Momentum

Homeless and refugees.

Momentum is a 12 weeks project that took place in 2014 in Huddersfield, led by myself in partnership with Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
It was part of the health and well-being programme for the Festival which has been developed thanks to public donations and support from Awards from all.
The project focused on working with the Homeless, refugees and asylum seekers in the Huddersfield area in partnership with Huddersfield Mission and the Reach Project.

Two short films from:

The mission (Homeless Centre)

The Reach Project (Refugees and Asylum seekers)

Songs Written By Participants 

NEVER AGAIN THAT

André Thomas Zoiuzouem

 First Poetic Section

Oh feeling hearts of honest men, oh generous spirits of companionable men,
listen carefully to the clamors of this young war-orphan, for they represent the sufferings of a people that are put to the test time and time again, whose tears shall stay for ever engraved on our collective memory.

Chorus

It’s at the price of innocent blood that we demand social peace; it’s at the price of the hot tears of our hearts that we all say: “Stop the killings!”

First Lead Vocal

Oh you politicians, peddlers of dreams, may your struggles for power not make us mourners. We want this country no longer to be a battlefield for wars.

Second Lead Vocal

No leader will ever be the joy of his militants; no president will ever make his tribe truly happy. We are the youth of today, partisans of the least effort, and our politicians have made us a sacrificed generation.

Third Lead Vocal

Oh my God, O my dear God, what sins have we committed, that our country should be the scene of these blood-baths:

– The civil war in 1959
– It has never ceased in the Congo
– The deportation of the Matsounists
– The railway accident at Mvoungouti
– The War of November 3rd 1993
– The death of the faithful at Saint Peter’s Church
– The War of June 5th 1997
– The war of December 18th 1998

 

Chorus

Oh heavenly Father, it’s time you forgave us, even if our fathers sinned, forgive us now all the same.

Oh God the Father save our wounded country, where Congolese arm Congolese to go and kill other Congolese.

Second Poetic Section

May this dearly-bought peace endure for ever, and may it reassure us that the language of arms shall no longer be the primordial expression of our politicians.

 

André Thomas Zoiuzouem

Original Song

KEEP YOUR PROMISES: GIVE ME BACK MY CHILDHOOD

Mohammed Abakar

Our children’s place is in the classrooms, not on the battlefields.

For God’s sake spare our children!

 

They drugged you,

They put a gun in your hands;

At the point of your barrel you took away lives, and you made your uniform a symbol.

But look! Your life is based on the “Haram”.

 

They lied to you when they said that a man never weeps,

That a man always dies a fighter and stays “Fahl”.

But who and why are you fighting?

 

You have been making war for fifteen or twenty years now.

You have burnt down villages, poisoned wells, raped women and destroyed everything.

 

You were proud of all that, but it‘s you that are always thirsty,

It’s you that are always hungry, young soldier.

As for the future that awaits you: ask those that sent you to the war,

That made you change places.

You‘ll see that they spit in your face, young traitor.

While you wear out your shoes for them,

Their children are at school, or at the university.

 

It’s not that you are stupid:

You too deserve better.

You’re only twelve years old;

Your place is in the classrooms, not on the battlefields.

 

Put down your gun and take up your pen,

Look at the blackboard!

 

You have the right to dream,

You have the right to live free and in peace;

And instead of that, the war-lords have taught you to become a barbarian,

And to do evil all around you.

 

Tchad is my country, N’Djamena is my capital,

Christians and Muslims are brothers!