 Alright, welcome everyone. Hi, I'm Joanne Litman. I'm the Chief Content Officer for Gannett and the Editor-in-Chief of the USA Today Network. And perhaps more apropos for this panel, I was as a kid a classically trained musician and I'm the co-author of a book about music called Strings Attached. And it is such an honor for me today to be here with three of the most remarkable people I have ever met. They are here representing the Afghan Women's Orchestra, which performed earlier today and is also performing tomorrow night at the closing session. And it is the first of its kind. It is an all-female orchestra made up of young music students between the ages of 13 and 20 in a country that under the Taliban, until just a few years ago, banned music altogether, listening to it, singing it, and above all, learning it or playing it. Now, Dr. Ahmad Sarmast is the founder of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, which spawned this orchestra in Afghanistan. He founded it in 2010 at great personal risk to himself, and in fact, he has been targeted since then for his work in bringing music back to Afghanistan. And we'll be hearing from him. And in addition, we have Zarifa Adiba and Nagin Ekpova, who are both conductors as well as former students at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music. They are among the first women to learn music in that country in 30 years. They both have remarkable stories to tell as well. And before we start with the questions, I thought you might enjoy a clip of the orchestra which played earlier today. I think we've got a musical clip. So as you can see, there's a combination of classical Western music as well as Afghani instruments. And I want to start the conversation with Dr. Sarmast. Now, perhaps you can start by telling us how you came to begin the school and the orchestra. As I understand it, you were in your last year of conservatory in Moscow in 1992 when the Taliban came into power. And then the Taliban then subsequently banned music altogether, and you were unable to come back to the country for a number of years. So perhaps you can tell us how you came to come back and to start the school. Before going to Australia, I was studying in the Soviet Union that time. I completed and got my bachelor degree and master degree for Moscow Conservatory. After the socio-political changes of 1992 when the leftist regime collapsed and for the first time the Islamists came into power, and censorship of music began first step towards banning music or censoring music began right after the collapse of the leftist regime. But given the fact that the country was in a big civil war and there was not a central power to implement those policies, they were not in a position to go ahead. Though the film was banned very close to the time of the arrival of the Taliban into power, an attempt to ban music was taken place in that time. But what's happened in 1996 when the Taliban came into power, there was a centralized government practically formed in the country. And this group of people very forcibly began to implement their draconian policies towards music. Banning music generally, learning music, playing music, practicing music was altogether total ban. In one word I can say that a cultural genocide took place during that time and the people of Afghanistan was deprived from their voice and from their musical identity. It was not a regime that was targeting music but practically they targeted the history of Afghanistan. Many of you in this room probably remember that the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, the destruction of artifacts in Kabul Museum, banning the celebration of New Year's celebration. In one word, intangible and tangible cultural heritage of Afghanistan was targeted during the Taliban time. And since then, when I finished my education, I immigrated to Australia, I was following what's happening with the musical scene of Afghanistan. And I always felt that huge amount of money has been invested in myself. I had the wonderful opportunity to study in the most prestigious music institution of the world. But when the music, when the ban was lifted, I considered my duty to go back to Afghanistan, not just it was my social responsibility, but at the same time my strong belief in the power of music took me back to Afghanistan. And I strongly believed and still I believe that it's just through arts, culture and music that we can change the world. And it's true music that we can contribute to the reunification of Afghanistan. It's true music that we can tear apart gender inequality in the country. It's true music that we can create job opportunities and at the same time contribute to the poverty reduction in Afghanistan. And it's music that allows us to show the better side of Afghanistan which is most of the time ignored in international media. And mainly Afghanistan is associated with Kalashnikov, with suicide bombing, violence against women. But there's another side of Afghanistan which is not seen. So that beliefs took me back to Afghanistan to establish a dedicated music school for the children of Afghanistan. The idea was to return the musical rights of Afghan children, enable Afghan people and Afghan youths to freely express themselves through any type of music that is close to their heart. And it's the basic human rights, but at the same time it was also a name to transform the lives of most disadvantaged kids of Afghanistan, street-working children, kids living in the orphanages for various reasons. And of course, most importantly, take a step towards empowering girls and give the rights of the girls of Afghanistan back to them, including educational rights, ensuring their musical rights and make sure that they are equally represented