Reggae Is About Love & Healing

Written by Mitch Santell
Producer / Co-Founder

This year promises to be another year of Reggae Music expansion. How do I know this? No form of music is as authentic or organic as Reggae. All genre's of Reggae have a deep respect for God, and just as we have a right to worship freely in America, there are many places globally where people are killed for their beliefs and faith.

Reggae helps heal mental wounds of torture for migrants in Italy
http://bit.ly/2wljMOD

MUSIC AS THERAPY

Almost 600,000 migrants arrived in Italy over the past four years. Most sailed from Libya in flimsy vessels operated by people smugglers. More than 13,000 have died trying to make the crossing.

But difficulties in securing work and learning Italian led to a sense of seclusion among many new arrivals who spend most of their day in reception centers with little to do, added MEDU's cultural mediator Abdoulaye Toure, 39.

"Often the only opportunity they have to get out is coming here to listen (and play) music," he said.

Set up at the beginning of the year as support to clinical therapy, the MEDU Music Band meets twice a week and has performed at several private and public events, playing a mix of African pop, rap and reggae.

"Music allows (them) to be together, express emotions and feel part of something," said Barbieri.

Ezeala is a new addition to the group, having been referred to the charity after attempting to take his own life, he said.

He fled Nigeria last year fearing arrest for backing the secession of an area in the southeast formerly known as Biafra.

His father and brother were shot dead during pro-secession protests in the southern state of Anambra in 2016, while he was beaten by security forces and hit by a stray bullet, he said.

Amnesty International last year accused Nigerian security forces of killing at least 150 Biafra separatists at peaceful rallies, which the military and police denied.

The army said at the time that the separatists, often armed, had behaved violently, killing several policeman and attacking both military and police vehicles.

"The military and other security agencies exercised maximum restraints despite the flurry of provocative and unjustifiable violence," army spokesman Sani Usman said in a statement last year.

As Ezeala recovered, his family put him on a flight to Italy where he applied for asylum, he said.

But after spending a few months in a reception center, loneliness overwhelmed him.

"I look at myself and I was like: 'what I am living here (for)? My father and brother are dead, my mother is far, what I can do?'... it made me want to jump and end my life," he said.

Joining the band gave him a sense of belonging.

"They are my family now," he said.

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This is an awesome video from Bob Marley Israel,
​here is their You Tube Channel: 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzQtS2Lv97cP0Jvyb9rzb3Q/featured

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