun, and they really pay attention."
Zainab Basher, an Oxfam health promoter in Shangil Tobai, helps the women organise the concerts. She says the impact has been enormous.
“We hear women and children singing the songs at home and work, and the communities keep asking us when the next performance will be. Now the women perform at weddings and religious festivals, as well as the weekly concerts. Each community has its favourite singers, and keeping latrines and water points clean has become a source of pride. Everyone wants to keep their area of the camp the cleanest. Participation in regular clean-up campaigns has increased greatly.”
As the conflict has dragged on five long years, Zainab says the Oxfam team has had to adapt its work. “We held committee meetings, we visited people’s homes and we trained individuals to become community health mobilisers – but the longer people are here in the camp, the more these methods become routine and ineffective. We needed something new and exciting, so we approached the women singers and they were very keen to help.”
The concerts are held in different areas of the camp each week, attracting an audience of hundreds each time.
All over the world, children like to imitate their favourite pop stars. Darfur is no different, and Kaltoum and the women have inspired a new generation of singers who meet every week at the Oxfam health centres in the camp. One popular chorus goes:
“Let us go to school to read,
Let us learn to be healthy,
Let us clean ourselves,
All children, let us do this.”
Manahir, a 15-year-old girl from the camp, leads a group of children aged five to sixteen. Some sing, some bang on small drums, and others just clap and cheer. A chant of “Clean the jerry can, clean the latrine,” gradually gets faster and the drums louder, until the children lose their breath and burst into applause.
“We have great fun, and we learn at the same time,” she says. “My friends and I come to the centre every day from all over the camp.”
Nearby, as the women’s concert reaches its finale, another singer named Mahasa takes the megaphone and leads a chorus in praise of Zainab and the Oxfam team’s recent distribution of blankets and jerry cans for carrying water. “We thank the aid agencies and the people around the world who send us these things when we have nothing,” she says. “If they didn’t help us we wouldn’t be able to stay here in the camp. We’d have to go home and be attacked all over again.”