in the musical scene of Afghanistan after the collapse of the Taliban. So there's a couple of really important points you made there. One is that this isn't just about music, this is about restoring the culture in Afghanistan. And the other about the rights of girls and of women. And it's very interesting, I don't know if everyone here realizes, the school that you established, which is for nine to 18-year-olds, it's co-ed boys and girls share in their classes and learn music, but you also have secondary education, regular education in addition to music education. Is that right? Yes. We not only teach our students music, but also we teach them the curriculum of the Minister of Education of Afghanistan, the course of which is the Afghanistan National Institute of Music. Our students, like all other schools of Afghanistan, study languages, history, geography, mathematics, chemistry, languages, plus music and music, academic classes. It's a full-time program for boys and girls. And the other interesting thing that you mentioned just briefly was that when you started the school, about half the school now is either children from orphanages or children who were street hawkers who were basically working in the streets of Afghanistan. Yes. At the very beginning, my idea was to establish a school only for disadvantaged kids of Afghanistan. But when I went back to Afghanistan and began negotiation with the authorities and with the Minister of Education, a decision and a compromise was made to annually 50% of new enrollees or new enrollment places should be given to the disadvantaged kids and the other 50% should go also to other Afghan children regardless of their social circumstances, gender, economic circumstances, anyone who can talent can join the school. And today, more than one third of the school community is comprised of students with disadvantaged background. We begin our music program with only one girl, but today we have got 70 girls, which is one third of the school body. We've got a total of 210 students, 70 of which are girls between age nine and 20. This is very controversial what you did and I think that you're very modest about this, but what you've done is unbelievably brave and perhaps you can share with the audience, I mean the incident that happened in December of 2014. We're working in a country where music was banned and we have got music as millions of lovers, also millions has a number of very vocal, very radical enemies. Everything that the Afghanistan National Institute of Music is doing and what we achieved within a very short period of time in terms of ensuring gender equality, participation of girls in music, co-education, music education itself, the formation of ten various musical ensembles, the Youth Orchestra of Afghanistan, the Band of Shaipur, the Old Women Orchestra of Afghanistan, the Kavali group. And plus we have a very, very strong community visibility. We are having a very active cultural life in Afghanistan and a concert life in the country. Plus Afghanistan National Institute of Music in the last seven years was carrying the torch of intercultural and people-to-people diplomacy between Afghanistan and the international community. All this made us to be very well visible and at the same time alerted the enemies of music, the enemies of art and culture, the enemies of human rights. There is a beacon of hope in this country that moves in the right direction and opens the minds of the youth of Afghanistan, built a better relationship between the ethnically divided people of the country, ensures co-education, girls' rights. And therefore in 2014 in one of our concerts a suicide bomber has been sent who exploded himself in the audience right behind my back while my students were playing and performing on a stage and they were performing a musical and it's also a coincidence, it's probably important to know that the piece they were playing, it was a musical drama about the nightmares of suicide bombing and the piece was called Heartbeat After the Bombing. And that's what's happened, the show was converted into a reality. I clearly remember when I was hurt I can't remember what's happened but when I opened my eyes, I don't know after 10 minutes, 15 minutes, I was feeling the impression that it was part of the spatial effect and still I couldn't guess what's happened. I didn't know that there was a suicide bombing, there was an explosion taking place. When I opened my eyes everything was black around me then I noticed that people were screaming, then I noticed a few bodies lying on the floor but still I wasn't sure what kind of attack took place, what's happened and when I come out I ask people and then I noticed that I'm not hearing, I lost my hearing ability. So I was communicating and people were writing and I was in the hospital communicating with my doctors also in writing. So that's happened, a show, a very brave act to condemn suicide bombing. It was converted into a reality show and it was all the incident that's been well captured by the media and it's available on the YouTube today. That's what's happening. We are well aware of the risk that we are taking place but someone or a group of people should take the risk and it's Afghanistan National Institute of Music that take this risk. We are not ready to give up. Giving up it means clearly that we are opening their way for the return of the Taliban. We are defeated. We don't want to be defeated. There's been a lot of changes in Afghanistan, the new generation of Afghan society. They are not ready to give up what they achieved in the last 14 years for any cost and that's why I'm back there but I'm not alone. I've got wonderful, very brave girls with my safe. I've got a wonderful team that assist me and I've got a