Bring Royal Burundian Drums to Kakuma Refugee Camp

Help refugees in one of the oldest and largest refugee camps in the world create their own, unique sound with the traditional instruments they were forced to leave behind when fleeing their home countries. 

This fundraiser is to secure funds to bring 12 traditional Karyenda drums, aka "Royal Drums of Burundi," along with several expert drummers, to the Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwest Kenya to train Camp residents from Burundi in their traditional music. Home to over 180,000 people, Kakuma is the 2nd largest refugee camp in Africa and among the longest established in the world. Home to people from almost two dozen African countries, several generations of musicians from across east Africa have lived in the camp without access to the traditional and sacred instruments, which are the lifeblood of every African community, culture and society, which they were forced to leave behind as they fled the violence engulfing their homelands. 

Working with musicians based at the Camp, a team of Kenyan, African, European and American musicians, scholars, and activists, in collaboration with Kakuma-based community and official organizations, determined that there was a clear need and desire among musicians to have access to their traditional and ancestral instruments. These instruments were crucial cultural tools in Burundi whose absence has severely weakened the ability of Burundian refugees to maintain their culture, histories and identities in the Kakuma Camp, as well as forge relationships with other communities in Kakuma. 

OUR PLAN is quite simple: To work with a group of expert Burundian drummers and drum makers based in Kigali, Rwanda (where many Burundians have fled during the country's civil war and continuing violence) to produce 12 drums in the next two months, which will then be transported by the drummers to Kakuma overland via Uganda. Upon reaching the camp the visiting drummers will spend 1 week doing daily workshops and concerts with the local drummers, which will focus especially on acclimating the Burundian and other children in the Camp who've never even seen, never mind played, actual Karyenda drums (they've been forced to use rusty used oil barrels that are both dangerous and too heavy to use in the traditional manner).

After acquiring a baseline of training, the drummers will continue practicing and performing, while doing regular Skype meetings and lessons with the visiting drummers, to prepare them to travel to Uganda to perform at the Nyege Nyege Festival in Jinja, Uganda in September 2020, which will mark the first time many of the drummers have ever left Kakuma. 

OUR GOAL with this project, beyond the immediate goal to help local Burundian artists, is to demonstrate "proof of concept" that will enable us to obtain funding from major donors/funders to support the acquisition of traditional instruments from other countries represented in Kakuma. The more communities can be reconnected with their home cultures through their traditional music and instruments, the stronger their foundations will be in the Camp, and the greater the possibilities of creative intercommunal collaboration. Moreover, we hope to encourage the development of a "Kakuma sound" that can provide remunerative work for local musicians, strengthen local cultural and intercultural bonds, and in so doing, become a regular program at refugee camps across Africa and beyond, where the traditional and home cultures of refugees have long been ignored if not suppressed.

Please visit Kakuma-Sound.org  to see a full description of the project including a mini-documentary about the drummers, and more information about how you can help. 

To learn more about the award-winning team behind Kakuma sound and their decades of collective experience working for Africa as artists, NGO professionals and community advocates, please visit our website .

All donations will receive personal letters and photos from the drummers, as well as access to the documentary and to music produced as part of the project before it is released to the public. Donations at the $100 level and above will receive free CDs and DVDs of all music and documentaries produced by the project. Donations above $1,000 will receive free accommodation during any visit to Kakuma to visit and meet with the artists, and donors over $2,000 will receive Nairobi-Kakuma or Lodwar airfare as well.

OUR BUDGET of $15,000 will be split in approximately the following manner:

$2,000 - building 12 drums

$6,000 - transporting drums and musicians overland to from Kigali to Kakuma

$7,000  - accommodations, food, local transport, equipment and room rentals and miscellaneous expenses at Kakuma Refugee Camp

Watch the documentary .