wonderful staff and I've got 210 boys and girls plus which means 200 families and there's 200 families in average of 40 people. It means that we've got 800 people behind us plus the community. So we're there. We're there to change Afghanistan. We're there to change Afghanistan to art, culture and education. And my understanding is also that the only reason you survived the suicide bombing is because you had dropped your cell phone and bent down to pick it up. It was an accident, yes. It was an accident. There was some noises that made me suspicious that some kind of attack is taking place. I reached my mobile phone to turn it because my driver normally alerts me if something happened. In that moment, maybe the person who was sitting next to me touched me or I dropped the phone and when I inclined to pick up the phone and my head was between the seats, the explosion took place. But in any way, it was sufficient. I had an elephant sharpness on my head. I lost my earing ability for some time and still I have to go to another big operation to fix the left ear which is not fully restored yet. But all this does not stop the team that I'm leading and we're all there. So I want to turn to these young women, the conductors of the orchestra, also incredibly courageous young women. Zarifa and Nagin. What's interesting is Zarifa and Nagin actually come from very different backgrounds. I understand you're in actually different ethnic groups who are typically opposed at war with one another. Nagin is Pashtun, Zarifa is Hazara. And Nagin came to the school from an orphanage in Kabul and Zarifa had been living in Pakistan with her family who had fled to Pakistan to escape from the Taliban. Let's start with you Zarifa. Zarifa is a Viola player as am I, best instrument ever. So you were living in Pakistan. Your family had escaped to Pakistan. And my understanding is your family came back for some reasons to, to Afghanistan you learned about the school. But you're telling me earlier that you loved music. Tell us a little bit about how you came to learn about the school and what kind of music initially you were planning to pursue? Yeah. So before coming to Afghanistan I was an immigrant to Pakistan with my family and we came to Afghanistan in 2012. And two years I was studying in public school but because from the childhood I was in love with music and I didn't know about music anything except singing and pop. So I thought that I love singing so I'm going to leave just once. I have to try it. I want to be a pop singer. Then I was just, one day I took decision to go around and find a vocal teacher and I wanted to start practicing vocal. So I remember that day I was walking around three hours or four hours to find a vocal teacher there and in Kabul for a girl trying to find a vocal teacher is really hard. It's like, it's challenging. But because I love music I said that, okay, I'm going to do it. And after a long time of walking I got to an aim. I was asking people that I want a vocal teacher and they were like, we don't know. Then I found out that we have a music school in Afghanistan and I was really shocked that we have a music school in Afghanistan. So I just get in after a long time I got the opportunity to join music school. And I understand that you actually had to convince Dr. Sarmas to take you because you were a little older than most students who started. Yeah, that was the hardest point I think because when I went to Dr. Sarmas's office and I said that Dr. Sarmas, please give me the chance to get in because he was so serious. He said that no girl, this is not a rule. We have rules that we can't take students older. And I was like, please just give me one chance. And on that time I got to know, I got it that how we have personalities who are going to support the girls. And Dr. Sarmas was one of them who supported girls and who supported me and said that, okay, you have two months. Get ready for the exam. Okay, I'm going to get it. And in three months I was playing flute and preparing for exam. And after exam, the exam which was taken from me, I had my foreigner teachers and they were scoring me and they said that, okay, you're good. You passed the exam, you get in girl. And on that time Dr. Sarmas said that I'm so proud. I get in. That's great. So you no longer want to be a pop singer? No, because I really didn't know about music anything and still I think that my people in Afghanistan still don't have a real image of music, that what music is really. Because they think music is just singing and making someone happy or sad. But music is something more than that. Music is something that brings peace inside you. Music is beautiful and makes you love yourself and things around you. Music can bring people together. Music is something more than what my people think in Afghanistan. And what is the school, you know, you said it was very difficult for a girl to find a vocal teacher and certainly difficult for a girl to find a good education and a music education. So how does that, you know, what does this mean, the school mean for Afghanistan and for girls like yourself? Afghanistan National Institute of Music, the only music school in our country, is the only place in my country that I feel saved myself. I feel like I'm safe. This is my home. Even I feel severed in my own home. Because dear, you feel that you are human and you're not Hazara or you're not Pashtun. There is a place that you can feel, everything changed and you feel outside of an aim or outside of my school. So, yeah, that is safe for us. And Nagin, let's talk with you for a moment about your background and how you came to this school. So you were living in an orphanage. Your family, you were living in the orphanage to get an education. Is that right? Your family was from a small village and so you came to Kabul. And how long had you been in the orphanage? I was 10 years, about 10 years in Afsiko. In orphanage, it's called Afsiko. And now I'm in the home, our own home. Our family came to Kabul this year. So now I'm happy to be with them. Before, in our village, there was no school so my father bring me to orphanage to go to school and to educate it. And after four years or about three years, our boss, our orphanage boss, said that there is music school if some girls interest to go to music school. So I decided that, and I think in myself, with myself that I didn't see a girl in Afghanistan there to play instruments. So I decided that to play some instrument and it will be good to play instrument and other people see me and they will interest. The other girls will interest and they will play music too. And we go to music school and we pass the exam and I was in the home and our orphanage called to my mom and said to my mom that Nguyen passed the exam and she had to come and start her school. My mom said, what school? And they say that music school. My mom said, what music school? And I said, no, it's not music school, it's school. My mom said, I hope so. And when my father come to home and I say to dad, this is music school. I love music and I want to go to music school. So my father just quiet and say, okay, it's your life and go. I love to music and it's really good to choose music. And my mom's like, she's sad and say that music is so bad for a girl and especially in our family we are passion like this, like this. My father said, no, it's Nguyen life. He let her to continue her study. And my uncles say that, no, it's so bad for us and for our family and especially music is so bad for us that a girl playing music and going to school, that's enough she's studying. That's enough. And I just cry and I say to my father, no, I want to. And my father say, it's okay, I will talk with them and you go to your orphanage and continue your study. And I came and before I choose Robbap, for one month I play Robbap and after that I play Sarut for three years. That's an Afghani instrument. Sarut is Indian instrument and Robbap is Afghani instrument. So after I have some problem in home and like my uncle didn't let me to come to school for six months and my father was not in home so because of that I came to school and they didn't let me. So after my father come and I'm back to school and I choose piano. So now I'm playing piano and also conducting. That's an amazing story. So let's just make sure, I just want to unpack that a little bit. So your parents obviously value education and you couldn't get, as a girl you could not get an education in your village. And so they were willing to have you live in an orphanage in Kabul so that you could get an education. But music, now why was it that as a Pashtun you shouldn't play music? For Pashtun people, not all of them. For some of them, like if a girl should be in the home and thinks the home like homework doing dishes and washing the clothes this thing they want from a girl and from a woman. But it's not true. The woman can do everything and women can go to school, educate it and work outside of home. That's it. But they are just thinking that girls make for home. And my uncles also like this. So their daughter are not educated and they are just in a home and some of them are married. In our village, my aged girls have a two child, three child. And how old are you? I'm 19. So I am like a one. So I am educated and I am playing music. So your uncles, you said they kept you out of school. So was it that you visited home and they would not allow you to come back to school? Yeah, we are living together. We was living together with our uncles together. So because of that, they're saying that it's a shame for our family to a girl playing music and music is bad for them. But for my father and for me, it's not, it's beautiful and it's lovely to play music. So we don't care about the terror and we will continue and I will continue music. So for your own family, was it dangerous for your family? So you had your uncles who were against you going to school and learning music. Does that impact your family? Did they have to move? Did they have to, you know... Yeah, they are always like telling to my brothers, your sister is bad guy and this thing. So we decide to move to Kabul and because they are talking a lot, bad things, so my father and me decide to move to Kabul. For them, it's music, it's so bad. So your family left your village? Yeah, left the village and no more talking with them. My father is not talking with their brothers and with their mother. My grandmother said to my father, if you let me go to music school, you are not my son anymore. So my father said, okay, it's okay, but Nguyen's life, we live lots, but Nguyen is young and she has to live like more years. So let her to continue her study and her dreams. And my father, because of me, my father didn't talk with her mother, with her mother and with brothers. So we are just in our home in Kabul. That's a remarkable story. What would you like? You want to be a musician? You're both very young women. You are in America, high school, senior age. Girls from there would generally go to college. What plans do you have for the future? We want to be professional conductors. It's my wish and I really love to open more music school in Afghanistan and national orchestra from Afghanistan. It's my wish and I love to continue my study outside of Afghanistan because we don't have the opportunity to study there and I want to be professional. So I want to be a scholarship or something to study outside. So you would like to go to a different country and get a degree in music and in conducting. Do you know what country or what school? I really like to go to Italy or Australia. I don't know which country, but I really like. Do you have any Italians or Australians in the audience here? Oh. And Zarifa, what about you? What would you like to do? I have a lot of goals and dreams. I don't know which one will come true or which one won't, but I'll try my best to do all of them. So as I said that I've started music in 2014. So it's like two and a half years that I'm studying music and I loved it. Before starting music, I was like 100% sure that I'm going to be a great musician in future because I didn't know about music anything. But day by day when I get deep and deeper in music, I figured out how hard it is and how difficult it is. And when I was watching the musicians from all over the world, on that time I was like, wow, you are not going to be like them if you try your best too. So because I'm 18 years old and I have just one more year, I was so much worried about what I'm going to do because music is hard. But I didn't make the music hard because that can be a good reason that music is hard and that's why you're going to leave that. So I said that work more hard. So I was trying more in my viola to be a good violist player. But day by day when I was playing my viola I was just thinking about that in future what musicians are going to do in Afghanistan. So when I went to Yale Young Global Scholars Program in Yale University in USA I was trying to figure it out that how the musicians get paid back by their own profession. So I was just searching and asking people and when I came back to Afghanistan I took a very long meeting with Dr. Salmas and I was asking him about the copyright rule that is in Europe and America and out of Afghanistan everywhere you can find that but not in Afghanistan. Because in Afghanistan when a musician makes a clip they don't get money by their own profession. We have to make a rule for that because we don't have that in Afghanistan. So I thought that I have this friend to bring that and there are people like Dr. Salmas who's going to work for that. So by that point of view I was trying to make my goals for my future. I figured out that if I want to bring the copyright rule in Afghanistan I need to study law. But I really don't want to leave music because music is the reason that I have I got my all staves towards my dreams. Music was the only thing that made me more powerful made me believe that I can do it. So music is always in my heart. But when I knew that I think I have this friend to do more for musicians in Afghanistan for music in Afghanistan if being a viola teacher or if being a lawyer in parliament both of them will work but the reason is that you are going to work for music in Afghanistan. So after that I took decision like I completely took decision that I am going to do my major degree in law and my minor degree in music critics after a long discussion with Dr. Salmas so I found out what I am going to do for my bachelor degree. So after that after taking this decision I'm trying to learn more to read more about music and about the histories and besides this TOEFL test about like English and law and everything so I'm just trying to get into Yale University so let's see. You have the strength to believe me to do anything you want both of you young women are so impressive. So you already were at you came to the United States then to do you're accepted into this leadership summer program I believe at Yale already so you are now the equivalent of a senior in high school I believe you're not done yet with high school right so you're still finishing and then you will go on so you'd like to go to college at Yale or some other good university in another country to... Yeah like United States is my dream was my dream and will be because I do want to get into any university in America especially Yale, Harvard and Stanford Excellent I got these... I got dreaming back because of one person sitting just beside me and I believe that I believe in my dreams because I was dreaming from childhood to like two years ago that I want to study music but I never believed that but I got the opportunity to learn music and now I'm dreaming more and I'm pretty sure that being with Zohran Sambu being with such personalities like Dr. Samas and in faculty they all are like a great supporter even more than my family just they should be I will try my best to get in by myself but they are the heroes I think you're all heroes Zarifa so you're... we heard from Nagin about her family what about your family have they been supportive of your music education? My mom is like the only supporter who is supporting me in every steps of my life and she trusts me that I can do what I want and my stepfather he is like a real man and always standing behind me as a mountain and protecting me as his little daughter and beside my mom and dad I have my aunts and grandmother and grandfather from my mother's side who are so far from me but they always support me calling me but beside this all I have people in my life who have very bad image of music in their mind and I never blame them that they are wrong because they grew up in a situation that they were far from education like they grew up in Talban's period Talban's time they were far from education they didn't have access to any good things except Talban and their rules so I do accept from them the negative image I do accept these all things that they don't accept but I'm happy because Afghanistan is changing Afghanistan is going on and hopefully the problems that we musicians in Afghanistan face right now our next generation should not face that and we will try our best to make a good to make a good situation for them no good English study abroad but would like to go back ultimately to Afghanistan is that right? right now my father is a asylum seeker in Indonesia camp because of some family problems he really needed to go there and he's a refugee right now and I told them I told him at the very beginning dad I'm not going to come to Australia just take my mother and my siblings with you because I'm going to US after my bachelor degree I'm going back to Afghanistan because Afghanistan needs us so I'm not in his case so he's going with my family so you're living at the school then and your family is living abroad is that right? right now my father is a refugee so maybe it will take two years maybe I'll go before my mom, dad to USA you're living in Afghanistan and they are not your family yes, yes so you know since you're both musicians I'm curious I was very interested to see in the performance that you use western instruments you train with western instruments as well as on Afghani instruments and I'm wondering if you could tell us what are your favorite composers who are your favorite composers? Nagin? my favorite composers Chopin and Beethoven so I really like the symphony of Beethoven the ninth one really and the fifth one all of them but these two is more and I really like nocturnes of Chopin all nocturnes and Zarifa? I really like Beethoven because at the time he was living he was different than everybody and he brought changes with his music in that time like in classical in classical classical period he brought a lot of changes like he was his personality his composing things like he was different I really like his personality in that time and I'm pretty sure that in Afghanistan right now we need someone like him to stand up and compose everything against everybody so you like him because he has a trailblazer and Beethoven ninth is a beautiful symphony but I also understand that you both listen to pop music yeah we are my favorite singer is Shakira and Edda I love Edda so Dr. Sarmas I just want to come back to you for a moment these women obviously you've changed the lives of these young women I'm curious about how you see the ultimate goal of the school I mean the school is co-ed you offer secondary education the classes are co-ed which I think part of the reason for that is also to help socialize the boys so that they understand how to interact with girls as they grow up so the boys also have to have some courage to be part of a co-ed institution like this so what would be the ultimate goal of the music school is it to turn out musicians is it to send your students off to colleges what did you have in mind the music school itself is a very first step to teach them some skills and also to give them values which would help them to be better people than my generation to give them the skills, knowledge and ability to contribute to the rebuilding of Afghanistan but of course given the fact that we don't have a quality higher education program for music in Afghanistan my priority would be also to create those opportunities for them to study further in music to get further skills and the necessity which is going to make them better musicians for tomorrow's Afghanistan but of course I want to fight alongside with my students and my strong believer that that will be the students of Aneem will be the army of changes Zarifa was indicating to the lack of legal protection for musicians in Afghanistan of course that's not going to take place until we have got a very united vocal team of musicians who would be doing advocacy for themselves for the music scene of Afghanistan and for the future of musicians in that country that would be my dream and of course Afghanistan has got a lot of gap in its music scene Afghanistan is the only country to the best of my knowledge that does not have its national orchestra film industry is moving and progressing very fast in Afghanistan but we don't have composers we don't have orchestra to perform for the movies and many of our documentary makers or filmmakers wonderful pieces of their work is turned away because of the copyright issues because they're normally using music without any copyright and that's also we want to change we want to educate composers conductors arrangers musicians from number of orchestras for Afghanistan Afghan army needs musicians because the Afghan army today has only one band while in the past when I was a young man we had every barrack of Afghanistan was equipped with a musical band kindergarten preschool education all the needs musicians we can't expect revolution in Afghanistan overnight already there was a long progress in the way of music in Afghanistan the establishment of the Afghanistan nationalist of music it's an achievement the return of music to Afghanistan after years music was banned it's an achievement there's many many wonderful show promoting music and creating opportunities for young sister that's a changes Kabul University has a music education program I'm not talking about the quality but it is an achievement we will be moving on that direction we need to have the army of change we will strongly believe that it will be the graduate of the Afghanistan nationalist of music who gonna put their hands together to fill in all those musical gap that exist in Afghanistan but also to put together pressure on the legislations in Afghanistan to create the right condition the right legal protection for Afghan musician to benefit from their creative abilities and skills we will be working on a European tour from here so you'll be performing tomorrow night and then going through I believe Geneva and Zurich and Germany but you also mentioned to me that you have volunteers who have come from around the world to work with the school who have heard about the school you mentioned something like what 300 people we while we are teaching and creating wonderful opportunities for our students we are also strongly committed to cultural diplomacy and also inter people democracy and the direct talk between citizens of various countries with Afghanistan and therefore we achieving this goal not only through employing the expert faculty that's not only teaching our students but they are also playing various types of music to the other program what is Winter Music Academy which is a eight week international music festival which allows us to bring provide some financial support to the volunteers to come to Afghanistan who donates their expertise and knowledge to our students we have also another program summer residency that begins in March and continues until December during that time we have got the ability also to host musicians from many countries it's not just to teach but also to facilitate create condition for intercultural dialogue for better understanding between young musicians and also create a solidarity between musicians from many parts of the country with Afghan musicians and during this festival we also host in our school music lovers from other province of Afghanistan and we open the gates of the school to all of them to benefit from the expertise that exists in the school for infrastructure that we have in place from the curriculum that's also part of creating solidarity between Afghan musicians themselves young musicians so we've got many of them since from 2010 until now we're not only hosting but also our school is very much active in concert life outside Afghanistan within seven years our students already played in 25 countries so we are very much involved in those direction and we all set over 300 volunteers who've been teaching in our school and bringing new expertise, new knowledge and new abilities to Afghanistan and introducing various styles of music to our country I think we have a few minutes for questions we have any questions from the audience over here this question is for Zarifa I think you mentioned early on that you said there was no Hazara, no Pashtun in the school that there was no difference between the ethnic groups that you got along can you explain to me what it means to be a Hazara girl are there problems for you and how is it that I mean are the ethnic groups usually separate and how is it that you get along in the school thank you in Afghanistan a few years ago before Taliban there was fight among the ethnic groups in Afghanistan like Pashtun and Hazara are the two big ethnicity that has had a very big war among each other they had they didn't have the ability to accept each other as a human and they both were fighting among each other like and after the Taliban regime that broke up but from that time till now it had that has put his its very bad effect and still you can find a few people that they have like they don't like each other like niggina is Pashtun and Hazara in Afghanistan niggina hates me and I hate her that is like that in Afghanistan right now so I mean in Afghanistan National Institute of Music that we all are sitting together and playing niggina is Pashtun but she is my best friend and I have another friend who is Jolla she is Pashtun but she is my best and best friend like we are best friends and the music is the only reason that has put us together and the music is the only reason that showing us that before being Hazara we are Afghan before being Afghan we are Muslim and before being Muslim we are human being and we have to respect that humanity that we all are human so music is the place that told me really that we all should accept each other as a human not as Hazara or not as Pashtun so I just mean that any other questions? Any other questions? You know while we'll see if there's any other questions but in the meantime I'm hoping Dr. Sarmas that you can tell us you had mentioned earlier that you see the school as a beacon of hope and clearly these young women represent that and you've also talked about the arts this is directly to this point how the arts can help to understand can you tell us a little bit about that about the importance of the arts there? After many years of leaving outside Afghanistan one of the argument that I was putting forward to the Afghan authorities as well as to the international donor community it was the healing power of music because Afghanistan is a country which was in war for 40 years directly or indirectly every single family has been affected by the war. The young generation of Afghans are very much traumatized and while in Afghanistan the educated group of Afghan society are well aware of the healing power of music but for the majority of people I might even say that politicians they didn't know any idea but that one of the strongest argument I was putting it was the healing power of music how it can contribute to the healing process because every child teenage boys and girls every adult's Afghans are traumatized and music can play a significant role it's proven practice music therapy is a proven practice it can enormously contribute to the healing process of Afghan people and I still believe that Afghanistan needs music than anything else to recover from the traumas of the years of war but also music has been indicated here teach different ethnic groups that don't listen to your politicians don't listen just to your conductor and also to each other the way that you respect each other's differences in an orchestra supporting each other in the orchestra playing and creating beauty together in harmony you can live in the same way outside of the orchestra you can respect your differences like belonging to any different ethnic group of Afghanistan you can belong to any religious sect of Afghanistan but by the end you should be consider yourself as a nation live in peace and harmony the way you live and practice in orchestra and more importantly not only live in peace and harmony within your safe but live with international community that's how also music can contribute to solving the problems of Afghanistan we've been talking about gender issues in Afghanistan of course co-education that we're promoting in Afghanistan National Institute of Music teaches and tears these differences it teaches our students boys students and girls students to respect each other and consider each other as equals so music in many ways contribute to betterment of Afghan society all generation to any class of Afghan society we need it more than anything else music to recover from the traumas of war from the division that has been imposed on the Afghan people by politicians not by themselves but music can help them also to overcome this obstacle and of course music gonna teach them and open their minds and bring and give them the skills to listen to each other and not angrily react so there's in many ways that music can contribute to the betterment of Afghan society you mentioned that last point you made I think it's so important in an orchestra the most important thing that you do is listen to others and when you do talk to musicians and ask them about what does music bring to their lives that is virtually always they will tell you I listen to others more carefully more clearly I have a more open mind because that's a skill that is absolutely essential to playing music with others yes Hi, I'm Nicole Shanahan I'm a lawyer from California and I specialize in intellectual property law and I'm also a fellow at Stanford Law School and a lover of music and a true believer in the power of the arts and healing and enhancing security in the world so thank you for what you're doing and your bravery and your work and it's much admired my question for you is an IP related question so building an industry from scratch is very hard and even the music industry in America is changing very rapidly with online tools my question is two part one is what are your biggest challenges I'm trying to create copyright laws in Afghanistan and then second is what can Silicon Valley do to help understand my biggest challenge was convincing the politician about the importance of music education the second largest challenge was convincing the international donor community to not only invest in the Afghan army not only invest in the police but also invest in culture, education and art because there will not be sustainable peace if we're not opening the mind of the people if we're not educating the people as Zarifa was saying here yes in our school we don't have those differences that exist in Afghanistan outside of the boundaries of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music it's because it's art it's music that changes the mind of our students and therefore my biggest argument was to convince the politicians I might repeat myself normally I refer to in one of my meetings with an ambassador of a very respected country after 40 minutes lecturing him about the importance of investing in music by the end he said you convinced me but I convinced my authorities back in the capital of my country music is a luxury for Afghanistan so that was the biggest challenge for me but we have security challenges we are leaving keeping that bacon of peace alive and moving it forward when we might be surrounded by enemies as well and we are very very grateful at Afghanistan National Institute of Music to the families to the guardians standing with us in the toughest moment when there was a clear statement announcing that the music school will be again attacked and we're not going to stop until we can silence this center of corruption how they call us radicals in Afghanistan and extremists so when I each time I get I'm called a man who corrupts the nation I accepted always as a compliment so we are living in this environment so we have challenges but in terms of what you can help us definitely to continue our surviving we have some plans in order to make to move towards sustainability of music pedagogy in Afghanistan through the financial sustainability of the school scholarship is a top priority for our students to go abroad and to study and to come back to contribute to the betterment of our nation sending musicians would be wonderful creating opportunities for our musicians to play alongside other musicians in any country that would be a wonderful opportunity financial support would be very much welcome and we're still in a situation that we are not fully sustainable for some of our programs we need on the generosity of the international community of the donors and the friends of our school and recently we've been very very pleased to open our own 501C status in America which can help us a lot in terms of fundraising my team and I will be continuing to fight for the sustainability of the school any support would be welcome I saw one back here yes Fatma from Kuwait question where can we find information on how to support for example funding or sponsor or scholarships to support your students for the end of this conversation I would be sharing my information I would also like to contact the others to everyone who would be interested to stay in touch we've got our own website www.animiphoneorg music.org we also I would be more than happy to connect you to the friends of team in the United States of America who would be receiving donation on behalf of the charity organization that we recently established and delivered to Afghanistan Nagin, Zarifa for your remarkable work for sharing that with us thank you for coming here and thank you to the audience thank you